{"id":87,"date":"2012-07-24T19:37:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T19:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations\/"},"modified":"2012-07-24T19:37:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T19:37:00","slug":"fat-and-athletes-and-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations.html","title":{"rendered":"Fat and Athletes and Expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last week the Pagan internet exploded with posts on the issues of obesity, health, body image and the mainstream society\u2019s impossible standards of attractiveness. It started with this well-meaning but ultimately insensitive post<\/a> by Peter Dybing asking why we don\u2019t talk about the relatively high percentage of Pagans who are obese. Star Foster logged in from her vacation to respond with \u201cMy Fat Is My Business<\/a>.\u201d Thorn Coyle wrote a very balanced piece<\/a> that still managed to offend some when she indirectly described fat as a weakness. Many others added their comments to these posts or on their own blogs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taken me this long to figure out what I want to say about this, and even now I\u2019m not sure if I should say anything at all. But I have some thoughts I want to share. I\u2019m neither a victim nor a role model \u2013 this is just who and what and where I am.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m 50 years old, I\u2019m 5\u20199\u201d and I weight 209 pounds. It\u2019s more than I want to weigh. It\u2019s more than my doctor says I should weigh. It\u2019s a lot more than the ideals I see in mainstream society. Is my weight really a problem? Honestly, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

My grandfather died of a heart attack at 56. One uncle died of a heart attack at 44, another at 49. My father \u2013 who was younger and thus the beneficiary of better medical technology \u2013 lived through heart attacks at 40, 48 and 59 before finally dying of heart disease at 71. They were all shaped more or less like me. But they all smoked.<\/p>\n

I have another uncle (the youngest of his generation) who\u2019s doing fine at 71 \u2013 he stopped smoking after college. There have been minimal heart problems among my generation \u2013 few of us smoke. It seems the legendary Beckett heart problems have more to do with cigarettes than with genetics or with Southern fried cooking. <\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t always been fat. I was usually an average weight as a child, or a little above. I gained and lost the same 30 pounds several times in my 20s. But at about age 30 I started gaining fairly steadily.<\/p>\n

Until, motivated by an upcoming 20 year high school reunion and the desire to finally be an athlete, and facilitated by a move from a bad job in a bad location to a good job in a good location, I lost 40 pounds in 7 months and I started running.<\/p>\n

Growing up I always felt like I was inferior because I wasn\u2019t an athlete. I didn\u2019t know how much of that feeling was internal and how much was external and I still don\u2019t know for sure. I tried to play youth league baseball and football \u2013 I was short, slow, and I didn\u2019t like being hit. It\u2019s not self-deprecation to say I sucked. I played intramural, church league and industrial league softball for a while. I didn\u2019t suck, but I wasn\u2019t very good and it didn\u2019t make me feel like an athlete.<\/p>\n

Running changed all that. I still wasn\u2019t very fast, but with amateur distance running you don\u2019t have to be fast. You just have to keep going. I gradually stretched out from a mile to two to three. When I ran four miles for the first time in my life at the age of 36 I knew I was on to something. I went from exercising<\/i> to training<\/i>. I kept training logs. I bought running clothes. I started signing up for races. I was doing something \u201cnormal\u201d people couldn\u2019t (or wouldn\u2019t) do. I was finally an athlete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1999 marathon \u2013 mile 10<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In 1999 I ran 20 to 40 miles per week. That November I ran the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon<\/a> in 3 hours and 58 minutes. I was thrilled, and I had dreams of qualifying for the Boston Marathon.<\/p>\n

Two months later I had my first serious running injury \u2013 plantar fasciitis. <\/p>\n

Over the next five years I kept running while I tried various combinations of rest, stretching, orthotics, medication and ice treatments. My mileage went down and my weight went up. I ran the Dallas White Rock Marathon<\/a> in December 2003 in 4:20. <\/p>\n

By then more than my right foot was hurting. I was constantly tired and I was tired of training. I kept cutting back and cutting back and my weight was creeping up. The last entry in my running log was a 7 mile run on September 19, 2004. I kept meaning to pick it up again, but I never did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1999 marathon \u2013 mile 26<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It appears my body wasn\u2019t meant for running. I still have plantar fasciitis and I suspect I\u2019ll have it for the rest of my life. I wear orthotic inserts in all my shoes, I ice my right foot every night, and I still occasionally need anti-inflammatory drugs. Some mornings I limp like I\u2019m in a cast for 10 or 15 minutes until my tendons loosen up.<\/p>\n

Yes, it was worth it.<\/p>\n

Back to weight and fat. Look at the graph of my weight vs. age (yes, I\u2019m a geek!). My eyes draw a straight line from the beginning of the graph to the point where it starts to level off at age 44. Whatever I lost through running came right back \u2013 the running had no long-term effect. But with the exception of a short-term spike last fall, for the last six years my weight has been pretty steady in the 205-210 range.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span>I still exercise regularly: 30 to 60 minutes a day, five or six times per week. Mainly I walk and I lift weights. I\u2019m stronger than when I was running. I don\u2019t have the endurance I did then, but in general I feel better \u2013 I don\u2019t have the lingering fatigue that comes with distance training.<\/p>\n

I have the same results with dieting most people do \u2013 success for a few days followed by a crash when I start craving sugar or pasta or a hunk of barely-cooked meat. I try to pay attention to what I eat, but I don\u2019t obsess over it. \u201cSpikes\u201d happen when I don\u2019t pay attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
13 years and 48 pounds later<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Is this where my body wants to be? Is this what I\u2019m supposed to weigh? Am I banging my head against a brick wall worrying about my weight?<\/p>\n

I understand the pressure for women to have a certain body type is far greater than the pressure for men. But I know first-hand there is pressure on men too.<\/p>\n

That pressure is going to get greater starting this Friday when the Summer Olympics begin. I\u2019m not an Olympics junkie, but I\u2019m married to one, and I like watching most of the sports. I will be in a combination of admiration, respect, envy and lust looking at all the beautiful bodies and watching the athletes compete. Celebrities don\u2019t have much effect on me, but athletes do.<\/p>\n

It shouldn\u2019t matter. I know I don\u2019t have the genes to look like that any more than I have the genes to play in the NBA. I know I had my moment of glory with athletics and my \u201ccareer\u201d wasn\u2019t much shorter than many Olympic athletes. I know age will affect them just like it\u2019s affected me. <\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m not looking for a mate. Cathy and I have been married for 24 years, we plan to continue being married, and size stopped being an issue in our relationship a long time ago.<\/p>\n

I know having an ideal body isn\u2019t very important in my paying job and it\u2019s even less important in my spiritual and religious work.<\/p>\n

I know all that. But there are still times when I feel like I have<\/i> to lose weight, start running again and shape my body into something I know good and damn well it doesn\u2019t want to be shaped into.<\/p>\n

If I have these troubling feelings as a 50 year old man with no serious disabilities then how bad is it for others in less privileged situations? More importantly, how do we go about changing things so it stops being a problem for anyone?<\/p>\n

How do we encourage ourselves and each other to be active, eat well, look after our bodies and our souls and accept that the results that come are what they\u2019re supposed to be? <\/p>\n

How do we build a society that supports healthy lifestyles and doesn\u2019t force many of us into unhealthy choices because of poverty of money or poverty of time? <\/p>\n

How do we build a culture \u2013 or at least, a subculture \u2013 that sees beauty in all body types? How can we be<\/i> beautiful no matter what our body type?<\/p>\n

How do we learn to admire the best without devaluing the ordinary?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have answers to those questions. But we need to find answers, one way or another.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week the Pagan internet exploded with posts on the issues of obesity, health, body image and the mainstream society\u2019s impossible standards of attractiveness. It started with this well-meaning but ultimately insensitive post by Peter Dybing asking why we don\u2019t talk about the relatively high percentage of Pagans who are obese. Star Foster logged in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFat and Athletes and Expectations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last week the Pagan internet exploded with posts on the issues of obesity, health, body image and the mainstream society\u2019s impossible standards of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fat and Athletes and Expectations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week the Pagan internet exploded with posts on the issues of obesity, health, body image and the mainstream society\u2019s impossible standards of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-24T19:37:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-FYJH9PSYAdk\/UA84uyloFTI\/AAAAAAAABVU\/mZy1B3XY4iY\/s200\/Marathon99mile10.JPG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations.html\",\"name\":\"Fat and Athletes and Expectations\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-07-24T19:37:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-07-24T19:37:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"Last week the Pagan internet exploded with posts on the issues of obesity, health, body image and the mainstream society\u2019s impossible standards of\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2012\/07\/fat-and-athletes-and-expectations.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Fat and Athletes and Expectations\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. 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