Learning to Love Exercise and My Body

This picture is me in my running (outside in the winter) outfit. I've started exercising a lot. And discovered something that truly surprised me- I LOVE it! Even running!

It really helps me de-stress for one, and it's just kind of fun. And it does feel good to do something or even just believe it to be possible to do something that I could have never previously imagined. Right now one of my goals is to be able to run a 5k this summer. Which is still a long way from where I'm at now. I'm on week 2 of the couch to 5K program (week 1 took me several weeks before I felt ready to progress to week 2, so it's more than my second week at this).

I've also for a lot longer been working on the New Rules of Lifting for women program, a book I seriously do intend to review on here still! I've been meaning to sense I finished it. But I'm definitely loving strength training and feeling strong. It's an accomplishment to look at my records of what I have lifted I've more than doubled the weight I use for squats, rows, step ups, deadlifts, and lunges already.

And as awesome as all that feels, it's kind of sad to, because I feel like I'm late to the game, ya know? Being the fat girl in gym growing up I learned to hate gym, and with it exercise. And I've exercised a lot in my life before now, but always sporadically and always to lose weight. I never learned to love it because I never exercised to exercise, I exercised because I was fat and I had to exercise. And all this time, that has kept me from realizing how fun it is to just exercise.

And when it comes to strength training, well I was a typical girl when it came to that. I believed the rhetoric of "use light weights and do a ton of reps in order to tone and have long lean muscles like dancer, instead of big bulky muscles like men". I have a wide and large bone structure, and I seem to build muscle quicker and more noticeably than others... and this all ties into gender roles and expectations. I stayed away from lifting heavy enough weights because I didn't want to be like a man. I've always had a lot of characteristics people associate with boys/men. I've also had a lot of stereotypical characteristics of girls/women, which of course I hated as well, but that's a different topic. And building strong muscles would just be another step toward me being a man. And I don't have any desire to be a man, never have. Though I've often had people angrily ask me why I'm trying to be a man. So, I tried to stay away from things that would put me in that category.

So it's take a lot to get to where I'm at now. Before I could even start this I had to come to peace with myself. I've had to come to accept all sides of me, the stereotypically masculine and the stereotypically feminine. And I had to come to love the idea of being strong, and having muscles, and lose the fear of that making me more manly. I had to start to love the body I was born with.

But it's worked the other way too. As surprising as it was to discover I like to work out, it was even more surprising to notice that I started to appreciate and like my body, as it is, more. I love my muscles, I love the feel of my curves, running and other high impact exercise is the only time in my life that I appreciate not having big boobs, and just overall I feel more comfortable in my body and more at peace with it.


And a completely unrelated update on my life, I was accepted to Wayne State's accelerated MSW program! So if all goes right I will be back in Detroit in the summer and started grad school. Now I just have to figure out how to pay for it and how to afford the car I'm going to need. So with that, let me add, feel free to use that little donate button of the side to contribute to my grad school fund! :-P

Jaded

I just called someone out on the internet for wishing anal rape on someone.

And then they apologized.

Now I don't know if they really understood why that was offensive, but once in a blue moon that happens and I'm just shocked. And I feel a little bad. Because I go into every internet argument sort of expecting that no matter what I say, the other person is going to keep being a dick and horrible waste of a human being.

I really need to spend less time online I think. I mean, really you see some really horrible sides of humanity on the internet. Every news story has anonymous comments saying every horrible thing, anything they can think of to try to shock people. It's all about shock value, and the anonymity of the internet makes it thousands times worse. People don't want to talk, people don't want to hear opinions, people want to argue and piss each other off.

This is true off the internet too. And I've seen far to much of that as well.

And I'm realizing, it's all made me way to jaded. I forget that some people are just not well informed. Some people can be talked to and sometimes it is possible to talk and understand where two people are coming from.

I need to figure out how to surround myself by that more, and get away from the cruelness, the shock value, and the yelling.

Shipping

Ok, so when x-files was on back in the day, I was a total shipper! And from what I've read online, many things suggest that the term shipping/shippers started with x-files. Maybe, maybe not. Now going back and watching x-files, I can't understand what the heck Scully would see in Mulder, the dude was kind of an arrogant jerk who, especially in the beginning, treated her like crap. He kind of treated her like she was stupid and just tagging along with him all the time.

Anyways, reading about x-files I remember reading that early on the people making the show did not intend there to be a romantic relationship between Mulder and Scully, or hints of one. In fact, reading about it I got the impression that the massive amount of shipping fans kind of influenced it in that direction.

Although I was a huge shipper in the day, and still sort of am, I sometimes wish x-files had never created that kind of relationship, or even hinted at it, between Mulder and Scully.

Older now, and with more shows that seem to follow x-files lead in that way, I find it a bit annoying that it seems you cannot have a male-female team anymore on tv without the sexual/romantic undertones.
I'm thinking mostly of Bones right now because I watched that recently, but there are a lot of examples.

In fact for all the negative things I can and have said about Law & Order: SVU, I do kind of love that Benson and Stabler have always sort of been the primary characters, the main partners the show focuses on, and yet, there has really never been anything romantic or sexual that I am aware of between them outside the minds of some fans.

Even aside from the basic partner relationship, it seems it's become sort of a given that a female character on a show will become connected with one of the men, though male characters do not need to be connected with some real or hinted at, slightly imagined, relationship. Examples I'm thinking of:
Angel, Cordelia and Angel, or even before that Cordelia and Doyle. Also Fred and Gun or Wes.
Typical set up, mostly male cast, and the one or two main female characters are always in some type of relationship, real, hinted at, slightly imagined, between them and others. While in this case, most of the male characters ended up involved at one time or another as well, look at Lorne. Lorne was never really involved with another main character like that, which would be really unusual for a female character in the main group.
Looking at Stargate SG1 Carter and O'neill, Vala and Daniel.
Stargate Atlantis actually breaks the mold at least slightly. There were strong hints toward a relationship between Teyla and Sheppard, and I think some possible hints of one between Teyla and Ronon though not as blatant for sure as those with Sheppard, but in the end, she falls in love with and starts a family with another man who we only know on the show through his relationship with her, kind of shattering the hopes of a Teyla/Sheppard relationship.

And the funny thing is, and I say this as someone who typically does go for shipping. I love the Carter, O'neill thing and want them to actually get together for realz in one of the movies! And still, someone online making fun of it points out, could you really see after all these years a serious relationship there once the whole awkward sexual tension is gone? Maybe, maybe not. But I think it's actually a kind of good point. We get very little real relationship development with these, though I think Vala Daniel did a better job with that. But generally, it's all about the tension, the innuendos, but if the relationship every actually happens, it's never as good as the leading to it.

Mainly my point is how these female characters always get stuck in roles where they often still, despite in many ways being independent strong characters themselves, still attached to and defined in relationship to the men around them in a way that many male characters are, but many male characters also aren't. And more than that, the poor characters often get stuck waiting for these unattainable, unrealistic relationships that won't happen, and sort of can't happen because let's face it, once the relationship happens, then what is left? They want to keep dragging the shipper fans along with a look here, and touch there, a little innuendo, and alternate universe, all to keep you hoping and looking for that relationship, but if you get it, it's over.
And I ship but I also get mad at the setup because I think it denies us female characters who are as strong and independent as they could otherwise be.

Amazon Complicit In Nebraska Book Company Scam

Short version, I got scammed and now I want to make sure as many people are aware of this problem as possible.

There is a company who buys, primarily from college students, on Amazon.com called the Nebraska Book Company... among other names. The name "Tyson Motsinger" is often used on Amazon (as the seller's name, they use made up names for shipping). They often have books sent to Athens OH, with an STE [some number] in the address.

This company takes advantage of the system so that they don't have to pay for the books they receive. They either claim an item was not received, particularly if it is sent media mail, because media mail does not provide any guarantee that something will be delivered (if the post office determines and item undeliverable it is destroyed, not returned to the seller), so sellers cannot prove with this method that an item was delivered.
Or they will claim a book is not in the correct condition or not the correct text and refuse to return the item to the seller and demand a full refund.
Or they cancel the order after 3 days and demand a refund, knowing most sellers ship before that 3 days is up.
In all cases, they get a book for free to resell to other college students. Much larger profit!

What is worse than this though, is Amazon is complicit in this. Amazon has been aware of this problem for a long time. This company continues to create new accounts in order to avoid reaching the limit amazon has set for a-z claims. Amazon knows all of this. Amazon doesn't care and continues to side with the company over those being scammed over and over and over.

And why not? Why would amazon want to stop this company from doing this? Amazon is making money off it! They buy tons of books from people on the site, Amazon gets a commission, and when it's time to refund the money? The seller is charged the FULL price back. Not just what the seller received from the order, the full order. Amazon charges the seller to refund the commission they take from the order back to the buyer. So Amazon never has to refund their own money. They still get every cent of the commission on those commissions. All the big companies win, and the people using the site get screwed.

In my case I shipped a book media mail. Amazon has a set standard shipping fee of less the $4. It cost about that much for me to ship my item media mail. I had the right book, I had the right address, and through the whole process I had a receipt stating I shipped the item to Athens Oh. I have used amazon before shipping to people, never had a problem. I didn't expect to be scammed. And I though, hey, Amazon is this big, reliable website, they would protect people using their site from being scammed! I never thought to worry about it. I was stupid.
I also made every attempt to contact this company regarding the issue, and the company made itself unreachable. It gives an email they state no one at the company reads. They give a 1-800 number that I was unable to reach a real person through. They told amazon "we didn't get it" I provided amazon with all the information I had, including that I had a receipt verifying that the item was shipped to the correct place. 3000 words. But "item was not delivered" won out again.

For more information:
Tons of information on this scam is available on Amazon's website
divide by zero blog also has information, mostly in the comments section
And if you want me to tie this in with my usual topics, they are scamming money from helping rape survivors, way to go amazon!
and just a little more here
oh, and a rip-off report

EDIT: Apparently there is a site set up now for a class action lawsuit. I don't think I will be joining it because my case was a little different, and I've sense thrown away all my proof. But for anyone else this is a site claiming to be putting together a class action lawsuit against the nebraska book company
I hope they do it and win!

Breast Cancer Meme Hurts Survivors

I've been annoyed like others here and there about the new sexualized breast cancer awareness ads and memes. There are so many awful ones it's hard to name them all. Save the Tatas, Save Second Base, the really horrendous if men had boobs, et cetera. Most recently is the bra color meme on facebook. All of these ads seek to make breast cancer awareness titillating, sexy and fun, and tell us very little about breast cancer, our risks and the real steps we need to take to catch it early, or the real steps we can take to help find a cure.
And they make it all about saving boobs. But breast cancer awareness is not about saving boobs. It's about saving lives. And sometimes saving your life, means sacrificing your boobs. And when that happens, suddenly you no longer belong in breast cancer awareness.

Please read this blog post by a survivor of breast cancer

The Extremely Obese

I just read a news article about super-low calorie diets supervised by doctors- you know, those "starvation is a good thing if you are fat!" diets, the "it's not an eating disorder until we see your bones!" diets. The 800 or fewer calories a day diets.

These diets are supposed to be safe, because remember, they are supervised by doctors and they are only for the EXTREMELY obese! This is not for your everyday fat person, only the EXTREMELY obese can safely starve themselves.

Well, anyways, interesting fact I learned in that article- I am actually one those EXTREMELY obese people.


So, sure, I wear a size 14-16 (that's a junior's XL dress in that photo) putting me at the small end of plus sizing, but that doesn't mean I can't be EXTREMELY obese.

(btw, I have an uncle, whose height-weight ratio I don't know, but he's tall and I'm sure well under 400lbs, I'm guessing under 300lbs as well, probably 200-something at his heaviest- and very tall, if I forgot to mention that. Well he was on one of these 800 calorie a day, no real food- all protein shakes, puddings et cetera that you buy specifically for this diet, doctor supervised diets. Which was doctor approved to jump start is metabolism and then when he was done he was supposed to be able to eat real food again with this new jump started metabolism. Of course after eating real food he gained much of the weight back and now is back on the extremely obese diet.)

EDIT: OK, so this was a quick post in the middle of studying for finals, and I think there are a few things that I should explicitly point out.
I do not think these very low calorie diets are safe for anyone, of any size. If EXTREMELY obese still did mean 700+lbs, 400+lbs, 300+lbs I still would think they are horrible, doctor approved eating disorders, that are not safe at all.
What struck me about the fact that I, at under 200lbs, at the low end of plus sizing, could be considered EXTREMELY obese, is how much our definitions of these things keep sliding further and further down.

I've posted before about the sort of disconnect I feel, particularly after becoming familiar with fat acceptance, but also since gaining weight, of having spent most of my life believing I was fat. I use high school as an example because it's hard to compare childhood weight, size or BMI to present. In high school I weighed between 135-145 lbs, at 5ft, and wore a size 9-15 in juniors. My view of myself as undeniably fat was not just in my head, was not just from reading to many fashion magazines with size 0 models, it came from being told I was fat all the time. Many other people clearly identified me as fat. So even now, looking back I have a view of that past me as in one way, not fat, and in another, fat.

And it's so easy to see the huge gap between what is considered fat in a fat acceptance community and what is fat in a dieting community. In a dieting community a bmi of 30+ is DEATH FAT. You are in the "must lose weight to live" category in those communities. For me, this means I need to be under 154lbs to be out of this "YOUR FAT IS KILLING YOU" category.

In a fat acceptance community, even though death fat in those communities is a sarcastic, not serious, label, I still wouldn't be considered there. I'm on the small side there, and there are those in those communities who argue that I do not qualify as fat at all.

I think this also says a lot too though about the effect of weight loss being a business. It's about profits. These very low calorie diets that require you to only eat the specially bought for the diet foods are making money off selling those foods to dieters. And looking at it as a business, why would you stick with only 700+lb people, when you could include all 400+lb people, but why stop there if you could include all 200+lb people, and why stop there when you could get people under that to buy your foods as well? The idea that these have anything to do with health is bullshit. These diets are about making money. So the general public is simultaneously assured that this only applies to the really, really, really fat people. And most people aren't 400+lbs, so it's easy to make them believe that those people who are, are fundamentally different in how their bodies function and what is reasonable for weight loss for them, and since we are told everyday that these people are a ticking time bomb of death because of their weight anyways, it makes sense to take extreme measures to lose that weight as soon as possible, we are meant to believe. But at the same time, because most people aren't 400+lbs, in reality these are marketed to people with, from what I've read BMIs of 36+ (where my BMI is) because they need your every day fat person to be eligible or they wouldn't make as much money. And because this is profit based, I fully expect who gets to qualify will continue to include lower and lower BMIs. Because you can never be too thin for capitalism!

Look for example at the biggest loser. The contestants on that show are generally all fatter than me, and from what I've read, they seem to weigh more and more each session. But the biggest loser isn't making money off their contestants. They are making money off the people sitting at home they market their products to. And from what I've read, most people watching the biggest loser, being motivated by it, and buying all their products to lose weight, are motivated by the fact that the contestants do weigh so much more than they do. The mentality of people at home, and I'm sure this is something the biggest loser is specifically meaning to encourage, is "if this person who weighs 476 lbs can lose that over 100 lbs in a few weeks, then I can lose just ___lbs to be at my ideal weight!"

Food Assistance

Ok, I have two separate back stories related to this topic, so stick with me please :)

Background:
Ok, so my grandfather my whole life has always made applesauce every fall and canned it, enough for the whole family for a year, and so on.
Well, this year because of health issues he didn't.
So I decided to learn how to make applesauce and also learn how to can it.
And I love it. For awhile I've been getting into cooking, and learning to make things from scratch. And now I'm expanding on that learning about canning and hopefully I will continue to learn more about it. Something about making things yourself is really enjoyable- same reason I like crafting.

So I've had this on my brain for awhile.

Unrelated to that, another recent topic in my life is that I was just approved for food assistance. (After only a couple months, dealing with a rude caseworker, and lots of ridiculousness that makes no sense which I have learned long before this experience based on the experiences of others is fairly normal for DHS).

So I've been googling a few things about food assistance, including why a stouffers vegetable lasagna was not eligible for it (I had to use my credit card for that). T
Didn't get an answer. The most relevant result was comment to some article about food assistance by someone saying how she would go grocery shopping with a neighbor and she would buy ingredients for lasagna while her neighbor would buy stouffers lasagnas and how she would spend half as much as her neighbor and how if you just put in the time (she said it took her half a day to cook that much lasagna and then would freeze it, clearly it did not dawn on her that some people don't have half a day to spend cooking) it's soo then the amount one gets on food assistance is more than enough money.

I also came across a funny post, which I'm pretty sure was meant to be sarcastic (I really hope) about the outrageousness of people being able to use food assistance to buy canned beans! (After all, dry beans are so much cheaper, they are wasting government money!)

Which I think makes a good point- really, how far do you take it? I know there is a lot of argument over whether or not food assistance should be able to be used at fast food places. And also arguments that it's ridiculous that food assistance can be used to buy pop and potato chips "which provide no nutritional value".
So, how far would you take such arguments? Should someone on food assistance be able to buy canned beans when you could just cook up some dry beans for cheaper? Should one be able to buy a loaf of bread when one could cook their own bread instead?

If we think that we should force "healthy habits" on food assistance recipients, what should be the cut off? Potato chips? Frozen pizza? Hot dogs? What about pickles? They don't provide much of anything except loads of sodium, which we all know causes high blood pressure!

I really hate the idea of forcing healthy habits on people. The truth is, poorer people do tend to eat less healthy because of aspects of poverty including costs of healthy foods (as well as not having lots of time to cook when you are working three part time jobs, or not having a working kitchen, et cetera.) And it would be awesome if people could help make healthier options available to people in this situations. But no. It's so much easier just to say "don't let them buy potato chips" or something.

The thing that really annoys me about it is people look at this problem- poor people don't tend to eat as healthily as higher income folks. And they see a problem with poor people of course. So, fix the problem by forcing poor people to, in their minds, act more like higher income folks (by making the "right" choices when shopping and not being so "lazy" by not cooking from scratch).

But that isn't the cause of the problem. The problem is the aspects of poverty that don't allow for the same choices. And trying to force poor people to eat healthier by restricting what they can buy with a bridge card, won't change that. It won't change the underlying problems people face that limit their choices.

Biggest Loser

I know, I know, why would I even bother? But Season 8 episode 8 of the biggest loser contestants go to the white house and learn healthy cooking from white house chefs.

Typical comments are made "no wonder the president is so thin..." and so on.

So they go make a salad from the white house garden. The salad is described as enough to feed an army (though it did not look like they got even close to filling that monstrously large salad bowl that made me wish I was president), and the estimated cost (all ingredients supposedly having been grown in the garden- though I wonder if the bothered to include dressing with that, and I'm pretty sure I saw dressing poured in there...) at $12 for all of it.

So Bob explains to use how this is proof that anyone can afford to eat healthy.

Yeah, if you have the means to grow your own food- has he never heard of apartment building?
And assuming you don't ever have a winter.
Then sure, grow a garden and eat salad everyday for every meal for super cheap.

Story Time!

I friend linked to this story about how growing up in a stress-full environment can lead to depression later in life, and it got me thinking about my environment growing up. I tend to kind of forget about some of the crazier aspects of my childhood sometimes. So, story time!

When I was about 7 I think, my mom was leaving my father again. We (me, my siblings, my mom, and my grandparents) went to get stuff from the house. My dad got mad so he pushed my grandmother off the porch, pulled us kids inside and locked the door. My mom and grandmother were outside trying to get him to open the door and let us out. Inside, with a gun, he threatened to kill my mom and grandmother.

Ok, so it's not a very detailed story. To be honest, I have a very patchy memory of this event. It's one thing my sister remembers more clearly than I do. I seem to have blocked out most of that event.

Apparently in school after this I mentioned it in class/to the teacher. I also don't remember this. I only know this because my mom still talks about when the teacher called her in to talk to her about me making stories in school, and my mom had to tell the teacher, no, that actually did happen.

My mom just laughs about it, but it kind of pisses me off. Why would you immediately jump to the assumption that a seven year old telling a story like that was making it up? Just one more thing to file into "fucked up aspects of my K-8 school".

More on Gang Rape Witnesses

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Health/witnesses-california-gang-rape-scared-call-police/story?id=9054150

There really needs to be more education for young people, in schools, about sexual assault. About what it is, about what consent is, about rape culture and about not allowing other to do it. How do you not feel at all responsible for witnessing an assault an doing nothing to stop it? Ok, so I understand being afraid of jumping in the middle, but go into the school and tell someone, call the police, you don't just stand there and watch.