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Concerning Cats

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The most important thing to learn from my experience will be the first and the last thing I say in it: if your pet has a sudden change in behavior, get help immediately. Don’t walk—run to the nearest vet and figure out what’s going on.

It all started in March. For the two years that I had been living with my fiancée and her adorable, feisty furball India, I was greeted at the bed by a head-butt and a purr every evening when I got home from work. Head-butts and purrs usually lead to a happy kitty having attention lavished upon her. So when I came into the room for a week straight without being greeted, I was worried. What was even more concerning was the fact that she was sleeping alone under the desk, rather than nestled between our legs like usual. Well, everyone has an off-week, right? Besides, it was a particularly warm week; I figured that India just didn’t want to heat herself up any more than absolutely necessary. But when I got the chance to break out the laser pointer, then the catnip mouse, and then a long colorful shoelace with no response, some small voice of panic inside of me welled up and shouted that something was wrong.

A quick Google search told us that severe lethargy in cats can be capital-B Bad. Or it could mean nothing. But when it comes to the lives of pets (a.k.a., family), always err on the side of caution.

It was already after-hours at the vet when we were incited to action on Friday night, and our normal vet was out of the office for the next week on vacation. So, we found the next closest vet with the next closest appointment—I worked from home Monday so that I could bring India in as soon as the clinic was open. (My boss and coworkers were extremely understanding throughout this process, allowing me to work remotely. In any case, it wouldn’t have stopped me from getting India the attention she needed.) Into the carrier and off to the vet we went!

When your cat is healthy, you don’t necessarily pay attention to things like their urination or defecation. This is especially the case if you have a closed litter box and clean it on a regular schedule instead of checking daily. But these are things that the vet wanted to know, and they were answers that I couldn’t readily produce. As an indoor cat, we thought that the vectors through which India could be hurt were minimal. They told me to keep an eye on her and bring her into our normal vet as soon as possible since blood tests and x-rays showed no problems.

Rallied by the “all clear” that I received from the first vet, we thought that maybe India was just feeling a bit older and didn’t feel like moving around as much in the heat. Regardless, we got an appointment with our vet and brought her in together. Once again, blood tests and urine tests were performed, and everything came out as “normal.” Our vet asked us about a few common household chemicals and whether or not India had been around them. Of course, she hadn’t. The vet thought that maybe she had gotten into something and just needed her system flushed, so we left her at the clinic overnight to get some extra observation and IV fluids, and were hoping to pick her up the next day.

After observing her overnight, the vet decided that they wanted to keep her an additional night. On the phone, the vet asked us once again if there was anything that she could have gotten into. “We don’t even have human food where she can get to it. The only things that she can easily get to are her food and water. She gets a catnip toy when supervised, and we give her flea medicine to her every month…” The vet took some notes and said that she would get back to us the next day. We picked her up two days after dropping her off, and the vet gave us the likely culprit: her flea medicine.

Our vet had gone through the flea medicine’s ingredient list and had done research on each item. The “organic” and “green” flea medicine that we were using (stocked at a small child’s eye-level at Safeway and Petco) contained an ingredient that was so toxic that humans were required to wear skin- and eye-protection when handling it. This wasn’t the typical “IRRITANT” label that anyone who has used sunscreen is used to. As for the products claims of being “green,” our vet helpfully pointed out that arsenic and cyanide are “natural and organic” as well. If the medicine’s ingredients can cause such severe harm in humans, how much worse is that damage for a being that’s a tenth of our size? Quite a lot worse, as it turns out.

Had we had any previous indications or reactions, we may have looked online and seen the hundreds of reviews of this particular product, many claiming that their pets were poisoned almost to the point of death (or were sadly killed) by this product. Since this happened as a result of the build-up of over a year’s worth of applications, we never suspected that something that hadn’t caused her any issues before was the culprit of her sudden health problems. How were we supposed to know that counterfeit and bogus flea medicines are some of the pet industry’s top money makers? The vet informed us—our mouths agape—that some popular flea medicine brands are counterfeited so convincingly that grocery suppliers often can’t even tell the difference, leading them to be stocked at your friendly neighborhood corner store.

For a week after we got her back, we had to give her daily subcutaneous fluids to help flush out as much of the poison as possible—this meant we had a giant bag of saline hanging from our ceiling fan, and every day started and ended with one of us holding her down while the other shoved a needle of cold fluid into her neck. We’re now almost three months after the fact, and India still hasn’t recovered. Because of her lethargic response to the poisoning, not moving around caused severe muscle atrophy in her hind legs and she now has a hard time getting around and doing normal kitty things—holding herself up in the litter box, jumping on anything, walking across the room. We have done everything we can to make sure that she’s comfortable and happy, including replacing her litter box with one that has a lower wall so that she can get into it easier and adding a set of kitty stairs to our room so that she can get off the bed easier. We’ve taken her to a feline physical therapist, and now have a set of rehabilitation exercises that we perform with her morning and night.

Even though we’re still working through the mechanics of this ending (and it isn’t exactly the happiest), we now have a story to share with all pet owners: only trust the flea medicine you get from your veterinarian, and if your pet has a sudden change in behavior, get help immediately.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Health

Learning How to Actively Take Care of my Body Without Hating It

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As a lady who lives on Earth, I have some body issues. Luckily, these didn’t really start for me until I was 17 (which is apparently, and distressingly, a pretty late age to begin worrying about this stuff, considering that some start as young as 9 years old.)

The Old

So, what happened at age 17? The birth control pill. Over the course of the first two to three months I was on it, I gained 20 pounds. I was definitely never skinny to begin with, but this was the first time I thought of myself as actually “fat.” Before the year was out, I was on Weight Watchers and I stuck to it pretty diligently. I lost that 20 pounds after following the program for a few months but even though the scale said 145, I still looked in the mirror and felt 165. And, yet, despite insisting that the fat-free ice cream (which, as someone who has since made her own ice cream—how is that created??) tastes just as good as the regular,  religiously checking the calorie count on all the breads at the supermarket and weighing that against the size and density of the slices, going to bed hungry and looking forward exclusively to eating in the morning, I was done.

Policing one’s weight is hard work. I didn’t want to do it anymore. But I had been raised to be a hard worker, to not quit just because I haven’t succeeded, and to excel at all the things I do. So a few months later, I tried again, with some other plan. And then another. And another. They really all blurred together over the next six years or so. But in trying and failing to lose weight, I gained it. And kept gaining. Sometimes, just deciding to count calories again would be enough and I wouldn’t even lose anything, just start to slowly gain. I would constantly berate myself with the pinpoint-accurate, harsh criticism that only I can inflict on myself. Too bad fat shaming doesn’t actually motivate weight loss and actually predicts weight gain instead, ‘cause that’s what happened.

It took a long time to realize that my sizeism was hurting me. (How interesting—there is a red squiggly line under this word. “Did you mean ‘sexism’?” Microsoft Word asks. No. Then again…) It took even longer to realize that the reason I had trouble (strike that, have trouble) letting go of my sizeism is because that would mean that I would have to reject that idea that if I were just less lazy and weak-willed, I could be better. To accept the idea that I’d been going about it all wrong for five freaking years. But I had been.

Dieting does not work. Not even if you don’t call it a diet. Not even if you are just “trying to eat healthier” or “just eating whole foods” or “counting calories.” It is actually, as that last link explains and my body can tell you firsthand, a predictor of future weight gain. Because, of course, those things do work! For a while. And then they don’t anymore and you end up with more health problems than you would have if you had just stayed kinda fat, which is, in fact, not a health problem.

As you can probably tell, this is something I have spent a lot of time and feelings on. About a year ago, I was seriously freaking out. I weighed more than I ever had, I was feeling like crap about myself, and whenever I even thought about dieting, my body started freaking out from deprivation anxiety and I couldn’t last a week. The definition of insanity is when a person tries the same thing again and again and blahblahblah… I’m still fat. That’s when I went crazy with the online research. That’s when I finally admitted I had a huge body image problem and a terrible relationship with food. That’s when I went to see a body image counselor.

The New

Here is what I do now: I practice intuitive eating. I do not restrict what I can eat—I’ll eat whatever I damn well please, since restricting it is what screwed me up in the first place. But I do pay attention to my fullness. I do consider how my body will feel—not look, feel—after eating whatever I’m considering. And I do work to take care of my stress, unhappiness, loneliness, and whatever-other-feelings with methods that are not soothing them with tasty food. My love of cooking has been both a help and a hindrance to this. I cook what I want, just like I eat what I want, but I still try to consult with my digestive tract to figure out what is going to make me the happiest. I try—and this is always a battle—to truly and honestly consider my health, vitamins, nutrients, and essential food groups, etc. over my weight when making dinner. This is the hardest thing I still struggle with.

As for exercise, I similarly exercise where and when and how I want. I try to refuse exercise that I feel like I “should” do and only do what I want to do. Instead of daily runs and elliptical work, I get to do an activity that I actually really enjoy doing, instead of just appreciating it as a way to burn calories. I regularly practice yoga, bike to work, dance in tap classes, and play Quidditch. Doing exercise because I like it while I’m doing it instead of just feeling self-congratulatory afterwards gives me the opportunity to do it without the guilt and self-pressure to exercise as a means of eating more. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone for a run (a thing I despise) instead of riding my bike because it was a faster calorie burn and I was having people over for dinner later. This is a recipe for a terrible relationship with both exercise and food.

Finally, a part of what I do that you won’t find in any size policing plan: managing my psyche. Real talk: I’d love to lose some of the weight I’ve gained from my past dieting experiences. It would be awesome. But to avoid dieting again—a constant temptation despite my past experiences—I work hard to make sure I feel happy and beautiful how I am. As a big Pinterest fan, I noticed I felt lousy every time I went on—because all the fashion boards I follow have only skinny white women. I immediately found five “fat fashion” boards to follow. Seeing these beautiful women of all shapes and sizes and colors makes me feel like I can be beautiful too. We see obese people in the world a lot, nearly always portrayed as lazy, stupid, face-stuffers. It is no wonder that nearly everyone is sizeist, even fat and obese people! Seeing them as beautiful and sexy everyday does wonders.

Clothes shopping is another battle against feeling good, but I do it because I like fashion and want to get dressed every morning feeling like I look stylish and fun. For a long time, I kept thinspiration clothes in my closet, hoping, knowing that I would fit into them someday. What a great way to feel like shit every morning! I have since gotten rid of them and replaced them with things that look good on me now.

Keeping up with fat acceptance and fat positivity bloggers has been awesome. This is more deprogramming of my sizeism and it makes me a better human to both others and myself. Isabel Foxen Duke is sassy and funny and sends weekly e-mails reminding me to continue the awesomeness. Others: Dances with Fat, Nude Muse, and Fat Nutritionist.

The Future

To even suggest, let alone say outright, that I am all fantastic and super happy all the time in my fat body and always make the best choices would be ridiculous. I’m still learning. But I do:

  • Refuse to bully myself or let others bully me around food and exercise choices
  • Actively work to love myself and how I look
  • Allow myself to thoughtfully eat whatever the hell I want to and exercise however and whenever the hell I want to
  • Seek out others who will support my positivity

Let me tell you: these things make a huge difference. It’s a lot of work to love yourself, especially if that self is not deemed “loveable” by society. But it is most definitely worth the effort.

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White

Health

We Don’t Know: Is My Exercise Routine Hurting Me?

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Last week, I shared how and why I make exercise a priority. As I was researching my article (and reading my regular health blogs), I stumbled along this post on The Greatist. I was literally turning in my final draft for last week’s article and I already knew I had to write a follow up.

Fitspo, Thinspo, and all other “spos” on Instagram, Facebook, or Tumblr are said to be promoting a healthy lifestyle. But I’m wondering if, more often than not, they might just be distorting our body image and our health even more than before.

The big question is: what is too much exercise?

There are a lot of different articles out there that say you should do this many minutes of exercise a week and this percentage should be cardio and this percentage should be strength training. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about exercising to the point where you are damaging your body.

When I was fourteen years old, I played a lot of softball. And I mean, a lot of softball. Between the two JV & Varsity teams, I was one of only three pitchers. That meant I often would play six games a week. If I threw sixty pitches a game, that meant three hundred and sixty pitches a week (not including any practices, warm ups, etc.). As the season would progress, you could slowly see me fall apart—my mechanics, my pitches, my focus—finding the strike zone got harder and harder and it wasn’t my arm.

You see, at fourteen, I wasn’t strong enough to carry a college level-schedule for pitching. That many pitches a week is a lot, even for an eighteen-year-old or a twenty-four-year-old. But I didn’t know that. So I kept pitching. The more tired I got, the shorter my step became, and I started locking my knee. Sure, this gave me a great drop ball, but it also made the ball-and-socket joint in my left hip repeatedly pound against each other. Yeah, it hurt! It hurt a lot and I didn’t know why. The trainer and the coaches just blamed it on fatigue: I would get used to it. Now, I look back and say, “Hell yeah, it was fatigue.” My body was fucking tired, and it was telling me to slow down and take seat. But I was an athlete, I could handle it. I kept playing and a mere six weeks into the season, I tore a tendon in my hip that took a piece of my bone with it. It left in its wake a crack just small enough to not need surgery but serious enough to put me on crutches for eight weeks. I was fourteen, not eighty-five. And what followed was four years of physical therapy (due to continuing alignment issues), knee pain, and back pain. Anytime I go to the running store to get fitted for new shoes, they are surprised I’m a runner because my right leg still supports a majority of my body weight. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy it so much: I wasn’t ever supposed to be good at it again.

The psychological effects of my injury ran deep. I never threw off my high school’s home field pitching mound again. I eventually quit swimming, field hockey, and softball. Maybe if someone had told me not to push myself so hard, I would have enjoyed them through college. Now, as an adult, I shared with you how I make time to exercise regularly. I tried to focus that article on having fun, not burning calories. Why? Well that’s another dangerous line to toe. You know bulimia? The potentially life-threatening eating disorder. People with bulimia may secretly binge—eat large amounts of food—and then purge, try to get rid of the extra calories in an unhealthy way. For example, someone with bulimia may force vomiting or do excessive exercise.

I think often, we forget about that part I put in bold and only focus on the vomiting. I’m not a doctor but I have experienced the obsessive emotions associated with disordered exercising. It’s hard to get them out of your head. You don’t have to be skinny to have them. Yes, being incredibly underweight is a sign you are sick, but so are other things: Is your workout schedule making you lose sleep? Are you constantly stressing about when you can have your next workout? Do you go through a run despite illness or injury? I have. I have obsessed about how to plan my weekend around my workouts. I justify it in some ways because I’m “training for a marathon” and getting enough miles in each week. Or I will sit and look over an entire restaurant menu and plug each and every item in to make sure it’s not too many calories because I only ran five miles today. Most of the time, it means plugging in 10 ingredients per dish to figure out if it’s right and, by the way, that takes forty minutes of my day. WTF, LIZ.

Though I’m really proud of my healthier habits, there are times where I feel my fitness obsession is also my biggest demon. I never feel more alive than I do after a spin class. Running has taught me so much about my limitations and given me confidence in myself I never had before. Early on, running was a way for me to get away from twenty-something stress (work, friends, etc.). But at the same time, I wonder if threw myself into it too fast.

So now, I say: Liz, if you want the damn pastrami melt, get the pastrami melt. I hate this term, but YOLO. Stop wasting hours obsessing over whether you worked out enough to earn that pastrami sandwich. Don’t go home for a run you didn’t plan just because you ate a bit too much. You shouldn’t punish yourself for living life like a normal person. We’re all different. We will find different activities and foods and lifestyles we enjoy. It’s great if you lose ten pounds before summer but if you don’t and you are loving life anyway, that’s all that matters. Go forth!

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

 

Health

How I Made Exercise a Priority

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I love running. I specifically love running half marathons (soon to be marathons, I hope).  I didn’t always like it—in fact in 7th grade my mom made me join the cross country team and I would walk 3.1 miles. I broke my hip in high school. One time my field hockey coach told me she was surprised I even finished two miles. I guess it was a special type of stubbornness that made me a runner. But I did it because I wanted to challenge myself. First, I ran a half-marathon on a whim. Then, I wanted to try and be a “real runner” and tackle my first marathon. I realized I loved planning for the races—you can’t just roll out of bed and run 13.1 miles. You have to build from 0 to 12, and then run your race. And while I wheezed and huffed and walked all around those 13.1 miles in Agoura Hills, it felt fabulous to actually make it through that first race.

To learn to love running, I realized I had to change my mindset. For me it was a competitive attitude (and lack of a team sport) that pushed me to live a more fit life. I’m not saying exercise is always fun for me, but I have learned to make it a time. Why do I make the time? How do I make time? Why do I schedule exercise and make it a priority?

I set a goal and make a plan

One way I force myself to workout is to set a goal, like a race, and then work backwards to create a training plan. Each takes up 14-18 weeks of a year and, a few races in, you have a whole year of training.

I make it fun

Do you hate exercise? You might be doing the wrong kind of exercise! I don’t mean you aren’t doing the Self Magazine endorsed “right exercise.” I mean you have to find the right type of exercise for you. For example, I don’t get Zumba but some of my friends don’t get kickboxing. You have to make the exercise not feel like work and make it fun. Find something amazing and give it a try. By the time you cool down, it will be like you just went to the best therapy ever! Whether it’s trying a new spin class or aerial yoga or Just Dance, you have to try things until you find your staple.

How will you know when to find the right thing? I’ll give you a hint. When you are posting Facebook statuses and taking Sweatie Selfies—you found the right thing. I can’t shut up about my workout and have to share it with all my friends.  I brag about my new cycle shoes I got on sale. It’s like showing off a new dress—except it’s an amazing feeling of accomplishment and self-worth! We were even talking about this at my boot camp this week: who wants to give it all they’ve got and get yelled at when you can work with someone who will make you laugh and feel good about yourself?

I find a buddy

Sometimes, finding something fun is about creating something social. Consider finding a workout buddy: your buddy can keep you entertained during the boring parts of a ten-mile run. Or it can just be someone to commiserate with after a killer crossfit workout, or someone to make fun of your bad moves in Zumba class.

A workout buddy can also push you to be better. I used to do TRX training sessions, but the private ones were expensive. I switched to the trainer’s group boot camp classes to save money, and soon I discovered another perk: I’m a bit competitive. Okay… a lot competitive. Working out with other people at boot camp pushes me to hold a plank ten seconds longer or sprint instead of jog. So partner up!

I plan ahead (and pay ahead)

For some, money is the best motivator. I’m not telling you to go out and purchase an Equinox membership if you are not going to use it. But getting money involved in my exercise regime does help! For example, a lot of boutique spinning studios like SoulCycle require cancellation by 5:30 pm the night before class or you lose the class. This means when I book a 6:00 am bike, I get out of bed because there is no way in hell I’m losing that thirty dollars.

I also recently signed up for GymPact. This app allows you to set a goal of X amount of workouts a week. For every workout you miss, Pact charges you at least ten dollars. If you complete your pact, you earn a portion of the money collected from the people who missed days. I like this because it forces me to get moving for at least  thirty minutes a day and earn money while doing it. It’s not a lot but I’ll be up to twenty dollars this week after five weeks. It’s something!

But Liz, I’m broke! I can’t make it to fancy classes.

When I have to workout at home, I always queue up cool online videos like Blogilates, Daily Burn and Lionsgate BeFit (all free or dirt cheap) but inevitably I find myself skipping out for another episode of House of Cards.

This is where you have to decide if you really are serious about making exercise a priority and and figure out how to motivate yourself to do it. Invite someone to do a home workout with you. Refuse to buy those new shoes you want until you do three weeks of workouts! It takes twenty-one days to make a habit—I know you can do it. You just have to tell yourself you can.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Sports

Let’s Ask: You’re in a Curling League?

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Liz: So, tell me about curling. What is it? Why does it involve—

Anastasia: —the brooms?

Liz: Yeah, brooms.

Anastasia: Do you not know anything about curling?

Liz: I think there’s a Norwegian team that has weird pants? That’s what I know. And it shows up on the Olympic schedule. Actually I did see a good analogy for it the other day. Someone said something on Facebook about how curling is like bocce with brooms on ice. And I was like, “I wonder if that’s actually an accurate statement because that’s such an easy way to explain it.” So is it like bocce with brooms on ice?

Anastasia: Do you feel like you understand bocce ball better than you understand curling?

Liz: Yeah, I do.

Anastasia: (Laughs) Um, it is actually kind of like bocce ball on ice, I’m not gonna lie. The whole idea is that you have these giant rocks, that are called “stones”, and you—very similar to bocce ball—are trying to roll them down a large sheet of ice, as opposed to a lane of shells. And you’re trying to have your rocks be the closest to the center of the thingy at the end, which is it called—oh I’m the worst person to do an interview on this—um, fuck what is it called…the button. The middle is called “the button.” The rest of it is called something else, um, it’s like the…target. It’s not the target, but it looks like a target! You’re aiming for that space at the end. So each four person team throws eight stones, two stones per player, and at the end of those sixteen stones, whatever team has the closest rock to this little red thing in the middle, the button, that is the team that gets the points for that “end.” And an end is like one round.

Liz: How many points do you get?

Anastasia: You get as many points as you have stones in the house—the house! That’s what it’s called, the end thingy is called “the house.” The number of stones you have in the house until broken by the other team. [Editor’s Note: Here’s a link because this makes no sense.]

Liz: So why–what are the brooms for? Do you like use them to speed up and speed down? I don’t understand the brooms.

Anastasia: Okay, the brooms. So when you throw a stone, it’s super heavy. Like, I can barely pick up one and carry it. So they are like these super heavy rocks with handles, and you have this thing called “the hack,” which is at the end of your lane of ice, and you basically put one foot in the hack, put a “slider” on your other foot (to make it slippery so you can slide on it), and launch you and your rock down the ice.

Liz: Mhm.

Anastasia: So you launch yourself off the hack and then release the stone turned a little bit to the left or right—that’s called an “in turn” or an “out turn”—and that’s what adds the “curl.” I don’t fully understand the physics, but this controls the direction the rock spins, which affects the way your rock will curl down the ice. And so what the sweeping does is that it can increase the speed that the rock is going or it can help keep the line straight. If you have really good sweepers, the friction that the brooms make warms up the ice, making it slicker, so the rock moves faster. A lot of times, you might release a light stone with the intention of “sweeping it in,” which means that you are going to have your sweepers sweep it really hard to get the most distance out of it. This gives you better control over placement because you can call your sweepers on and off. That’s why you hear all that yelling: the “skip” is telling his/her sweepers to sweep.

Liz: Mhm. Who’s the skip?

Anastasia: So there are four people on each team. The skip is basically the captain. He/she is the last person who throws, usually, and they’re also the person at the end of the lane calling the shots. The skip will tell you which way to turn your rock (so which way to curl—in or out), how much weight to put on your rock (aka how hard to throw it), and tell you where to aim. And then they yell at the sweepers and tell them whether to sweep or not. That’s why they’re yelling things like “hard”—hard means sweep faster, sweep harder—or “off”—off means stop. Stuff like that. When you’re skipping, you have to judge the speed and the “line”—the direction—of the rock to gauge what it’s doing and if that’s what you want it to be doing.

Liz: Um, awesome. Okay, uh-

Anastasia: Does any of that make sense

Liz: Yes. I also read a Wikipedia article as you were saying it and discovered it was like shuffleboard. And then I was like, “Oh!”

Anastasia: Why would you cheat and read a Wikipedia article!?

Liz: Well you were talking about the brooms and I was like, “I don’t… I’m confused.” So I looked it up and then I was like, “Oh! I get it. It’s like shuffleboard with brooms.” And then the brooms made sense.

Anastasia: I like how bocce ball and shuffleboard make more sense to you. I barely understand bocce ball and I’ve never played shuffleboard.

Liz: So where do you go to play? Do you play like at a rink somewhere?

Anastasia: So I play in California. When I started playing, I was playing in northern California, now I play in southern, but before I started, I didn’t even realize that there was any curling out here because it’s a big Canadian and northern sport–and by “nothern” I mean places where it’s actually cold.

Liz: It’s a sport that requires ice and snow.

Anastasia: It does require ice. So you have to play on an ice rink. But I discovered that a lot of ice rinks, at least in northern and southern California, have curling. But it’s not “dedicated ice,” meaning that we curl on the same ice you skate on and that hockey players play on, which is why they call it “arena curling.”

Liz: Is there a difference?

Anastasia: Well, the biggest challenge is dealing with the quality of the ice because you’re sharing it with all these other people. So we’re always kind of dealing with these dips and slopes and drops in the ice, which can really affect the way you throw things. I’ve seen rocks start curling one way and then completely switch directions by the time they get to the house, or make giant s-curves, or hit a bump and lose steam or just stop altogether, it can be really interesting to strategize through.

Liz: So you turn an ice rink into a curling rink?

Anastasia: We take an ice rink, first it gets zambonied, and then we go through and we use this thing—the best way I can describe it is to imagine a swinging Catholic incense urn—that we use to pebble the ice with water droplets. You shake water droplets all over the ice and then run a scraper over them, to clip off the top, which creates this sort of gritty surface. You can walk on it with sneakers and you won’t slip. I mean, it’s still ice, you can slip, and I’ve fallen a couple times while playing, but you can walk on it with your shoes with much less chance of falling. I know a lot of people are intimidated by the ice and say “Oh I’m gonna have to wear skates or I’m gonna fall over,” but I always tell them: all you have to do is wear sneakers and warm clothes. And you don’t have to bundle up cause you’re moving the whole time, so you get hot.

Liz: So who is the best curling team in the world? Like who’s gonna win the Olympics, in your opinion? Or do you not even know? You just like playing?

Anastasia: You know, someone asked me the other day if the Norwegian team was gonna win purely based on their pants–

Liz: (Laughs) I mean, it’s distracting.

Anastasia: I think the Canadians are the best curlers, but I don’t actually know. You know, there’s a lot of people in my league who are really invested in it and in all the tournaments and things. We do these things called Bonspiels, which is like a big curling tournament, and a lot of leagues—um I don’t want to call it leagues, they are actually called clubs, “curling clubs”, I’m in a curling club—they will have Bonspiels. Like we have two in southern California and there’s at least one up in northern California. And so, there is this competitive circuit that goes on and there are curlers who are very invested in it and will travel to different competitions and things, but I haven’t really gotten there. I enjoy watching a good curling match but I’m not—I like playing the sport much more than I like to watch it. So I watch highlights, or the Youtube video of a really epic shot rather than sit and watch a full game or really keep up with who is curling. But I did spend a couple hours educating myself on the Canadian trials and I do think the Canadians are gonna be in medal contention this year.

Liz: Ooh medal contention… Okay, well I guess you already talked about how you ended up playing, but if I—I don’t want to start playing, I’m just gonna let you know—but if I did want to play…

Anastasia: Why not?

Liz: I mean, not to be rude, but is it like, physically hard? Is that a weird question to ask?

Anastasia: (Laughs)

Liz: We were talking about bocce ball and shuffleboard and people kind of consider those retirement, like on the beach, type sports. But clearly curlers are athletes, it’s not a game. But watching it, I’m like, this seems like a game, I don’t understand. And you said the stone’s are really heavy, but what makes it–

Anastasia: It doesn’t seem that physical?

Liz: What makes it physical? Or what does it require physically? Or like, is it something I can pick it up later?

Anastasia: Yeah. I mean, people can curl at all ages. There is an agility factor with the whole sliding thing but there’s actually this hand pole that people can use to release the stone if they can’t, or don’t want to, get down on their knees to slide.  But the thing that makes the sport really “athletic” is actually the sweeping. It’s very intense—you’re like running down a sheet of ice and sweeping with as much force as you possibly can while doing it. I mean, it’s not the same physical endurance as say basketball or whatever else. But I would say that it’s probably on par with like softball. I think it’s actually a really good intro sport if you’re kind of out of shape and you’re looking for a fun way to start exercising, because I do think it’s a good workout, but I like it more for the fun of the game than the exercise.

Liz: Yeah.

Anastasia: You, for example, would not be able to replace your running routine with curling.

Liz: Okay. That’s what I wanted to know.

Anastasia: But in terms of starting, you can go online and find out if there is a curling club at your local ice rink. I started with a club in northern California, Wine Country Curling, which I had to drive 90 minutes to get too. Now, in LA, I’m in the Hollywood Curling Club but I’ve also gone down and curled with the O.C. club. Most of these clubs, especially right now during Olympic rush, do tons of “Learn to Curls” and drop ins. That’s how I started, by going to a “Learn to Curl.” It’s very low commitment and it’ll probably cost you $15 to $25. But you’re there for a couple hours and they will teach you all the basics. You will throw stones, you will sweep, you will definitely be able to tell if you like it. I enjoyed it so much I decided to sign up for a league after that. But a lot of clubs will also do “drop in” nights where you can just come and play a game or you can “sub” for a league team, which means you come and fill in for someone who is out that week. And curlers are so, so, so nice. They really want people to learn and everyone is more than happy to teach or answer questions from new curlers. Curling is supposed to be this fun, social activity. So while we do take it seriously, but we have a lot of fun too.

Liz: So, what’s your favorite part of the game? And like, what was the part that took you a long time to understand? Was there something you really struggled with?

Anastasia: The best part of curling is, in my opinion, throwing. Because there’s this moment, when you kick off from the hack, where you’re just kind of floating along on the ice. I love that. You’ve done all this preparation: getting into the hack, making sure you’ve got your slider on, that you’ve got your rock, that you’ve figured out what turn your skip wants you to do, you know where to aim,  you know how you need to be positioned to aim there, you know how hard you need to kick off to give the stone the right weight—because the kick off is actually where the force comes from, you don’t launch the rock with your hand, that force comes from your legs—and then, in that moment when you kick off, it’s all done. So it’s this kind of this quiet, calm moment where you are just watching yourself execute. And I think that’s really cool. I don’t really like sweeping, probably because it requires the most physical activity. (Laughs) I also really like skipping. But that was a hard thing for me to grasp–the strategy of it all and really understanding the different ways the rocks turn and where they go and how the curl actually works and the physics of where you want to aim a stone. It took me a whole season before I really started to grasp it, but once I did, it made the game so much more fun.

Liz: Cool.

Anastasia: Now I’m gonna get you to go to a learn to curl.

Liz: No.

Anastasia: I can’t convince you?

Liz: (Laughs) Probably not.

Anastasia Heuer is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the UNDERenlightened. When she’s not writing, you can find her on the road in search of the world’s best hot chocolate, trying not to burn down her kitchen, or in a park somewhere with a good book.  

Liz Bohinc is a Staff Writer for the UNDERenlightened. She’s also a Compassionate Human Being. Runner. Reader. Science Fact and Science Fiction Enthusiast. Softball Addict. Animation Connoisseur. Twitter: @littlelyme.

Sports

My Dark Confession: I Don’t Like Sports

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This is complicated. I have a lot of feelings I need to sort out. It’s not that I don’t like the world of sports, the idea of sports, or their cultural weight. Such high-stakes drama! Years of practice and dedication, all for this one moment! The agony of loss! The thrill of a comeback!

There’s a reason a good deal of my favorite movies as a child were sports movies (do not buy me tequila shots and ask me to recite The Mighty Ducks front-to-back unless that’s exactly what you want to happen). But for some reason, even though I’ll spend two weeks of my life cloistered away binge-watching Friday Night Lights, I glaze over like I haven’t slept in days the minute someone turns on the TV for the actual, for-real, big game. I feel like this webcomic accurately conveys what this experience is like for me:

via VectorBelly

And God help me if I’m in a social situation where every single person around me suddenly feels the urge to weigh in on Sunday’s playoff game and I have nothing to say except, “Yeah, they were like… really throwing the ball a lot, huh?” That’s my cue to whip out my phone and hope BuzzFeed has just tweeted a new list of “Dogs Who Forgot How to Dog.”

I really wish I had a sport that I cared about, or was at least marginally excited about. It can get lonely in here, in my non-sportsing head. But I think it’s safe to say that, aside from the Olympics—which I consider a much more cinematically-adjacent drama-fest than your typical NBA season (Read: Tonya and Nancy, even 20 years later)—it’s just not going to happen for me. I recently voiced this concern to the guy in my life, and he promptly took it upon himself to instill in me a passion for basketball (or at least, an understanding of the game and why someone—i.e. him—might find it exhilarating). This resulted in a lot of pause-and-rewind during crucial moments in the games, followed by “OMGWTFBBQ LIZ WERE YOU WATCHING? DID YOU SEE THIS THING?”

“Oh you mean… that? Where he’s jumping? I saw that.”

We would then watch the shot approximately 3-4 more times until he was convinced that my enthrallment with the moment matched his own. I really do applaud his efforts. But it just hasn’t worked. He still rewinds all the shots, but now we both know he’s just doing it for his own enjoyment.

Upon finding out about my lack of enthusiasm for sporting events, people often ask me if I ever played sports as a kid. No, not really, unless you count my eighteen months of gymnastics classes (I fractured a vertebrae roleplaying My Little Pony one day and was forced to hang up my leotard and retire at the ripe old age of nine), my brief horseback riding stint (won one ribbon at a horse show, got thrown by a horse the next week, and quit the week after—literally did not get back on the horse), or the semester of field hockey I played in high school (I benched myself a lot—my old back injury was particularly unruly that year… maybe). Point being, it just wasn’t for me. I was a drama club kid, through and through.

My mom, thankfully, was sympathetic and padded my extracurricular schedule with art and creative writing classes. Her only caveat was that I had to take a dance class twice a year so I wasn’t just sitting on my ass eating Twinkies writing Sabrina The Teenage Witch spec scripts all day. I remember the day that a parent of one of my peers said to my mom (in front of me, I might add), “Aren’t you worried she won’t have any people skills because she never learned to be a team player? Sports help with that, you know. She should play volleyball.” I’ll admit that I sometimes think back to that moment on days when I’m feeling particularly socially inept and wonder if she was indeed correct. But you know what, lady? I did learn to be a team player, thank you very much! Putting on a play with other kids, learning to suck it up when your BFF got the lead role instead of you, and being loving and supportive towards that guy with stage fright or that girl who’s totally tone deaf—every one of these scenarios is one hell of a team-building exercise for a ten-year-old.

So, have I managed to lead a functional life despite the absence of sports? Yeah, I think so!

Is it socially uneasy every now and then? Sure, but that’s what “Dogs Who Forgot How to Dog” is for.

I think, by now, everyone forgives me for my incurable disinterest, and more importantly, I forgive myself. I’m not going to spend my time trying and failing to be keen on something I obviously have never really cared about. That’s just how it’s gonna be, folks.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think there’s an unfinished Sabrina spec on a floppy disk somewhere calling my name. GAME TIME.

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White

Health

What is “Normal”? Dealing with Depression & Anxiety

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“It’s okay. It’ll get better. Everything will be all right.” I hate when people casually say those words to a distressed friend—and, usually, I am that distressed friend.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Looking back on my teen years, filled with moments of extreme sadness and anger over my body-image issues and my limitations, it’s tempting to say that my panic attacks and depression started then. I think, however, that I was just a regular moody teenager. But I do know that it was around this time that I adopted habits that later led to my anxiety disorder: I stayed silent, I ate my feelings, I avoided talking about it when others broached the subject, and I became resentful of my friends for their “easy” lives.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the U.S., affecting 40 million people, roughly 18% of the population. There are a wide variety of them: generalized anxiety, OCD, PTSD, phobias, etc. If you’ve never experienced depression or a panic attack, here’s a rundown: We all experience anxiety, but those who do not have a disorder can rationalize their fears, work through them, and come out with a plan of attack for any issue they’re facing. But when you have an anxiety or panic attack, the fear takes over. You can’t step back, you can’t shake yourself out of that place of fear, and you can’t force yourself to “just not think about it.” I’ve heard people say a panic attack feels like having a rubber band pulled across their chest, or having an elephant sit on them. The first time I felt it, I thought it might be a heart attack: the shortness of breath, the erratic breathing, the tears. After the attack passes, then comes the self-admonishment, the feelings of inadequacy, the thoughts that you must be weak and inferior to those around you because they don’t go through this—all of which feed into depression. And when you’re depressed, you can’t lift yourself out.

Depressed isn’t just sad or frustrated or down. Depression is detached, and that feels worse than the sad times or the panic-stricken times. You hear people say that if you put on a happy face, the good feelings will come. It’s not true. I’m putting on the happy face, I’m being my perky self. I’m at work, I’m with friends, I’m joking, I’m laughing. But there’s a cold layer around me. I feel as though all my movements are jerky and disjointed as I’m internally debating and debasing myself. You try to pull yourself out, wanting to feel something because anything is better than nothing. You try to talk to friends and family about it but you can’t get the words out or, when you do, they don’t know what to do. So they just offer the only comfort they can—“It’s okay.”

Anxiety disorders and depression do not always go hand in hand, nor does one predispose an individual to the other. However, studies show high co-morbidity rates: in a study of 3,000 patients in clinical trials for generalized anxiety or depression, about a third of anxiety disorder patients had severe enough depressive symptoms to enter the depression trials, while two thirds of the patients in the depression trials had anxiety disorders that warranted joining the generalized anxiety trials. I’ve gone through periods of both anxiety and depression, and because I have—because I’ve sought help—I know I’m likely to go through them again. I know it’s not an instance; it’s a cycle that’s repeated and feeds on itself. But I’ve also learned I’m not alone.

When you live with anxiety or depression, you might feel like you’re the only one, until you meet another ‘only one.’ When my attacks clustered closer and closer together and I started distancing myself from friends, I was scared about where I’d end up if I didn’t get help. So, I started talking to friends who I could trust. It helped me to vent and their comfort kept me from feeling like less of a person. But I still felt disconnected from my peers who all seemed to excel, unhindered. Then, a friend confided in me and told me about her own struggles. A coworker revealed the truth about her battle with the same illness. Suddenly, I wasn’t an imperfection in a perfect world; my struggles weren’t proof of my inadequacies as a human being. I was normal, beautifully and imperfectly normal. It seemed weird and maybe even wrong to feel legitimized by other people’s struggles. But I was. And that was worth something.

I’m not saying talking about it always helps, but not talking about it never does. I’d talked to friends mid–panic attack, either calling them or tracking them down at school to explode at them. They weren’t prepared for it, nor did they have the knowledge or skills to deal with it. But as I became more comfortable telling friends about the imperfect areas of my life, they reciprocated that comfort. I found safe zones to talk and let off steam before I reached attack mode.

So, how can you tell if you’re near this precipice? If any of the above resonated with you, you may want to talk to someone (yes, actually voice the thing you’re most desperate to quell). There’s a stigma associated with “not being able to deal.” A coworker who’s faced similar struggles told one of our peers and was discouraged from telling anyone else. But what we’ve experienced is real, and so is the connection I now have with this amazingly strong and beautiful woman. If she hadn’t told me about her situation, we might not have ever had this connection.

Okay, so what should I do? Again, talk about it. I couldn’t afford a therapist, so I looked into group programs I could join, which are cheaper. The people I met there provided me with a support system. If that doesn’t help, maybe one-on-one sessions are a better fit for you. Bear in mind, however, that it can take a couple of tries to find the right therapist or support group. You have to feel as though you’re in a safe place. Don’t settle until you’ve found that.

Aside from the importance of talking about it, I’ve also learned the value of the following:

Don’t Assume

The perception that your friends and family have it easy builds negative emotions and increases your feelings of being different. It’s hard to remember that those around us suffer too, that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but try. Resentment only distances you from the positive influences in your life.

Sleep

This can be hard when you lie awake at night for hours thinking of what’s to come. But if you’re prone to missing sleep, don’t go to bed when you have to be up in eight hours. It sounds weird, but budget for the freak out. You’ll cry and you’ll stress, but eventually you’ll be so drained emotionally and physically that you will drift off to sleep. However, if you suffer from insomnia, consult your physician.

Exercise

To quote Elle Woods, “Exercising gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t kill their husbands. They just don’t.” I’ve always hated when people suggested exercise to help with mood, cramps, whatever. But it does help. Exercising results in an increase of serotonin and endorphins, which are chemicals that alleviate depression. But even if that twenty-minute walk around your neighborhood doesn’t do much for you chemically, it at least allows you to have some time alone. You have the opportunity to think things through, to be away from the pile of bills waiting for you on your desk, or your spouse who you just had a fight with.

Stress Less

Easier said than done, I know. But map out the major stressors in your life, talk it through with someone if it helps, and formulate a plan of attack to deal with each one in turn. Try not to think negatively. It’s hard but doable. Instead of thinking of “I can’t get a better job,” say to yourself “I’m going to revamp my resume by the end of the week.” Turn your fears into a to-do list. When you make a mistake, instead of obsessing, take a step back and see what you learned from the mistake and do your best to accept it.

Focus on the Happy

I love journaling because it’s a great way to document milestones and see how far I’ve come. However, when I’m upset and want to gain perspective, looking at old journal entries from when I was down can actually increase my feelings of anxiety or depression. For my New Year’s Resolution, a friend and I started a little yearlong project. We each bought a mason jar and pretty stationary. Every time something good happened or we stumbled upon something random that made us happy, we would write it on a piece of paper and stick it in the jar. Whenever I’m down, I open the jar and read through some of the anecdotes. Remembering those moments and how happy I was when I wrote them down helps to lift me out of my funk.

Sports

Playing Sports as an Adult

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We all have friends who gather on their couches to watch the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup and World Series. I just finished watching a 15-inning game of college softball on ESPN. But how many people do you know who get off that couch and shoot some hoops on their own? There’s probably a handful, but for many of us, finding an adult community sports league can be intimidating.

Here are a few good reasons to join an adult sports league, even if you don’t consider yourself an athlete:

#1: Social Exercising

I don’t know what’s worse: the Freshman 15 or the College Degree’d 30. Whatever workout habit you may have had built into your class schedule, that luxury is gone. Now, you are on-the-go all the time. Eating from the drive-thru, or at your desk, or on your couch after 8 pm. Who wants to force themselves to dedicate time to exercising when you barely have time to breathe?

Recreational sports are an easy answer. Depending on the sport, the exercise can be vigorous or moderate, but you still get to meet new people no matter what level of play. Depending on the league you are in, you might even have practices with bonus exercise.

Additionally, you might find your company has a work league or work team. I can tell you right now, playing softball basically got me hired out of my internship and into my first big-person job. My soon-to-be boss and I warmed up and started chatting and, a year later, I graduated and had my first job (because they really needed my help in Center Field… I mean… in the office).

#2: Try something new!

Remember when we were little and your parents signed you up for things like soccer, tennis, basketball, theater camp, and piano? By the time you reached 14, you probably had to start specializing—pick one after-school activity or pick one sport.

But life isn’t over yet! Want to learn play golf? Sign up for a beginner’s course and bring some friends to the driving range. Did you always want to learn to play lacrosse but never could find a league as a kid? Ask your local league if they accommodate beginners. There are so many people who try new sports after they leave school, and it ends up being a center of their social life. I know people who have learned Ultimate Frisbee and Curling. Heck, go read Melissa’s article about Quidditch and tell me you don’t want to try it, too!

Don’t worry if you aren’t that good right away. If you like the league and team, you’ll get better with time

#3: Rekindle a love of sports. 

While my primary form of exercise is running, my first love will always be softball. I played in work leagues and slowpitch leagues, but it just wasn’t the same as the fastpitch I grew up playing.

But now, I play and manage two fastpitch teams and it’s my favorite hobby. It keeps me sane. Both my teams are in an 18+ women’s league with players at every level. I even got to go to a tournament in Las Vegas—seeing 12 teams from 4 different states compete against each other reminded me why I love this game.

Now a few tips to find a sporting league for you!

The two best places to find a league are through your work and through your city’s parks and recreation department. Many major corporations have company leagues or company teams sponsored through their employee activities program. Additionally, your city has adult sports leagues (mine varies from $40-90 per player per season), just like the ones for kids.

If you can’t find leagues through either of those, there are two private companies that run leagues across the United States: Zogsports and Planet Social Sports. Both these leagues generally offer multiple sports a year and usually make deals with local bars to host the athletes for post-game drinks. ZogSports also raises money for charity and offers volunteer opportunities to players in the league (it was founded in NYC in the wake of 9/11).

Lastly, if you are looking for an obscure sport, I highly recommend using Sportsvite or Meetup. Sportsville a Facebook-type community for sports lovers to find teams or find players for their teams.

Level of Competition

Make sure you join a team in the correct level of competition and find a patient manager. You don’t want to play on a team that plays to win if you are just there to have a good time! I can’t stress enough how important a good manager with the right vision can be to your experience. You don’t deserve to be screamed at for a simple mistake, especially when you are paying to play in this league. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes people don’t have the same priorities.

SportsSquare

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Health

Gymming at Home

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: You’ve just left work for the day. It’s rounding 8 pm You’re wiped out and starving, because all you ate for lunch today was a yogurt at your desk at 2 pm. You know your DVR is recording Parks and Rec, but you’d do anything to get home ASAP and just watch it. And… you haven’t worked out since the weekend. You’re feeling sluggish and angry with yourself because of that. Whatever shall you do?

Gymming Square

Photo by Elizabeth Kerin

SCENARIO A: You are a member at a gym. You would drive right over there if not for the über-starvation and the fact that you left your gym clothes and sneakers at home. It was a scattered morning! Your alarm didn’t go off! The dog peed on the floor! You didn’t have time for that nonsense. But at this moment, you feel pressured to justify that $500/year membership. I mean, you should at least go sometimes. And hey, maybe they’ll have Parks and Rec playing on one of those little TVs by the treadmills! Maybe. Though at this rate, you probably won’t get there till 10 pm.

SCENARIO B: Last year, you paid $300 for a fabulous little stationary bike that sits in the corner of your living room. One-time charge, no hidden fees. And there he sits: a reliable steed, ready to serve all your exercise-related needs. You get home, you grab a little sustenance, then you strap on your sneakers and hop on the bike. You spin for exactly one half hour as you watch Parks and Rec. And you’re done by 9 pm, ready to do everything else the evening requires of you.

Last year, I opted for Scenario B. If you’re the self-motivating type (or the type who likes to sing “Titanium” at the top of your lungs while you sweat and would prefer not to be judged), you might want to save the yearly gym membership fee and buy a machine of your very own. I’d been toying with the idea of purchasing a Soul Cycle membership, but upon seeing the hefty price tag ($3,500 for a 50 Class Series! What?!), I quickly decided I’d emulate the Soulsperience in my own home.

I turn off all the overhead lights. I get a few candles burning. I bump my carefully crafted Spotify playlist, the one that rhythmically mimics the life cycle of a proper spinning session: intense jams for those high-resistance climbs and zippy, excitable life-is-awesome tracks for the fast sprints. Sometimes I’ll do themed playlists. Yes, I have done a Disney spinning night. And a 90s Alt-Rock night. (Sans the flannel shirt. Not a fun garment for perspiring.)

Point being: All of these choices can be under your control if you do your gymming at home! It’s liberating. You will never arrive at your spinning or yoga class to find that it’s Britney-themed night, when all you wanted to do was chill to some Radiohead and Bjork and sweat away your existential rage.

Here are some fantastic options for at-home exercise machines, all under $500. Some of them require assembly (mine did). But it was no worse than putting together an Ikea dresser. Well worth it!

Another tip: check out Craigslist. Plenty of people are moving and probably want to sell their old exercise equipment! Only drawback is that you might purchase something sans warranty. But if that’s the case, you might be able to haggle on the price.

Happy Home-Gymming!