Filed under: Exercise, Food/Drink, Middle Age, Posts, shopping, Spring Break, Travel | Tags: adulthood, Exercise, fitness, humor, mental health, Middle-Age, travel
Ok, so Imposter Syndrome (see my previous blog) doesn’t just happen in sports – it happens as a parent, and even worse, in the mirror.
I don’t know when exactly that it happened, but at some point I started feeling like an imposter in my own body. I would walk by the mirror and catch a glimpse of some person I didn’t recognize, who now has more gray than blond hair, a less curvy body and wrinkly hands,. Then I’d realize that person is me.
WTF? I would think. That can’t be me. After all, my brain hasn’t changed that much since I was 25. I still think poop jokes are funny, that I can do way more physically than I actually can, and I still laugh inappropriately at funerals. My brain also still thinks I’ve got my 25-year-old body – until I go shopping for a bathing suit. Then, I have to deal with my current “beach body.” (Oh, and if I see one more TikTok with some lithe, 18-year-old worrying about getting “beach body ready,” I’m going to…ok, I’m just going to swipe up again in a really, really irritated way.)
Here’s the truth, though: no one else on the beach gives a shit that I didn’t lose those extra 10 pounds, or didn’t go to the gym an extra session a week so I could have a flat stomach.
NO ONE.
And even if they did notice or care, they sure as hell don’t know my body’s story, that the lines on my face are laugh lines and worry lines from years of soccer games, horse shows and family vacations, or that my stomach, with it’s new shape and distribution, housed two other human beings and somehow still supports my spine so I can work at my computer to pay bills.
Appreciate the story your body has to tell. Nobody wants a story that has no plot, no twists and turns, no growth for the main character. Those stories are boring. Be your favorite story and embrace the cover.
Filed under: Exercise, Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Travel | Tags: Exercise, fitness, games, islands, jeff probst, lying, pop culture, reality television, relaity tv, relationships, sports, survivor, television, travel
I don’t know what it is about Americans in particular, but we seem to like watching TV shows that make sporting events out of activities other people do in their daily life. Off the top of my head, Survivor and American Ninja Warrior come to mind. American Ninja Warrior takes the obstacle courses military organizations used to use for training and makes it into a giant, high-tech jungle gym for middle-class gym rats. Americans play Survivor on islands where people actually scratch out a living every day – not just for 40 days and then are flown back to their AC and Netflix.
And I love both of those shows.
We still watch Survivor. I hate the people, and it makes me mad, but it’s a train wreck each season, and there’s been 38 seasons. It seems I’m compelled to watch adults relive 8th grade by lying, backstabbing, deciding as a group who’s undesirable, and seeking revenge later on as an outsider.
I like Survivor because it has contestants that can do all the things I can’t in prolonged, difficult social situations. Here are 9 reasons why I would never win survivor:
- Starting Fires: If I don’t have Fatwood from Plow and Hearth or a stack of old newspapers, I’m pretty useless. (Voted Off – Day 2)
- Food-shut downs, or “The Hangry’s:” Based on people’s reactions to my food shut-downs, I’m pretty sure I would be voted off in the first three days. Apparently, I become unreasonable and just a bit bitchy. They would probably require my one item I could bring to be a Snickers. There is no way I would voluntarily eat sugar-free food (i.e. rice) for 40 days straight without being one of those contestants that gets all listless and weepy (Voted Off – Day 3).
- Hot flashes in the Jungle: I always feel superior as I watch these skeletal twenty-somethings running around wearing teeny-weeny bikinis in the heat and humidity of whatever island they’re dropped on. I dare them to try that with a muffin top while having hot flashes. (Voted Off – Day 4)
- Compete without injury: I’ve got bad shoulders, bad hips and I throw like a chimp. Not exactly your desired anchor man in most competitions. That said, you need some swimming done? I’m your girl. (Voted Off – Day 6)
- Solve puzzles: Can’t. Never could. See this?
I’ve never been able to do it. Or this? 
I took those apart or smashed them, depending on my mood. I could proibably hide that deficit for a few days, but not the whole time. (Voted Off – Week 2) - Sunburn: I have an appointment this month to get more pieces of my face taken off (again). I’m pretty sure living on an island for month without sunscreen would hammer that last nail in my peaches-and-cream coffin. (Voted Off – Week 2)
- Think logically when tired: Let me put it this way – people at work know not to
give me anything after 3:00pm because my brain is tired. I’m pretty sure logical, chess-like thinking is not going to be my strong-suit after being sleep and sugar deprived. Also, I still can’t figure out how to put on one of those bra things that makes your straps into a racerback. (Voted Off – Week 3) - Maintaining the Lies: One time in the airport I was looking disapprovingly at a girl with a tramp stamp and a thong hanging way above her pants as she tied her shoe; two men were staring at me and laughing at my expression, not even paying attention to the thong. Apparently, my face does not hide my feelings as well as I thought. (Voted Off – Pick Any Day I Look At People)
- Razors: Seriously, people and after 40 days, people would run away from the Sasquatch that I have become. And the guys who wax their chests on the show? One of my favorite things ever is to watch it slowly grow back in on each episode. (Voted Off – Day 39)
So sorry, Jeff Probst. I’m only fodder for the first episode, where they winnow out the sick and old, like lions culling the weak water buffalo from the herd. But American Ninja Warrior – that’s another story. I’m going to get Hubby to build a Warp Wall so we can start practicing.
Filed under: Exercise, Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Sports | Tags: 40, fitness, Horses, vendor, vendor management
Most of them time, my brain and my body work together pretty seamlessly – but sometimes I wonder if that same body hasn’t become the worst third-party vendor ever. Especially in my 40’s.
I recently started horseback riding again – and by that, I mean flopping around on top of my daughter’s wonderful horse as I try to make muscle memory turn into actual muscle doing.
After hours and hours of watching her ride in lessons and horse shows, I have a pretty good mental idea of the mechanics of how it is done. And, I remember how to physically do some of it from when I used to ride as a kid – but now I have to outsource the job to my much older and out of shape body. As a third-party vendor, my current body’s still the cheapest (and only) option, but the relationship has begun to take a turn for the worse.
So, I Googled how to improve vendor performance:
First, Measure Performance – I do this every day, and sometimes I surprise myself with how well I (and my outsourced body) are doing; other days, I’m horrified. Take sleeping, for example. I used to be able to read for an hour and sleep through the night. Now I’m lucky if I can stay awake for two paragraphs and snore half the night. On the other hand, I can do sit-ups, push-ups and burpees, and like getting up at the crack of dawn because.
Measuring performance leads to: Listen to Your Vendor – “How often do you really have a two-way conversation with your vendors about their issues and the support they need to do a better job for you? Ok, so I just expect my body, er, vendor, to do what it was hired to do…but when my expectations are too high, or my body hasn’t had time to prepare (i.e. horseback riding), it does still try to find ways to meet my needs. The result – I rode for 20 minutes without falling off, but I couldn’t walk the next day. Perhaps my outsourced body would tell me that it needs more time in the gym, less bourbon and maybe a vitamin on occasion.
Establish a Service Level Agreement – There was never an agreement, although it appears that as I age, my body is beginning to make the rules around what is happening, instead of me.
Vendor: You’re going riding again? Fine, I’ll do it, but you don’t get to walk anywhere for two days.
Me: I think we need to revisit our agreement. I’m supposed to be in charge.
Vendor: I just made you pee a little.
Me: That’s not funny.
Vendor: That’s just the beginning. Go ahead – eat that crabmeat again – I dare you.
Establish Routines and Be Predictable – “It is much easier for vendors to better supply you when your ordering is predictable and consistent. Um, yeah, because life works like that. If I could be predictable, I would, but the best things in life usually aren’t in your routine…and if there’s a vendor cost for that, so be it. The 20-minute ride was worth it.
Subourbon Mom 