Fitness for Fat Nerds: What Not to Wear

Exercise can be rough enough without feeling uncomfortable while you're doing it. Particularly when you're getting started, there are enough distractions from the actual exercise without adding uncomfortable clothes into the mix.

So that's rule number one: Be comfortable.

You're not going to do your best if you're wearing tiny shorts that have dedicated themselves to giving you a wedgie, if you're dying from heat, if your pants are trying to fall down or trying to squeeze the life out of you. Don't wear jeans for running. Just don't. Ladies, get a real sports bra. You'll thank me.

Corollary to rule number one: Don't worry about how you look.

The secret is that no one looks good when they're exercising. Or if they do, I'd hazard a guess that they're not working as hard as they could be. You're going to get sweaty and gross. If you're like me and have the approximate complexion of a ghost, your face is going to glow so bright red you might as well be a tomato. And you know what? That's fine. You're not exercising because you're trying to impress your next hot date. (At least you sure shouldn't be.) You're exercising because it's a thing you do for fun and health, because it makes you feel damn good. You're doing this for yourself, not to show off for anyone else.

So stop worrying about how you look. Don't pick your clothes based on sexiness, since no one looks sexy after sweating for half an hour straight. (Also, if you're someone that wears makeup, I would really recommend you leave that off  when you're working out, since that just makes it harder to sweat.) Don't worry about pit stains or soaking your collar down. That's what effort looks like, baby.

Rule number two: There can be a definite difference between mental and physical comfort, and you need to pick which one is most important.

This is particularly true during the late spring and summer, when it's going to be hot. Of course, one way to beat the heat is to expose a lot more skin. That'll see to your physical comfort. However, if you're in the same fat nerd boat as me, you're not exactly mentally comfortable with having a lot of your body exposed to the ravages of the Day Star. So you're going to have to pick - would you rather be cool, or keep yourself better covered?

It's a personal choice. I tend to split the difference and wear sleeveless things during the summer, since that lets my arms radiate a lot of heat away. But even in the most ridiculous weather, I still wear long pants because I'm simply not comfortable exposing that much skin. And that's okay. I've decided that I'd rather be a little hotter than necessary so that I'm not fighting the constant distraction of my own mental discomfort about wearing shorts. You just have to find out the comfortable balance for you.

Rule number three: Dress for how you're going to feel for the bulk of your run/ride/etc.


This is something you're going to have to learn with experience, but how you feel about the temperature outside as you're starting is nothing like how you'll feel about it after about five to ten minutes of exercise. This normally ends up meaning that you don't need to dress nearly as warmly as you think you do, or be prepared to strip layers as you go. But this is something experience will teach you, since it's a little different for each person.

Rule number four: Cheap is good


You don't have to buy expensive clothes for working out. In fact, please don't. This is stuff you're going to sweat, snot, and possibly bleed on. Unless you really get into it (eg: you bike 30 miles a day and want a nice jersey and a pair of good bike shorts) there's no reason to get fancier than an old t-shirt most of the time. You may need to invest a little bit of money to begin with so you have something to run in other than jeans (trust me, it's worth shelling out $10 for a pair of el cheapo athletic pants in that case) but don't go overboard. A lot of the time, the fancy stuff is completely unnecessary, or at the most you may want it if you're doing your exercise for hours a day, every day. It's just not worth the investment if you're exercising casually.

With those rules in mind, I thought I'd show you a couple examples of what I normally wear for exercising, in case that's helpful.

Winter

Of this entire outfit, the only piece I bought specifically for running is the zip-up sweatshirt, which I got from a thrift store for $4. I recommend zip-ups for running because you can take them off on the go very easily and then just tie them around your waist. Other than that, it's an old t-shirt, kung fu pants, and a hat. I don't normally wear gloves even in the winter unless it's really windy, because my hands act as my main radiators. Even if I start out cold, about five minutes in I'd be stripping my gloves off so I can get rid of some heat. At that point it's just easier to tuck my hands in my sleeves for the first five minutes.

Summer

Sleeveless shirt that I got on sale for $10. Running pants that I also got on sale for $10. Looks good to me. I also wear the kung fu pants a lot during the summer, but these are nice. You can't see in the picture, but they're basically two layers of light fabric with lots of tiny holes in them for air flow. It works surprisingly well. But I acquired both of these fine items at a fancy store you might be familiar with - Target.

I've found Target and Wal-mart a lot more useful for having athletic clothing plus-size women can wear than normal sports equipment stores, actually.

Socks

This is one of the few places where I break my own rule about not buying clothes specifically for exercise, or buying the cheapest possible clothes. I love my running socks in ways that are probably illegal in several states. If I try to wear normal socks with my running shoes, I end up in sock-bunching-up Hell, which is not conducive to getting into the zone. I also tend to get socks with a little extra arch support, since that's something I personally require. Your mileage may vary.

Bandana

Except for the middle of winter, I always, always wear a bandana. This is because I sweat ridiculous amounts, and it also functions to keep my hair out of my face. They're cheap and I can't recommend them enough.

The Mysterious Brotherhood of Shoulder Surgery Patients

I'm starting to think there's something wrong with me. Mentally, I mean, since what's physically wrong with me is as plain as the sling in which my right arm's been trapped. But I've always gotten the impression that days on the couch with the cheerful company of the TV and absolutely no responsibility is supposed to be some kind of vacation paradise.

I'm losing my mind here. The high point of my day was going to Kohl's and buying two pairs of pants. Considering my normal feelings about clothes shopping (somewhere between a shark attack and being trapped in a room with a drunk frat boy who thinks his Adam Sandler impression is amazing) that in itself is alarming. And pants? Really? It's almost like my subconscious  took its chance to shred my previous pair of Ugly Comfy Pants knowing that I wouldn't be able to survive another day wandering aimlessly around my house, and my inability to wear pants without an elastic waistband was just the perfect excuse.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping with my mother, because i got me out of the house. Staring drunkenly at the selection of malt-o-meal cereals sounded better than watching another episode of Grimm because even if I like the show, too much of a good thing does exist.

I really wish I could concentrate long enough to read some papers. Or write without pausing every few minutes for a micro-nap, which I'm sure is making this list of complaints more disjointed than it needs to be.

Things are looking up. I've arranged to have my stitches taken out on 4/30. But I found out I'm not allowed to ride my bike for at least 6 weeks. I know that's actually very quick as recoveries go, but considering I was averaging 100 miles per week before surgery, it feels grim indeed. I hope next week I'll be able to start running. It just depends on when I cut out the percocet entirely, since I can barely stay awake, let alone do complicated tasks like walking or peeling my own hard boiled eggs.

I think I would make a terrible drug addict. All percocet has done so far is make me vomit and render me incapable of focusing on anything even as inane as a blog post. I can't wait to be rid of the stuff.

Everywhere I go, I seem to be part of a Mysterious Brotherhood of Shoulder Patients. Complete strangers walk up to me and ask about my operation, share their own horror stories about physical therapy and recovery. So far I have learned that shoulder surgery sucks, intensely, in ways that the doctors carefully don't warn you about in advance, not that you have a choice by the time surgery has become a necessity.

I've also learned that I'm almost unspeakably lucky. 2-3 months of recovery is unheard of; everyone that's spoken to me so far was in the 9-12 range. I'm lucky that it was bone rubbing bone, not torn tendons. Bone heals fast.

So as much as I want to whine about the couch and tv and ohgodjustletmetakeawalk, I know I'm lucky. I'm young and healthy and can easily count down the weeks until I can get back to my insane level of activity.

That doesn't make it any less bizarre, though, when I'm begging a friend to take me to Costco so I can stare at the enormous buckets of frozen peel-n-eat shrimp. I'm beginning to understand how sailors of the past could spend years carving intricate designs into what is effectively trash, only at least those lucky bastards had two functioning hands. The best I can do is price tubs of mayonnaise and reflect on the hope that maybe tomorrow I can cut my dose down to something that'll allow me to compose coherent sentences while I scrub my hair one-handed in the shower.

My Arm Is an Alien

There is an alien clamped on to my right shoulder, bonelessly flowing down to my fingertips. It's heavy like lead and limp. I poke and prod and feel nothing but gelatinous flesh over toneless muscle, skin strangely warm. Poke and prod and there's no sensation, just the vague, uncomfortable notion that it should feel like something but it belongs to someone else. When I stand, my arm swings in its sling like a dead weight dangling from a crane. It bounces off the edge of a sink, a dull thud the only indication anything has happened.

I stare at my half curled fingers and tell them to move. Sometimes there's a vague twitch, sometimes nothing, and every now and then a movement, a real movement masked with the feeling of pins and needles.

This is what a nerve block feels like.

#

My skin is sketched with purple marker lines and stained with betadine. I thought it was dried blood, collected on the back of my shoulder and in my armpit, but when Mike wiped it away the paper towel turned the color of orange crush.

#

I have pictures of the inside of my shoulder now. They are an alien landscape, clean and very pale. We have a strange notion that the inside of our bodies should be slick and red, too much TV I suppose. When we haven't been cut or perforated, our blood stays neatly hidden away.

My bicep tendon is pristine, smooth and the color of a hard boiled egg in the pictures. This is a relief; the doctor had been worried, thought he might have to trim it or cut it entirely, though counter to intuition he told me such an eventuality would not interfere with the functioning of my arm.

The pictures of my AC joint are the only thing not pristine. The surface looks like road rash has snuck inside my body, red and ragged. I look at the picture and think, this is what pain looks like. Since November there has been grinding, popping, crunching, like my joint is a breakfast cereal instead of bone with an important function.

When the anesthesiologist, a  cheerful man named Kevin who joked about getting me stoned for 4/20, poked my shoulder, he felt the crackle of that damage. Caught between revulsion and fascination, he poked it again. He'd already put drugs in my IV. I didn't care.

#

I was drunk and giggling when they wheeled me into the OR. They had to strap my arm down as I flopped it around with giggling abandon, still not fully in the grips of the nerve block.

I woke up in panic after the surgery. I cried and hyperventilated, shaking and shivering uncontrollably.  They asked me what was wrong and I couldn't articulate anything beyond more gasps. I didn't know what was wrong, only that my chest was tight with panic.

The anesthesiologist, not nearly as cheerful, ordered demerol and versed. I went back to sleep in the large, open recovery room.

#

I'm typing this, one pecked letter at a time with my left hand, sitting on my couch, Mac airbook across my lap.

Even slow and frustrating, I can't manage to not write.

#

The second time I woke up, it was like coming out of a pleasant nap. I wanted to sleep more but was too warm. I kicked off the blankets, making a tangled mess like a toddler. The nurse gave me a cup of water. When I drank it down and asked for more, she gave me a choice for more. Apple juice, apple sauce, graham crackers, to continue the theme.

After they let me out, I had tacos at Jack-n-Grill. You can eat those one handed.

#

I don't get to take a shower for three days, when I'm allowed to change my dressing. I wonder if I will be desperate enough to ask Mike to wash my hair in the sink.

For now my head is surprisingly clear. The painkillers are supposed to wait until the nerve block wears off. Until then, they would be wasted. I'm to start taking them as the numbness begins to fade, so I won't just be hit with pain like a truck.

I don't want to be in pain. But I'm almost looking forward to it because my arm will belong to me again.

Fitness for Fat Nerds Will Return

I apologize for not having any posts for the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I'm going to be out of commission for at least another week. I'm having shoulder surgery tomorrow. (Bone is getting removed from the end of my clavicle so hopefully that will fix the extremely painful shoulder problems I've been having since November.) And in anticipation of that surgery making it impossible for me to do much desk work for at least a week, I had to rush to finish describing my first core and get the strat column for it drawn up and sent to my advisor. Which I managed to finish (thank goodness!) but only just.

So, I will see you (relatively speaking) in a week or two once my right arm is no longer restricted to a sling. Take care and maybe run a few miles for me, since I don't expect to get a lot of exercise done while I'm sitting on the couch in a fog of prescription painkillers.

You know you're from Colorado if...

My mother forwarded this e-mail to me, and I've kept all of the ones that I think are true.

• You eat ice cream in the winter. (Who doesn't?)
  
• It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be cancelled.
  
• You'll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature.
  
• You have no accent at all, but can hear other people's. And then you make fun of them.
  
• "Humid" is over 25%. (And the horrible things it does to my hair...)
  
• Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and away from the mountains. (My husband still doesn't get this, even after living here for seven years.)
  
• You say "the valley highway" and everybody knows which interstate you're talking about,
  
• You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard. (Any month is a normal month for a blizzard.)
  
• You buy your flowers to set out on Mother's day, but try and hold off planting them until just before Father's day.
  
• You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat. (Puffiest unicorn EVER.)
  
• You know what the Continental Divide is. (Both a location and an excellent beer.)
  
• You don't think Coors beer is that big a deal. (...does anyone?)
  
• You went to Casa Bonita as a kid, AND as an adult.
  
• You've gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities.
  
• You always know the elevation of where you are.
  
• You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it's going to snow later.
  
• You don't care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High Stadium.
  
• You actually know that South Park is a real place, not just a hilarious show on TV.
  
• You know what a 'trust fund hippy' is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder.
  
• It's still "Elitches," not "Six Flags."
  
• A bear on your front porch doesn't bother you.
  
• When people back East tell you they have mountains in their state too, you just laugh.
  
• You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels "sticky" and you notice the sky is no longer blue.
  

And here's a few of my own:

• You know the Colorado Creep as a driving maneuver, not just what your underwear does when you've been hiking too long.
  
• You instinctively know how to dress in layers for every occasion.
  
• You've ever considered wearing your hiking boots to a job interview, because they're the nicest shoes you own.
  
• You know that all the bad drivers come from California and Texas. Yeah. That's the problem.
  
• Your bicycle is probably worth more than your car.
  
• You go to other states and are shocked by how few marijuana dispensaries there are.
  
• You think the Platte is a big river.
  
• You've seen the world from 14,000 feet but you've never seen the ocean. (True for me well into my twenties.)
  
• You've made it to the top of the Flatirons, and I don't mean the mall.
  
• You have to keep a checklist of which breweries you still need to try out.
  

Anything to add, my Colorado friends?

Fitness for Fat Nerds: Running Quick Start Guide (1)

I've done a lot of talking about getting ready to start running, but you know, at some point you have to transition from the state of thinking about something to actually doing it. Procrastinators know this moment well. It can also seem a little daunting, because if your time in high school was anything like mine, running has all sorts of horrific associations with it.

But at some point, you've just got to do it.

However, I can tell you confidently that after years of avoiding that whole fitness thing, you're not going to be able to just tie your shoes on one day and burst out of your front door to knock off a couple quick miles before breakfast. And if you can, let the record state that I hate you for it.

It's rough to get started on something you've dedicated years of your life to avoiding. But it's worth giving it a shot, because you might decide (like I did) that you love the shit out of running. Throwing yourself into a wall repeatedly isn't going to help you discover that love, though. You have to start out slow and work your way up as you build your body, and that's okay.

So how do you get started? Here's the tricks that worked for me.

You have to walk before you can run
You're not going to be able to run a distance that you can't even walk, or run for a length of time for which you can't sustain a good walking pace. So that's the place to start. Walk. Walk a lot. Walk everywhere. And don't just meander - walk like you have a purpose. Walk quickly enough that it does make you breathe a little bit harder, and keep pushing yourself over the weeks until you can walk fast enough that the next logical step really does seem like running.

I know that walking is not exactly the most electrifying exercise in the world. But if you don't partake in regular physical activity (even as much as walking to the bus stop every day) it's probably the best place to start, a ramp-up to more difficult exercise. It's also nicer to the environment than driving everywhere. Get an MP3 player and get yourself some podcasts; I time a lot of things where I don't need music for pacing (like bike rides) with podcasts, and it also makes the activity more interesting.

Once you're good with walking, it's time to kick it up to the next level.

Warm Up
Just as a note, before you even try out these tricks, you need to warm up first. Stretch, walk a bit (I normally do a quarter mile or a little less) and then do a quick stretch again if any of your muscles are feeling tight. You really don't want to just bomb out of your front door and hit the ground running. Trust me. Also, cool down at the end, just do the same thing in reverse. Your muscles will send you a nice fruit basket once they get over hating you for exercising at all.

Intervals
This is a piece of advice I got from a friend of mine who was in the Army. (Actually, oddly enough, all the good running advice I've ever gotten has been from Army people.) I'm personally not a fan of intervals because I prefer to run on trails, but I know they work really, really well for some people.

It's simple. You start out on a sidewalk where there are light poles, telephone poles, whatever you can find at regular, fairly closely spaced intervals for a good stretch. Say you're on a stretch of sidewalk with ten light poles. Run from pole 1 to 2, then slow to a walk from 2 to 3, then run again from 3 to 4. You get the pattern. Once you can do that without dying, start making the running intervals longer. Run from 1 to 3, then walk from 3 to 4, then run from 4 to 6. You get the idea. After a while, you'll be able to get rid of the walking intervals entirely.

Shuffle
This is actually the method that I used to learn to run, taught to me by the Army recruiters. They called it the Airborne Shuffle. Since it's difficult to try to describe wholly as text, have a terrible video that I have prepared as an illustration:

The basic idea is that you run, and you push yourself to keep running until you feel like you can't keep going any more, at which point you drop down to what is effectively running in place. You'll be barely inching forward, but you should still be shuffling your feet at close to the pace you were using to run. Shuffle until you've caught your breath, then start running again.

What I particularly like about the shuffle is that it prevents your muscles from cramping, which is something walking has never done for me. Particularly when you're starting out, your muscles are going to be angry with you, and they will cramp out of sheer bloody-minded vengeance if you just give them half a chance. Shuffling keeps your muscles moving but lets you catch your breath.

And trust me, when you're first starting out, you want every scrap of breath you can get your lungs on.

Breathe
When you're starting out, I think your body tends to go into full-scale holy shit what are you doing to me red alert. You'll get muscle cramps (hint: don't stop moving unless it's a 10 second pause to stretch it out) and you'll want to start panting for breath.

Don't do it. It's a trap. You've probably noticed that if you start panting, that can lead pretty easily to wheezing, and then you're crouched on the side of the trail with your head between your knees and a helpful old lady asking if you need an ambulance while her pekapoo sniffs at your shoes in the meditative way dogs have of showing they're thinking it's a good time for urine.

You want to avoid this.

The best way to do this is count paces while you breathe. For example, breathe in for three, breathe out for three. If you hit a point where you feel like you need to breathe faster than that, slow down and catch your breath. You can mirror this effect by trying to talk while you run, but this tends to creep people out if you're clearly by yourself.

Another Army guy trick I learned is that you should breathe in through your mouth, but out through your nose. This makes your exhalation slower and keeps your from sucking wind too hard, so to speak. (Though if you do this, I recommend you carry some kleenex along.) Again, if you're doing this and you hit a point where you feel like you're not getting enough air, slow down.

Cheat codes
There are no cheat codes.

Don't get frustrated
You're going to be slow when you start. You're going to have to stop and walk or shuffle so that you can catch your breath. It's okay. It will get better, I promise. The first few weeks are the toughest, but you will see improvement, and you will start feeling good. Don't get frustrated. It's a work in progress, it's a challenge, but you can do it.

Promise.

Hi, I'm Rachael. I'm a fat nerd. I also run, bike, and have done kung fu for eight years. I'm not writing this because I want to be some kind of fitness guru. Hell no, that would be ridiculous. I'm writing this because I've got a lot of friends that struggle with the [metaphorical] Fitness Demon and I'm hoping my experience might make things a little easier for them. I'm also writing this because it's a lot of stuff I wish someone had told me, back when I was making attempt after unsuccessful attempt to get into this exercise thing. If it helps you out, great.