Hey Play60, leave my 10 year old ALONE!

This is my beauty, a few weeks ago.

My Chillgirl is a Mini-Me.  She runs, she jumps, she rides her bike, she plays volleyball.  All. The. Time.

There is rarely a day I don't hear the volleyball bouncing either in the house or out front in the driveway off the garage.  She has learned all the cheer jumps out on the trampoline with her friends. She's allowed to ride her bike all the way to the park now that she's 10.

I have coached her since she was 6 years old in volleyball and now she's also on a club team with a new coach.  She's gotten so much better in the last year and I will love watching her take off on a different level than I could ever coach her.

What I'm saying here is, my kid isn't a sit on the couch and watch hours of TV or video games kind of kid.  She gets out there and moves.

Today with her final report card from school was a slip of paper from Fuel Up to Play 60 who partners with FitnessGram, which is what the report was called.  It was a report of activities apparently Chillgirl did in PE. Aerobics, muscle strength, endurance, flexibility were all tested. She was weighed and measured.  The report showed a comparison of this year's and last year's performance and measurements.  She has only grown an inch but has gained 15 lbs.  Her Body Mass Index, which I myself have had a serious issue with its validity, was up 3.2 whatever unit of measurement that is since last year to 21.6 whatevers.  Apparently this is too much for a 10 year old girl.  The "Healthy Fitness Zone" is a BMI of 14.1-19.5.

She's "high risk"?

So this report went on to say she "needs improvement".  She probably should get out more, be more active each day, less TV time, and eat healthier.  Are you kidding me?  Now I agree with eating healthier as a good suggestion.  She is force-fed salmon and swai and lean turkey and beef at home now...poor thing.  Broccoli and cucumbers and carrot sticks.  Brown rice and wheat pasta.  This is what her Mother makes her eat for dinner.  How dare I!

These are the ridiculous suggestions from the report

I fully admit that Chillgirl likes candy and cheetos, and fruit snacks, which have absolutely no fruit in them, and chips and cheese.  For the love of Pete, my girls can eat a brick of cheese.  I avoid it, knowing the fat content rolling around in that yummy yellow/orange block.  I caution them on eating too much of it.  Both girls like Taco Bell and McDonald's and Panda Express orange chicken.  I try to limit this junk to once a week, out of necessity with our busy schedules.  

I hate to bring up diet or limiting foods with my girls.  I worry about eating disorders and poor body image.  I would never try to make her understand a report like this.  I don't understand it.  I've always been well above my height/weight's healthy BMI.  Everyone tells me "oh, you're all muscle".  Yeah, yeah, I know but I see others with sinewy muscles in their arms and legs but without my puffy layer of cellulite covering them.  

My kids don't have cellulite but I am sure they will have to watch their food intake just like I do to keep it at bay in their adult years.  For now though, they are kids.  They are active kids and I've surrounded them with examples of healthy food and activities.  

That's MY Healthy Fitness Zone.

Chillgirl, today

In My Mind's Eye, I Totally Work It

In my 40s I have been challenged with my weight and my physique, watching it go up and down, in and out, but never landing where I want it.  I have figured out my Hormones and my Hunger are in control and my Mind who wants to wear sundresses and bikinis and only a sports bra to run in, has to sit in the back seat while the other two hoodlums do the driving.

I think I look like this...

But I really look like this...

I work out, yes.  But lately nothing changes whether its a lot or a little exercise.  I don't feel good if I work out only a little so I continue to try to do SOMETHING almost every day. I weigh myself every day.  I fluctuate 4-6 lbs over the course of a month.  Its maddening.  If I am not changing much of my routine or my food, then why do I float around in the 150s that much?  

Thanks Brightroom!

Food.  I do like food.  I have done Weight Watchers, juicing, and online diet plans and dropped down some, but only at most 8-10lbs max.  Then I bottom out.  Eight to ten pounds is a lot on my frame, and I have loved it when it works but as I've crept into my 40s, it takes grander and more extreme dieting to make a dent.  Did I mention I like food?   Its about portion control and the healthy food pyramid I am certain.  But I know I'm not willing to sacrifice like the pros.  Not many people would, so I'm not alone there. I'd love to juice at least once a day, but who has time to clean up that damn juicer?

As much as I like food (and because I do), I hate race pictures.  They are the over-priced "professional" pictures taken by the photography companies that work 5Ks and marathons and triathlons.  Sometimes the photographer lays on the ground to get that shot of us running or cycling by.  This never works.  Depending on how close they get to me when they snap the shot,  I look like a two-ton gorilla, or my head is too big for my body, or my leg fat is billowing in a downward motion.

As in the photos displayed here,  I tend toward a hulkish rather than girlish figure, all massive arms and popping booty in a form-fitting wetsuit or on a skinny little bike.  I am well aware I weigh twice as much, if not more, than that bike.  If it wasn't for the bike, I'd never make it up those hills, that's for sure.  Don't get me started on how unforgiving spandex is.  Thank God everyone out there wears pretty much the same thing so I'm never the worst one.

Lots of Junk in that Trunk

I have been in better shape than I am currently but I never have nor will look like Ms. Desiree Ficker (see above), multiple Ironman top-five finisher and awesome triathlete from my town of Austin, TX.  Underneath all my mass, I might look like her, but I have yet to find the secret to unlocking my potentially (and alleged) tiny underframe.

Work that bike, Girl...

When I pose for pictures I can turn my angles and work it so I look more fit than I am.  Like an overweight mom who's Facebook profile picture is her happy face over the shoulder of her child, who's she's hiding her body behind, I use props to camouflage certain undesirable body parts as well.  Thank you Skinny Bike! Sans the props, I go for the legs together-facing front-biceps at my side-neck prolonged, I look like I have more muscle than fat.  I can work with that.

I just rode 36 hilly miles here, so who cares if I'm fat?

But alas, in the professional race picture, when I am in flight, my limbs out of my control, and angles nowhere in sight, you get what you get.  It ain't always pretty.  But so disheartening when you have felt like a champion and finished something you didn't think you could, but then see pictures that make you look like someone people may think didn't even train for this.  Or didn't train enough.  Or didn't take it seriously.

Happy I'm almost finished and out of the spandex

NOT my best angle

Of course I shouldn't compare myself with the super-fit elite athletes who don't eat anything preserved, and  grow their own organic veggies in their backyards, and who workout every day for hours.  Again, not likely to ever be me.  I do take my racing seriously, and within the scope of my life, with my kids and job and dogs and boyfriend and boyfriend's kids and parents and friends, I do all I can and make the best of it.  I have been more fit in the past, but I've never been this busy.  

My Hunger and Hormones will eat do what they may, but I must champion my Mind to see the healthy girl I am, not magazine cover-perfect, but strong and worthy of being out there with all those other athletes of all shapes and sizes.  Mind, free yourself.

You're still a BadAss, lumps and all