The Tether: School is IN SESSION, Dude

The Tether 9/22/19

Runner, Interrupted is *this* close to launching. Click here to be added to the beta!

I don't think of myself as an athlete. Running is something I do to 'not die', it's never been a competition. So it's no surprise that I don't view Fitness Protection as part of the running industry. I also shudder to be included in the fitness industry, because I loathe its messaging so much I cannot believe we would occupy the same space.

Any place where 'health' is a code word for 'weight loss' is not anywhere I would willingly choose to be. You can be healthy at any size, and really unhealthy at any size. It's okay to want to lose weight ( or not want to lose weight) and how you lose weight, matters. Messaging a round all of this matters; it's a responsibility I feel way too deeply...in no small part because I see how these messages impact the men in my life.

Months ago, both Coach Sarah and I saw the trailer for Brittany Runs a Marathon and said, "no thanks". The trailer really was *that* problematic for us, promising a ' personal journey to health' interspersed with jokes about weight loss (ED Recovery and Fatphobia Twitter warned us). We knew this movie was likely to be a hit with the running community so we figured we'd let everyone else talk about it and limit our contribution to a post or two on our Facebook pages. As much as I love The Movie Pooper, I really don't want to be known as one (I've already ruined Toy Story 4 and Secret Life of Pets 2 for my clients!) so it made sense to sit this one out.

Then I randomly read a movie review and saw a phrase I could not ignore: " recreational Adderall." I went to see the movie, walked out before it finished, and live-streamed about it. After collecting a few responses online and thirty emails ( two from adults with ADHD who liked the movie and were unbothered by the Adderall reference), Coach Sarah said we DEFINITELY needed to devote at least one podcast to the movie.

Spoiler alert: after reading these emails from you guys , we ended up making 3.

Fat occupies a strange place in our culture. Like smoking, it is very much viewed as a bad choice or moral failure. S ome people think fat-shaming needs to be destigmatized. My two oldest kids (7 and 6) know it's rude to make comments about people's bodies, but when I asked if they thought it was rude to make comments when other people ate unhealthy things, they said no. This sense of 'helpfulness' inspired one of my most personal mantras, and left me wondering what 'helpful' looks like when Diet Culture is all around us, impacting everyone it touches.

That sense of helpfulness, btw, is called ' paternalism '. "Who cares if I hurt their feelings? It needed to be said/was for their own good."

We know that obesity and depression are linked, for reasons that SHOULD BE OBVIOUS. Rather than offering education on 'healthy foods' or 'healthy habits' maybe education needs to center around unhealthy themes in our culture, the things that should be obvious but are so common we don't see them. So I went to the smartest person I know, a science teacher at a local, neighborhood school that also serves as the district’s HGT magnet program, and asked her what she thought of the trailer. Her response is well worth your time.

The fitness industry is predicated upon the same ugly shaming message I've gotten my whole ADHD-addled life: "just get your sh*t together and DO IT". I hate that message. I resent its implications. I do NOT want to be associated with that message, ever. You deserve better. You are not deficient in any way. It's time to (METAPHORICALLY!) shoot the messengers and change the message before those 'helpful' messages our children have internalized eat them alive.

Next week, I am sure to ruin Abominable . Stay tuned!

You are Coached. You are Loved. And you ARE #winningatlife

Coach MK

PS. Did you see Coach Sarah's newsletter this week? Click here and never miss another one!

Don't You Dare Close Your Eyes

Weekly Content Roundup

Amy Trujillo shared her opinions about the trailer for BRAM with us...via Screencast.

Part 1

Part 2

These were SO GOOD our GORGEOUS podcast editor stripped the audio and turned it into a podcast. You can listen to it here.

Friday morning, we released the first Brainfire episode about BRAM. Click here to listen.

By the way, Amy trains with us in Maintain. We will be recording a podcast about that program in 2 weeks. Did you hear the one we did on Rebuild recently?

Not a podcast person? Cool. Notes are collected on the blog HERE. You'll also find links to free, downloadable PDF documents that can help you determine if ReBuild is a good fit for you.

Click below to read this week's Nuzzel outtakes, we try to hit multiple areas of the running industry, not just weight loss and fatphobia!

Read Full Roundup

Word of the Week

#notalldoctors #butsomedoctors

"Health at Every Size" has been in the media a lot lately, and I wanted to take a minute to break it down: does NOT mean that every person is healthy; it means that s ize should never be used as a sole indicator of health.

Fatphobia is the stigmatization of people with larger bodies. Fatness is often associated with laziness, which is unfair and frequently untrue. Fat people are blamed for 'draining the medical system' of resources, when in actuality many are completely unable to get their doctor's attention.

Sizeism is an implicit understanding of the pressure we feel to stay as small as possible, thereby retaining as many privileges as possible.

Here's the difference: in May 2018, when a person told me they couldn't trust a fat coach, I was a victim of sizeism. I was four months postpartum at the time, and thirty pounds heavier than I am right now, but that's still sizeism and still I had a lot of thin privilege.

Amy tells us in this video how instructors at a local bootcamp treated her on her first visit. THAT is fatphobia.

Listen Here!

#WINNINGATLIFE

This space is reserved for one of our runners who is #WINNINGATLIFE!

This week, WE are winning at life, thanks to our amazing podcast editor, Kris Zarnoch. Without her, we would NOT be able to produce as much content as we do. She does incredible work- the quality of her editing just blows us away, we're pretty sure there's nothing she CAN'T do (and we've thrown her some REALLY CHALLENGING stuff!!!)

Thank you SO MUCH for everything you do for us, Kris!!! We are beyond grateful!

To be featured here as well as our Facebook and Instagram pages, use the tags #coachedandloved or #fitnessprotectionllc when you post photos on Instagram, telling the world what Fitness Protection means to you!

Training Footnotes

The New York City Marathon is sneaking up on me. with only 6 weeks to go, I oscillate between how far I've come since my July surgery, and how far I have to go before I will *feel* ready. The jump from 27 to 44 sounds huge...but I've done that in 2 weeks without noticing. Probably because this is not a typical training cycle - no speedwork, not even strides- and my ability to feel effort levels is nonexistent.

I have to keep reminding myself- I"m not starting from scratch, I"m ramping up. This is what ramping up can look like when you are a Runner, Interrupted.

It's easy to go hard, it's hard to go smart. I'm just going. Consistently, frequently, but not hard. Which is maybe why I'm more relaxed about this race than I've ever been before.

This is why we give our marathon training plans free to our subscribers. It's not the training plan that matters, it's what you do in between training cycles.

Fun fact: This will be my sixth time running this race. # of medals I've kept? Zero.

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