Humiliation

Welcome back, heroes, to the quest. So far you’ve whetted your will with basic workouts and buttressed your body with positive preventative habits to avoid injury. Look—you still walk the path; every step is a victory.

Stars glitter on the battle’s aftermath and your muscles steam in the night air. The hobgoblin was a bitter foe, stronger than he seemed, with a low centre of gravity—tusks-wounds score your shield, but it spared you a goring. Your wooden sword had snapped in an explosion of splinters.

The hobgoblin rattles its last breath under a shrub; you check your pack for the damage. Half your hardtack bread was chomped, and another quarter was so slathered in the creature’s drool you toss it as well. Weaponless, and hardly any food—must victory be as bitter as defeat?

There. Near your pack where the monster was rooting: its horrifying club festooned with teeth—a few of them seem human. The weapon is an evil thing, heavy in your hand, but it will serve.

“Fitness is an industry that manufactures and depends on self-loathing,” a wise friend in Ottawa said. If I’ve learned one thing in many conversations since starting this blog, it’s that the feelings of shame and humiliation surrounding our bodies are universal.

Trying to reach someone who works out regularly, who watches what she eats, who already has a fitness regime in place, is easy. Trying to reach people who actively avoid thinking about or dealing with their bodies? It’s nearly impossible.

I know this because I was unreachable for several decades. Certainly I was never inspired by superfit people on Instagram who pretend their fitness journey has been easy; they were vomited into existence with abs that could clench and chomp your fingers off. Fitness ninjas hammering out push-ups with no feet gushing how working out feels better than sex. Hollow-ringing encouragement of Adonises who live in the gym and tell you they got in shape with only seven minutes of butt-clenches a day. Others promote fad diets of fallen leaves and sunbeams. Plastic gizmos that super-target your muscles and snap after a single thigh-squeeze. Each guru peddling his own version of snake oil—is my body a disease that must be cured?

Hearing these lies all the time is almost as discouraging as being out of shape. I started this blog because I’d learned much about fitness, and because I was tired of all the encouraging horseshit that makes us feel worse. I figure I can help people by giving them practical tools without being a dick.

This week’s villain: a bloodthirsty orc. She embodies all the cruel bullies who delight in body shame. Another creation of the brilliant Marlene Andersson.

At this point in the journey, you are slaying a minor workout two to three times a week, with good injury-prevention habits in place, and you’re ready to step it up by adding consistent cardio. Cardio is necessary for burning fat, sculpting a lean body, and increasing overall cardiovascular health.

Cardio takes many forms and I can’t stand most of them. Walking, running, crawling, rowing, yoga, biking, elliptical, swimming, mountain climbing, fencing, sports—what’s important is that you find the way to elevate your heart rate and burn calories that is right for your body.

Start once or twice a week, for ten or twenty minutes, then increase slowly. If you lose weight easily, I suggest you cap this at four times a week, forty minutes per session. If you find losing weight excruciating and demoralizing, as I do, you will need to embrace cardio 5-6 times a week for 50-60 minutes.

Hey, maybe you love cardio. Maybe you run for hours and hours tirelessly – that’s great; I hate you. Assuming you are a mortal and not one of these disguised demigods, you will probably slip, skip a workout or two, lose motivation for a week, get busy. The fickle hero may stray from the path a thousand times, lured by soft blankets or cheeseburgers. Have the patience to find the way again a thousand times. Begin slowly, try to enjoy it, and build gradually. Balance high-shock training like running, which wears down your joints, with body-friendly cardio options, like wild dance. Did you just say wild dance? Yes, yes I did.

Thanks to Hiie Saumaa for leading dance classes to help repressed guys like me learn something about rhythm. We are more than just machines of work; stop hating your body and find some joy in it.

This week we peer at humiliation, a religion for many, complete with its own sacraments and martyrs. When you experience humiliation, you feel you don’t deserve the abuse. Heat rises in your face; you ball your hands into fists; your tongue forms a snappy comeback. Over time your defences calcify, your scowl etches, your armour thickens and soon it’s easier to stay indoors. Look out your window: is your neighbour a starfish? A hammerhead? Dear friend, you are living on the ocean floor; humiliation has transformed you into a lobster.

Crawl upwards, crustacean. I invite you into the zone of mutual support and encouragement where we shield each other from seagulls and side-walking crabs. Several times I’ve invited people to the Log Gym and they claim, “I just need to get a little stronger first.” This is backwards—you join the gym to get stronger. We have such a fear of letting people see us in a bare way, the amount we can lift, the repetitions, or the number on the scale. We control and soften these facts to present ourselves in the best light, like we do on social media. Be honest with yourself and accept your level and you will find others on the path.

When I first sat to write this post, I rubbed my hands in savage glee. I had a long list of humiliations to describe. Being a heavy dude in the military for thirteen years led to grief and nastiness: obligatory training, humiliating superiors, mandatory tests, too-tight uniforms, and withheld promotions. The memory of being seasick in a warship, vomiting every few minutes, off-watch yet pedaling on the sole exercise bike deep in the ship’s belly, is particularly vivid.

I recently interviewed a soldier who spent her entire career in the Army as a large person. After listening to Sarah’s testimony for two hours, I had to accept the facts: being a fat guy in the military was awful. Being a heavy woman is worse. “You’re either gross or you got there on your knees.”

So began a litany that covered a decade of squashed opportunities, double standards, remedial exercise, harassment complaints, and belittling comments. Her lowest point? Once, on an Air Force base, her two superiors had a lengthy conversation about her in the smoking pit, surrounded by colleagues, in which they attacked her viciously:

She’s as big around as she is tall

She should have been going to the gym since day one

We’re trying to get her released from the Forces for her Body Mass Index

She’d never survive on an Army base

The humiliation and professional disgrace deepened Sarah’s isolation; she turned to booze. This is the irony of body-based humiliation: some think their cruelty is a public service, but it only alienates the target further. He or she builds a wall of flesh around themselves until hitting the excruciating rock bottom.

Then, the rebuilding. The near-lethal first run. Months of dieting. Learning to love her body again. Building good habits. Sarah is also a Mom who has incorporated working out into domestic chores: squats with laundry, curls with shopping bags. “When I saw the way other people got recognition—I wanted to be that Army Barbie. Now I just want to be healthy.”

Sarah inspires me. Not only is she smart and savvy, but she’s reshaped her body, and become a powerful leader in her Unit, the kind that junior soldiers turn to for guidance. As she explains, “I had to earn a ferocious self-respect.”

“The world hits like a bitch but carry on”

— Sarah

YESSSS. Thank you, Sarah, for talking to me about all this, for sifting through this pain, for reminding me why I’m writing this blog, and for being a complete badass. It’s been five or six years since I hung up my uniform; I salute you anyway. And I wish you all the happiness, love, and kindness that you deserve.

None of the credit goes to Sarah’s superiors, that they somehow encouraged her to transform. You do not get credit for attacking a person who feels vulnerable in her body. Instead, this is a profound failure of leadership. You are supposed to protect your subordinate, not fling her into a well so deep she had to cling to SPITE to claw her way out.

There’s plenty of people on our planet who are no better than orcs. Filthy, vicious brutes with rows of teeth like sharks. Wielding barbed swords for maximum pain, they only attack outnumbered foes. Orcs live in cave complexes where they gnaw mushrooms and human flesh. Canny, orcs craft crude chain mail and complex torture devices, and organize raids into human-held lands for meat and rape-sport. Unfortunately, you must contend with these petty bullies; our world is packed with them.

Two more days following the road east—your evil club hangs heavy on your belt, occasionally nipping your thigh. Days of relative peace where the road melts into the drudgery of footsteps, blisters bubble on your toes, and the clouds are shaped like eggplants.

You wonder if your father has left his chair. Every step you say goodbye to him again.

Half-rotten crabapples only twist your mouth the first bite, and for those who are lonely and cold at night there is always the comfort of shivering.

Finally, you reach the river, the one Greybeard told you to follow through the forest of thorns to reach Daganthor. As he explained, the river flows backwards, the water wending uphill to the confusion of fish. You throw a leaf into the water to make sure; your little craft twirls away upstream. You imagine a titan living in a mountain slurping on the river’s roots—what else could cause it to run in reverse?

The journey passes more quickly to the babble and splashes; you turn north, following the current uphill, with the river on your shield hand, and your fingers resting on your club. A playful trout in shimmering armour seems an easy lunch. Five times you splash and lurch and the fish is never where you expect. As your stomach groans and gnaws itself you consider eating your belt.

After two more days of hunger and plodding, you hear harsh voices. You climb a tree for the vantage, wishing you had a sling, a bow, a stone, anything. Three orcs are bullying a stocky dwarf wearing leather armour and an oversized helmet; his boots are planted in the river’s muck.

“Is it true you dwarfs have gold in your bellies?” an orc, the biggest of them, rasps. Seconds before you didn’t believe orcs or dwarves were real, had only seen pictures of them in Greybeard’s books.

“I have no quarrel with you. Please let me be,” says the dwarf. You lean so far forward you nearly fall out of the tree.

“Brothers, have you ever seen the river deliver a whale before?” another orc asks.

“Could take us all week to eat this one.” A savage laugh.

The orcs draw swords, and the dwarf his two-handed hammer. None of the orcs seem eager to feel the heft of that weapon, and he can’t back up any further without floundering in the river. So they kept their distance, jabbing with their swords and words: porky, fatty, whale, fatass. Three times the dwarf begs to be left alone, until finally his face goes red, he rams the helmet over his head, roars, and bounds towards the nearest orc, knocking the sword from his hands and lining up a skull-crushing strike.

But he slips in the muck, the blow swishes through the air; one of the orcs grabs his hammer and tries to wrestle it away. The second orc jumps on the dwarf’s back. The third orc, well, she’s spotted you dropping from the tree, points her sword at you.

Your first true foe, well-geared, battle-hardened, and nasty. WTF is with that doll? You grip your shield and club and meet her stare—today, hero, you risk your life for an innocent.

There are plenty of ways to make your fitness journey, even your cardio journey, more pleasurable, but the easiest is to find a workout friend—my challenge to you in this post. We are stronger in a supportive group, more likely to succeed and stay positive in the face of harassment and other bullshit.

Find groups on Facebook or Meetup. Get into a sport. If you’re into yoga, find a class where the instructor is a kind flake and not a drill sergeant. Or, if you’re in Paris, send me a message and I’ll sign you up for the Log Gym.

Other advantages of a workout buddy? Someone to egg you on when you’re feeling lazy. Someone to help make tedious things more enjoyable. Someone to tell you when you’re pushing yourself too hard. Someone to help you safely handle a dangerous weight. Someone to share ideas and workout knowledge. And, most importantly, when you’re working out with a friend, you can find laughter in unexpected places. Like getting crushed under a log.

Orc-level workouts:

I’ve boosted the cardio time, and added a third set to the exercises. Further, I’ve split the exercises into arms/shoulders, legs/lower back, and chest/back. Try to work out each area once a week at this stage. If you don’t have access to a gym, or equipment, use a bag of books, a jug of water, a can, or a stone.

Workout #1. Difficulty level: Orc

5 mins warmup

Cardio of your choice, work up to 40-60 minutes

5 mins stretching

Workout #2. “The Unstoppable Sarah.” Difficulty level: Orc. (Legs)

5 mins warmup

3 sets of 12-15 Squats with a Basket Of Wet Laundry (BOWL)

3 sets of 12-15 Deadlifts with a BOWL

3 sets of 12-15 Lunges with a BOWL

3 sets of 12-15 Calf raises on stairs with a BOWL

3 sets of 10-12 Good mornings

3 sets of 12-15 Leg raises