Shame
“You’re not making us feel like shit; we’re doing it to ourselves.” So sayeth the wise friend again, talking about her responses to earlier posts, and getting straight to the heart of it: shame.
In the last post I talked about humiliation, cruelties perpetuated by tormentors and jackasses, abusive treatment you know you don’t deserve. Shame begins when these voices and pressures poison that last bastion where you should be guaranteed love and acceptance: your own mind. You start to echo and repeat the messages of your tormentors, becoming your own bully, and over time shame stings and bleeds like a wound. Will you ever know peace?
Only if you make a long-term commitment to self-respect. For some people, like me, that’s meant getting into shape. Ultimately, I couldn’t handle the septic self-talk, and the feeling of being treated like a second-class citizen, so I transformed. That doesn’t mean you have to, or that you need to. In fact, I like you the way you are right now. Still, the journey has taught me a few things, and the increased life span and reduced chance of cardiovascular disease are nice perks.
This post challenges you to confront body shame by getting comfortable looking in the mirror, and by developing a healthy relationship with the scale. It also provides links to dietary recommendations, and is peppered with tips from our ol’ buddy Arnold, whose chiseled pecs haunt my dreams.
The aftermath: two slain foes and the gasps of a winded dwarf. He nods in gratitude, helmet lost to the river. One of the orcs lies bashed, bloodied, and dead on the shore—your work. A second orc’s feet jut from the shallows; the dwarf drowned him in the rapids. The third fled.
“Quickly now, before it returns with others,” you say, pausing only to scavenge a few silver coins, a crooked sword, and an iron gauntlet from the rank orc-loot.
“Why did you help me?” asks the dwarf, in a clear, cultured voice. He washes blood from a cut on his forearm, wraps it in a silk cloth, then gathers his hammer from the reeds.
You say, “I’ve put up with enough bullies for one lifetime.”
This answer pleases the dwarf, who shakes your hand, and introduced himself as Maximilien, Max for short, no pun intended, and a kind smile flickers onto his face. You decide to head to Daganthor together – less chance of death in the Forest of Thorns.
The river continues flowing uphill, and your small team follows it for several days. A shared bun of black bread. A cache of black beetles flourishing under a log. A feast of frog legs. Max is no woodsman—he huffs and puffs carrying his bulk and heavy hammer up the hills, but he knows everything about mushrooms, and you eat well as he expounds for hours with increasing excitement about their various properties, nutrition values, and colours. Apparently, Max acquired this scholarship early—he is only twenty in dwarf years, making him about sixty, and you can imagine him in his interminable childhood, deep in the mountain home he describes of wrought-iron gates and bridges of stone, where he is precocious and curious and studying insects under a magnifying glass, preferring six-legged friends to two-legged dwarves.
Pain, too. That first night after the campfire burned low you heard him muttering so you turned in your sleeping roll to watch. He was shirtless, holding the bulge of his lower stomach in one hand and punching it hard as he could with the other. Each time the blow struck he cursed himself: “Stupid. Fat. Ugly. Useless. Pathetic. Weak.”
I’ve learned two ways to confront shame and the first is the shameball. First, collect pictures of all the people who have ridiculed you over the years, whose ugly messages have entered your brain, and tape those pictures on the wall. So maybe you have a parent, a partner, a teacher, whatever—stick them on the wall. Then, scrounge through your home and collect all the nastiest substances: coffee grounds, cigarette butts, expired yogurt, bellybutton lint, toe jam, and mash these items together in your hands until they form a paste. Face your foes from 2-3 meters away and breathe deep. Grab handfuls of the shameball and—unleash! Send those toxic messages back from whence they came, get a minor shoulder workout, and maybe even have a laugh at the same time.
Yes, cleanup is problematic. Another technique is to peel the layers back with your pen and see what you’re sheltering.
For me it’s a pudgy boy, about ten, riding an exercise bike in the basement—there was a visit to Grammy Jones coming up and she always told me I was so big I should join the circus. And Mom said I needed new pants and trying on clothes was the absolute worst because the clothes would always be too small and Mom would just keep passing me pants over the top of the changing-room door and I’d have to say, too small, I need something bigger over and over and she couldn’t believe that I was already wearing men’s pants, had a bigger waist than my Dad, and it was not her fault at all, it was my fault for late-night munchings of chocolate bars and I didn’t play a lot of sports because after skipping a grade the boys were bigger and mean with their fists and the girls weren’t much better whispering fatty in class behind my ears and I couldn’t even fight back against them the way I could the boys, could never beat my older brother who was tall and lean and strong and often he poked me with a bony finger in my stomach and made a noise like pfft pfft pfft like sticking his finger into a foul bog. And Dad said I was crying too much and I needed to be tough in the hard world so he bought two pairs of boxing gloves and sometimes he’d get my brother and I to spar with them; other times Dad and I would fight, and he was a mountain, no matter where he hit me my nose would bleed, but the fight wouldn’t stop for blood, or for tears; it was only once I’d gone wild with fists he was happy.
At the heart of my shame whimpers a blood-smeared boy, soft and gentle, who didn’t have the strength to stay that way.
I have been this ogre who stormed through the forest and dissolved into tears when his rage was spent. With respect and admiration for Marlene Andersson; her talent and sensitivity makes monsters human.
A commitment to long-term self-respect effects both bulky endomorphs like Max or long, lean ectomorphs. Some accept exactly where they are, some don’t care at all, but many wish the number on the scale was different. A few treat the scale like a bear trap, and step on it under no circumstances. Picture the farmer I met in Dordogne who swore he was 100kg, and had been for twenty years, never varying a gram. Turns out in the last twenty years he’d packed on 30kg. Others treat the scale like a rat biting electric cheese, hopping onto that thing daily, or several times a day, micro-managing their weight obsessively.
These extremes do not serve us. If you’re looking to make changes, the scale is an objective observer that gives us limited information that we can use to shape our workout regimes. Here’s a healthy habit: weigh yourself once a week. I take my weight on Monday mornings and record it in a spreadsheet. Now I can make non-obsessive micro-adjustments: I gained weight this week despite a lot of cardio; probably should cut down on the pistachios.
The scale, alone, is not enough to give you an accurate picture of what’s happening in your body—this is just a place to start. Sometimes it takes a few weeks for your body to “catch up” to changes in diet and exercise—that’s why we can’t weigh in too often. Things may seem to be progressing smoothly and suddenly your weight will spike or plummet. Variables: how much water you drink, the plesiosaurus of your last bowel movement, the four-cheese pizza you ate on Sunday night, and, most significantly, how much muscle gained or lost. If you’ve done a lot of strength training over the years, and particularly if you’re a hard-gaining ectomorph, you’re probably very attached to the mass you’ve developed. It’s no good to lose a bunch of weight, but then wake up one morning and realize your ass is missing.
Having at least some muscle is important for avoiding frailty and looking good, ya vain bastard. A more useful tool is measuring your muscles, a good habit that provides detailed information that bodybuilders can use to steer their workouts. For me, the measurements have helped more than the weigh-ins. I can say, “I lost ten cm off my waist” and know for sure that I’ve gotten leaner.
How deep does this rabbit hole go? All the way to measuring your body fat by pinching it with steel calipers, and jotting the measurements into complex formulae. This sounds like medieval torture, but it’s a preferable system to body mass index: simple height/weight equations that don’t account for muscle mass and thus our man Arnold Schwarzenegger, 240-pounds at the peak of his biceps career, was technically obese.
Despite its limitations, BMI spews a lot of judgement. You can be one of four categories: underweight, overweight, obese, or “normal.” BMI is the mean girl in high school who savages everyone but her inner clique, constantly enforces the norms of coolness, and has no soul. My assessment: this is a dehumanizing, ineffective, lazy system that treats us like categories, drives people away from fitness, and uses the language of shame and exclusion to enforce social norms under the guise of helping.
Are you an ogre-level hero? If so, I suggest you start tracking your weight. Down the road we’ll talk more about measuring our muscles and how we can use this to focus our workouts. And don’t worry – I’ll never suggest we squeeze our fat with calipers – it’s too kinky for me.
March 2020, at Spokenword, a poetry series in Paris. Sabine is a brilliant photographer, but I hated the photo.
Nine months later and I see my face again. Cardio 5-6 times a week. Resistance training 5-6 times a week with bands, kettlebells, and logs. Strict diet.
Shame prevents us from looking in the mirror, or at a photo, and getting real with ourselves.
Paris has been a wonderful place for plunging into Bohemian initiatives, schmoozing with writers, and eating cheese. And baguette. And pains aux raisin. And croissant. After two or three years in Paris my compulsive brain had figured out all the filthiest places to eat: when I visited Corinne I’d pop over next door for the world’s greasiest kebab. When I saw Ed near the centre Pompidou I’d stop at the GOODBURGER and eat a dripping double-decker burg with o-rings. When I visited Emily I’d grab two slices of dirt-cheap street pizza. When I bought bread for dinner, I’d pick up a cheese-bun covered in lardons and scarf it before I got home. And for lunch I was often throwing down a quick three-euro pizza, available in the local Franprix under plastic, surprisingly good, and probably a full day’s worth of calories.
Self-indulgences accumulate invisibly until we look in the mirror and see a stranger. Then it’s time for change. For me, that meant getting serious about diet. There’s a lot to know about it, far too much to pack into a single serving. Again, the Bible really helped me turn my life around, but I can vouch for this site, and this one, and this one too. Here are the quick and dirty notes.
For hard-losing endomorphs like me: reduce portion sizes, control snacking, and curtail alcohol (sob). Eat out less. Allow yourself a cheat night once a week, and enjoy small portions of things you crave so you don’t go apeshit and binge the whole carrot cake. Measure your rice, pasta, bread and other carbs so that you know how much you’re consuming.
For hard-gaining ectomorphs: increase portion sizes, and slant your diet towards protein for muscular growth—there are great vegetarian options for this, lentils notably. Apparently, some of the strongest people in the world are vegetarians now. No animals are hurt in the production of whey powder; it’s a relatively low-cost option to boost protein, and Arnold says Creatine works. If you’re trying to gain muscle, especially on days you’ve trained hard, aim for at least 1-2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
Figuring out diet was the most difficult thing on the fitness journey. It’s hard to keep telling yourself fantasies about how fit you are if you’ve weighing your oatmeal and curtailing your beer to one a week. Obviously, I enjoy a bit of storytelling, but the most convincing tales are the ones we use to dupe ourselves. I built an impregnable fortress of bullshit. Then I tore it down brick by shameful brick.
Doubts remain. I have always been a compulsive, emotional eater; I worry I’ve just exchanged the compulsion to consume with the compulsion to exercise. What would it take to break free of all these cycles, implement a fitness system that helps me flourish, and embrace a radical self-acceptance? Is it really discipline if you work out because of an addictive personality? Do I need a skinny face to feel worthy?
Max gives you twelve different stories for why he left home: the clanking hammers were too loud, disrupting his study; there was a bungled love affair; his father wanted him to work in the smithy, not the library; terrible claustrophobia and awareness of the mountain looming overhead; lack of new research material; a fondness for elf girls.
Max strides beside the backwards-flowing river, his footprints canted outward, close together, and quickly filling with water.
“But what’s the real reason?” you ask.
His head droops and as you get closer you see he tries to speak twice but fails. His gaze seems to fixate on his belly, which you know is bruised and battered—twice more you’ve seen him beat his stomach before bed, once with a heavy dwarven tome, and you suspect the ritual occurs in the morning when he bathes as well.
“Some people had a problem with the way I look,” he says. “More than a few.”
“You look OK to me,” you say. He turns and stomps ahead, decapitates a dandelion with his hammer.
That’s when you hear the weeping. You hiss at Max to be quiet. There it is again—a hoarse sobbing and a voice too deep to be human or dwarf, bewailing in a language you can’t interpret. Being a bit stealthier than Max, you take the lead. Creeping toward the noise, your bowels feel loose and runny, cold pinpricks spark along your spine, and your hands turn cold. You peer over a fallen log.
The ogre is massive, with horns ridging its forehead, and arms that could tear a horse in half. A trail of uprooted and smashed trees leads directly into the forest of thorns. The ogre sobs with a wild grief. In Greybeard’s book ogres were shown to be cruel beasts, destroying villages and boiling humans in pots. Never in tears.
Max approaches at your shoulder—you press your finger to your lips for silence. He is a gentle dwarf, but when he spots the ogre his face twists in rage and he draws his great hammer and braces himself to charge. You catch his wrist—is hatred the only choice?
August, 2020, Paris, my most detested chore became so urgent I could delay no longer: all my pants had frayed badly at the crotch. Since the French men are generally smaller than North Americans, I was imagining another miserable shopping experience, sorry Mom, this one doesn’t fit either. Yet another discouraging session where the clothes, the attendees, and the advertising all make it very clear—I don’t belong here.
I filled my arms with pants, shirts, and a new belt. Walked to the changing room like a man facing a firing squad. Took off my clothes, deliberately folding my crotch-torn jeans to delay the inevitable. But the first pair of pants fit. So did the second. I looked good in the shirt. And the belt was a bit roomy. As I tried on more and more clothes I started getting emotional. Nothing dramatic, no hysterics, but the moment felt bigger than fitting into a couple shirts.
I fit in the world.
The little boy in the changing room next to mine was having a different experience. Tomato-faced, sullen, and spilling from his shirt, he was heaping rejected garments on a trolley. His mother shook her head and went foraging in the men’s section. The boy seemed so close to tears a sneeze might set him off.
Tough to watch a kid learn the same lesson I learned, but maybe he will grow up wise, compassionate, and enlightened, anyway. He’ll laugh at the barbs of bullies, stand firm in the face of ridicule and scorn, and be unfazed by the fists of men and bigger boys.
Not me, though. I fight against the world until my strength is spent and then I bend.
Ogre-level workouts
Balance regular cardio and good dietary practice with resistance sessions that are now rigorous enough to slowly change your body. Increase sets to 4, and add more exercises, including daily abs. Try to do all three of these workouts once per week, minimum. Consider a protein shake or other source of protein after these workouts, and make sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep.
Workout #1: Arms and Shoulders. Difficult level: Ogre
5 mins warmup
4x sets of 8-12 dips (on chair, bars, exercise ball)
4x sets of 8-12 shoulder press
4x sets of 8-12 bicep curls
4x sets of 8-12 tricep kickbacks
4x sets of 8-12 front shoulder raise
4x sets of 8-12 side dumbbell lateral raise
4x sets of 8-12 rear shoulder raise
4x sets of 8-12 reverse curls
4x sets of 20-30 crunches
4x sets of 20-30 twisties
5 mins stretching
Workout #2: Chest and Back. Difficulty level: Ogre.
5 mins warmup
4x sets of 10-15 pushups
4x sets of *pullups or 8-12 pulldowns
4x sets of 8-12 pushups with feet on chair or stability ball
4x sets of 8-12 dumbbell flyes (resistance band also OK)
4x sets of *chin-ups or 8-12 in-close pulldowns
4x sets of 8-12 bent-over rows or bodyweight rows
4x sets of 8-12 dips (from bars are best so you can lean forward to target lower chest)
4x sets of 8-12 dumbbell, barbell, log or resistance band shrugs
4x sets of 20-30 reverse crunches
4x sets of seated twisties
5 mins stretching
*note, your body weight will feel extremely heavy at first. Do your best to build towards a normal 8-12 reps gradually. Consider “negatives” where you slowly lower your body weight down. You can also defray your weight with a resistance band.
Workout #3: Legs. Difficult level: Ogre.
5 mins warmup
4x sets of 10-12 squats (add resistance band)
4x sets of 10-12 deadlifts
4x sets of 10-12 lunges
4x sets of 12-15 calf raises
4x sets of 10-12 good mornings
4x sets of 10-12 leg extension
4x sets of 10-12 lying leg curl with resistance band
4x sets of 15-20 side leg raise
4x sets of 15-20 bent-over twisties
4x sets of 20-30 crunches
4x sets of 12-15 leg raises
5 mins stretching