I’m going to start this story with a memory that, yes, did send me into therapy many years later. I don’t remember how old I was, probably somewhere between eight and 12. It was a warm, sunny, summer day. I was sitting on our plaid couch (house colors: gold, black, orange, and every shade of brown, except my room, which was purple) with a book. My mother came toward me and said, “Get outside. Go be with people. No one is ever going to love you if you read this much.”

I believed my mom (who, by the way, has since redeemed herself a million times over). I believed that no one would ever love me since I wasn’t about to give up reading (so I was inherently unlovable ergo the therapist). Also, I believed that I was someone who didn’t naturally want “to go outside.”

For about two decades after that I turned down a lot of exciting invitations. I didn’t ride bikes or go to the beach or go on boats (except tugboats, but that’s another story, and a much more romantic one than this). Then, in 2001, after a very very bad year in my life, I was offered a free bike trip to Napa and Sonoma. All I would have to do is bike about 30 miles every day on hilly terrain. Oh, and drink some wine and eat gourmet meals.

You know how after you’ve had a baby, been left by your son’s father, and then fired from a job so you have to find somewhere new to live with your toddler, you’ll do anything to escape that horrible thing you call your life? Well, reader, I said yes to that free trip to the wine country even though I had not ridden a bike since I was about 11. Well, not really “ridden,” but, more honestly, fallen off. And then cried. In front of a boy’s house. I still have the scar on my knee.

I was 37, though, at the time, and really, I couldn’t fall, metaphorically-speaking, any further. I wasn’t about to turn down the trip. So, to prepare, I left my son with my brother and sister-in-law for a couple of hours and rode my bike around central New Jersey alongside the cars and trucks. Then, a week or so later, I rode my bike around the hills of California next to even bigger trucks (it was early fall, grape press season). Oh, and I ate and drank wine and had some spa treatments.

You know what you’re imagining? About how perfect and wonderful this week was? Well, it was better than that. The weather was ideal, the food was delicious, and the bike rides were liberating and invigorating and made me young again. I realized that, in fact, I am the kind of person who liked to be outside. I can even ride a bike! In fact, I didn’t fall all week (Thank God, too, because I would have been smushed by a truck full of chardonnay grapes). I actually have a distinct memory of the wind drifting through my hair as I rolled quickly down a hill on the Sonoma Coast, feeling freer and happier than I had in months. So what if the man I loved had turned out to be a disappointment (that’s an understatement). If he hadn’t left, I would have never seen the Pacific Ocean from Bodega Bay or stayed at The Madrona Manor.

I really began to see myself differently then and started to lead a more physically adventurous life. This was helpful because my young son was now turning into a little boy who loved to play baseball, run around rocks, and fish. Since I was the only adult in the house, it was up to me to do these things with him. I had to be eager, energetic, and hopeful about these activities. Of course I can throw a football! Of course I can put up a tent!

My son is nine now and he has jumped off quarry ledges, camped, hiked, fished, canoed, gone tubing, swum in oceans and lakes, earned a green belt in Tae Kwon Do, taken gymnastics, ridden horses, practiced yoga, played soccer and football, and has put in requests for kayaking, whitewater rafting, and the trapeze. I’m truly proud of this because, if you’ll remember from the beginning of the story, I was the girl no one was going to love because I read so much and I didn’t want to go outside.

The thing is, I don’t feel like a 45-year-old woman when I do these things. I feel like the kid I never was. Like I’m getting something I didn’t have when I was younger. A big surprise. A new identity. It turns out my mom was wrong about me and I was wrong about myself. I am the person who goes outside. And I love that about myself.

Exercisers often look to famous people for inspiration. Lance Armstrong, Michelle Obama, and Madonna are a few typical heroes. Of course, they do look great and their accomplishments are impressive, but they don’t make me feel more enthusiastic about exercise. It’s an odder group of people who inspire me: the obese and the elderly and the sick; the ones who exercise.

Years ago, when I was in great shape, I headed to the pool at the gym where I taught yoga and where I was taking a master’s swim class. As I stood in my sleek blue maillot, I watched a young man walk into the covered, humid area. I have no idea of the truth, but my guess is he probably weighed about 600 pounds. Maybe it was 400 pounds. Who knows? Does it matter if someone is 400 pounds or 600 pounds? I’m sure it matters to that person, of course; I mean, having to set a goal to lose 400 pounds or 200 pounds makes a world of difference to that person, but I think you understand what I’m trying to say: that’s a lot of extra weight.

Meanwhile, after watching this young man (he appeared to be younger than me; I was about 33 at the time) walk to the pool and after taking my own swimming class, I headed over to the studio where I taught yoga.

I’ve taught all sorts of people, but two in that class really stood out. The first was a woman in her mid-40s who had just had her knee rebuilt. She was in good shape, but she could barely stand on her own. The other person was an old man. Probably about 80 and he had Parkinson’s Disease. He came to my class every week. Even though I had 20 people standing in front of me, these were the two that were always on my mind. I worried about them, of course, and had to make sure they were safe and weren’t going to get hurt, but mostly, they were on my mind because, like the young obese man at the pool, I admired them.

It is easy to exercise when you see the rewards; when you’re young and fit and healthy. Working out can be a form of validation: See what I can do? I can run marathons! Wear a size 2! Dance all night! But when you’re really fat, or really old, or really hurt, exercise isn’t validation. It might feel like a threat (“if you did more of this, you’d look better!”) or an impossible dream (“do this every day for the rest of your life and maybe you’ll lose a few pounds”), but, let’s face it, people who are fat and old are also brave if they manage to go into a gym and put on a bathing suit or yoga pants.

I thought of this because I recently took a class called “Aqua Sculpt.”  I love to swim and I’ve always been intrigued by the pieces of equipment sitting in piles at one end of the pool: foam dumbbells and noodles, waterproof Pilates circles, and colorful kickboards.

According to a 2007 University of Idaho study, fit individuals made as much of a cardiovascular gain running on an aquatic treadmill as they did on a land treadmill. Likewise, another university study found that muscular exercises done in water were as effective as those done on land. In fact, another study provided to me by the American College of Sports Medicine found that the constantly changing nature of water may benefit the core muscles in ways that exercising on land can’t. In fact, during the class I took, I was surprised by the waves created by all those people in the water! While I wouldn’t call it challenging, I would say it was noticeable.

Standing in a warm water pool with a few people who are 80 and others who are more than 150 pounds over their ideal weight might depress people, especially the super fit. But, as many trainers I’ve spoken to over the years have said, it is the heavy and the old who are most inspiring.

I think there are two reasons for this. First, the super-fit often seem spiritually out of balance, and yet oblivious to their imbalance, unlike the obese who are acutely aware of their disproportion. The whole world looks at a fat person and thinks, “something is wrong.” But the superfit are rewarded for their obsessions with calories (both consuming and burning), their level of intensity, and their concern with their looks. These issues aren’t about a love of exercise, but are instead about something more superficial and sometimes they seem like an addiction, not a passion.

Second, it takes courage to be in the gym and look imperfect: old, overweight, and really overweight. It is not easy. I realize that yes, the superfit have courage, too. They overcome anxiety, injuries, and other issues to reach their goals, but there is something about the very visible struggle of the old and overweight that inspires me. They have courage without getting validation or rewards or admiration so their motivation often really does come from within.

I guess I’d like to encourage people who are fit to give water aerobics and other aqua classes a try. You’ll probably have fun, you’ll challenge your muscles in new ways (always good for the very fit!) and you might find some inspiration, like I did.

There’s No Such Thing as Perfect Balance

There’s an old Buddhist saying, “Not Too Tight, Not Too Loose.” I first heard it from one of my favorite yoga teachers, Cyndi Lee.

For the first 35 years of my life, my fitness was too tight. I almost never ate and I exercised obsessively. I was always tired, always hungry, and always in a bad mood.

About eight years ago, for a wide variety of reasons, some positive, some not, I decided to loosen the screws I had put into myself.

The good thing was that I was still able to exercise enough to feel pretty good. Rather than walking for hours every day, I used an elliptical trainer and got my heart rate up to an energizing level, and I loved listening to my favorite songs while I worked out. Even though I had just had my heart broken, I felt happy when I was exercising. I was so blissed out for those 40 minutes that my fellow YMCA members would comment on my euphoria.

My playlist included Rosalita (Bruce Springsteen), She Bangs (Ricky Martin), Don’t Stop Me Now (Queen), and Hold On Tight (Electric Light Orchestra). So you can tell I’m pretty old. But, hey, when I look back on those couple of years, I remember those workouts as fondly as I remember long walks and long swims.

Then, three years ago, besides being a single mother and having a full-time job, I went back to school to get my master’s degree, which I accomplished in one year. Next, in quick succession, I moved and got another job, plus I was still a single mother. Guess what got thrown out the window? My very favorite thing in the world: exercise.

There is only so much a person can do in one day and, despite losing my high level of fitness, I’m glad I made the choices I did. The problem is that I got too loose. Like before, when I was too tight, I was always tired, always hungry, and always in a bad mood.

The human body strives to maintain balance, but it doesn’t strive to maintain “perfect” balance, it strives to maintain the balance it is most used to maintaining. In other words, if you’re fit, your body will work to stay fit, but if you’re out of shape, your body will try to keep you that way. Basically, the human body likes to be in a groove, but the problem is, “there’s a fine line between a rut and a groove.”

Homeostasis is just one reason why it is so hard to leave that bad lover, so hard to quit that chocolate habit, and, most especially, why it is so hard to work out intensely after you’ve sat on the couch watching an hour of Iron Chef, even though you feel perfectly sick at the idea of Paula Deen’s cheese fudge balls.

The thing about homeostasis is that it isn’t your body wanting to maintain balance in a good place, i.e., getting you to your perfect level of fitness or giving you true peace of mind. Instead, it’s basically your body wanting to get back to where it was. So, if you were somewhere tight, your body will strive to be tight. If you were somewhere loose, your body will want to stay loose. And I was very loosey-goosey, at least when it came to exercise, at this point.

I needed balance, but true, perfect balance is pretty hard to come by. Really, there is no such as thing as balance, as you can see by the artist who tries to teach us that lesson with rocks.

In fact, when I teach “balance” in yoga, I always tell my students that being able to balance is not the same as being still. The human body cannot “be still.” We aren’t meant to not move. Breathing moves us, having eyes moves us, having ears moves us. We move. Moving is part of the definition of “living.”

Instead, when I teach my yoga students to balance, I explain that they shouldn’t focus on being still, but should instead consider letting themselves gently adjust and readjust to the movement of their body without judging or panicking. Focus on a still spot on the wall or floor, a “non-living spot,” and then, as your body moves (which it will, you can’t stop it), simply go with it. Your body doesn’t want to fall so it will right itself. The whole process of holding a balance pose in yoga is more about calm than about still.

Did you notice that when I talked about balance I mentioned the problems of “judging” and “panicking?” I used those words because human beings are terrified of falling. In fact, good teachers of ice skating, bike riding, and even walking, such as the parents of toddlers, try to let their kids know that it’s okay to fall and that, in fact, if a person is going to learn something new, they’re going to have to get used to falling.

But, we tend to think of falling as being a “bad” thing. We laugh at people who fall, we judge them, and, if we think we’re about to fall, we panic. But falling is a way to learn the balancing skills you need to walk, to ride a bike, and to stand up straight.

Although it was hard to fall off the fitness wagon for a couple of years, and although I missed being fit, it has brought me a few unexpected rewards.

First, it became very clear to me that exercise will always be my number one love (I mean, after my son, my family, my friends, you know what I mean, my number one hobby or interest that is part of life but not actually life itself). Because, whenever I had a minute or ten or 30 during this very hectic time in my life, I would work out. True, I couldn’t take an uphill climb as quickly as I had before, nor could I ride through a spinning class at exactly the same intensity level that I used to, but I did those things nevertheless, and they always made me happy. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the fittest, it just mattered that I was moving and trying to take care of myself when I could.

Second, and most importantly, having let go of my fitness, I learned that no matter what type of exercise I’m doing–even if it’s none–certain people will always love me and always think I’m beautiful, no matter what my size or shape. I think it’s important that you know that, too, because many people exercise only because they want to be thin. The problem with exercising only to be thin is kind of like walking around thinking only of the fear of falling; you’re filling yourself with judgment and panic.

No judgment, no panic.

Jillian! Lower Your Voice (please).

I grew up in a Jewish-Brooklyn family with shades of Irish and Italian thrown in (or married in, as the case really was). So, there was good food, lots of agida, and a whole lot of yelling. Even when my mom is whispering, she’s screaming. If I call her cell phone and get voice mail, I have to hold the phone away from my ear because her message is so loud. I am constantly reminding her that “I am right next to you!!!” and, yes, I’m usually yelling when I say it. Because, unfortunately, besides inheriting my mother’s sense of humor, I also inherited the “yelling and loud talker” gene.

I am such a loud talker that more than one friend has told me that I really need to lower my voice. I talk so loudly that I once made a New Year’s resolution to lower my voice. Most unfortunately, though, I am such a yeller that I really believe it is the only thing I do that hurts my son. I don’t cook great dinners (although my breakfasts are awesome), and my house isn’t sparkling clean, but he doesn’t care about those things. However, if someone were to ask him, “what about your mother really bothers you?” He would say, “She yells.”

He’s right, too. I do yell and I wish I didn’t. In fact, it is my daily affirmation and I am good about it on most days, but not enough. I would love to go down in history as the mom who never yells.

A few months ago, I tuned in to The Biggest Loser for the first time. I don’t watch a lot of reality TV  and it bothers me that weight-loss is seen as a competition, but, anyway, I was flipping channels and there it was. Well, really, there she was: Jillian Michaels, yeller.

Now, I want to say, before I get into the topic of yelling as a way to get fit, I have seen Ms. Michaels say intelligent, significant, meaningful, and helpful things to people. Like me, I am sure she means well, but yells. Maybe she wishes she didn’t. I am very grateful that my moments of yelling aren’t caught on national TV. But here are a few significant differences between she and I: a) I yell when provoked (not that it’s the right response; it isn’t) and b) I don’t yell at fat people to get them to stop being fat.

So, my topic today isn’t Jillian Michaels. My topic today is trainers who yell and the woman (um, me) who wishes they would stop. Forever.

Yelling at exercisers has a long, rich history and, as you’ve probably guessed, it started with the Armed Forces. According to military information websites, drill sergeants yell to make sure new recruits know who is in charge (the person yelling) and so the younger people also begin to be able to function under pressure. They don’t say, “we yell at recruits because it makes them lose weight and get into shape faster.”

People who love to exercise have looked longingly at servicemen and women because they are in such great shape. In fact, many fitness fools (like me) have pondered the idea of joining the Army/Navy/Marines as a way to get into shape. I remember telling my mother way back in 1981 that, instead of going to Sarah Lawrence, I was considering joining the army because I would “get to exercise.” I told that story to a friend about 15 years later, a woman who had actually been in the Army, and she proudly said, “That’s why I joined.”

Guess what my mother’s response was? She yelled. My ears are still ringing from that one. She yelled not because she didn’t want me to serve my country (which she would have been proud of) but because I was being given the opportunity to go to college, something that she had never received. She hated my ingratitude and my ignorance. I had no clue about what I would have been getting myself into. Not to mention the fact that she knew I hated being yelled at, so why would I join the military? I probably wouldn’t have even survived boot camp. Even without college she was smart enough to know that.

Because of the mystique surrounding the fitness regimen of service people, various personal trainers and group exercise leaders over the years have come up with a variety of “boot camp” classes that typically include running, push-ups, pull-ups, and yelling. For their part, these experts have always bragged about their military service, especially if it included a stint “in the Seals,” which translates into “I’m in better shape than you are and I have been for a long, long time.”

I have two problems with this framework. First, I don’t think of exercise as a competition. This is why my exercises of choice aren’t marathons, triathlons or any type of racing. Second, the yelling. I hate the yelling.

Let’s go back to Jillian Michaels. Though I realize that there is no such thing as “reality TV” (obviously the producers have decided that the yelling makes for a “better” program), there Ms. Michaels stands, thin and beautiful, in front of someone who is struggling, mightily, on television with being very overweight and very out-of-shape and there is Ms. Michaels, screaming. Imagine if a person had trouble doing math and so the teacher yelled and yelled to get them to learn. Would we let that person be humiliated? What is that teacher really teaching, anyway? Is she teaching someone how to feel good about herself and how to take care of herself? Or is she teaching someone that she isn’t good enough and deserves to be mistreated?

I want to say, again, that I am guilty of this. I’m not talking about this because I never yell. I’m talking about this because I know it hurts people to yell (both the yeller and the yelled at) and we shouldn’t reward people who yell and we should protect people who do get yelled at. We shouldn’t think it’s the price we have to pay to get into shape. It’s not. Plenty of people are in amazing shape and no one is yelling at them. Look at this guy, for example. You have to be strong to do this, and he’s humble about it!

So, my point to you is: Don’t yell at yourself, especially if you’re out of shape. If you find yourself yelling at yourself (“you’re fat/do more/get off the couch!”) I suggest that you, instead, speak nicely. Say loving things. Encourage yourself. Be kind. This is what I always tell my son. There is only one rule in life: be nice.

Stop the yelling.

Who Are The Fittest Athletes?

The other day my stepfather, who I adore, but who also often pronounces things as “fact,” when they actually seem to have just came out of his own imagination, said “you know those Iditarod sledders? Those are the fittest people around.”

“Really?” I answered. “I had always heard it was biathletes. You know why? Because the one truest test for fitness is recovery time. How hard can you get your heart to pump and how quickly can you get it back to its resting rate? And the people who can do that are biathletes because they cross-country ski very fast then slow down enough to shoot a target.”

In fact, according to my research, a biathlete’s heart pumps three times per second when they begin to shoot, so their bodies are both working hard (because so much blood is coursing around them so forcefully) and remaining calm enough to keep their rifles still to shoot a faraway target. Quite a fitness feat.

Fitness, let’s remember, is not a measure of your ability at one sport. Of course, you can be a great athlete but that doesn’t mean you are fit compared to other athletes. This is what we are seeing as Lance Armstrong takes on marathons. But what if he were do a triathlon? Can Lance Armstrong swim? Not sure. What would happen if we challenged him even further? Can Armstrong dance? Could he do ballet?

Even aside from the actual skill of leaps, plies, and other complicated steps, could Lance Armstrong make it through a two-hour performance of a ballet using only his own body weight, flexibility, and strength? He probably couldn’t. But, of course, at the same time, Svetlana Zhakarova of the St. Petersburg Ballet probably doesn’t have the type of leg strength Armstrong has (meaning she couldn’t push herself up a hill on a bike), although as you can see from this video, she’s unbelievably strong on just one leg. It’s just not the same type of strength and the two cannot be interchanged.

These differences in fitness, particularly in strength and flexibility, since cardio capacity can often be relied upon in multiple sports (if your heart is strong enough to dance, it is probably strong enough to bike), is why it has always been fun to watch Superstars or Dancing with the Stars, because we see how accomplished athletes struggle at activities other than the ones for which they train.

The Superstars, a TV show I fondly remember from my childhood (and which I hear is coming back this summer) first came on TV in 1973. It featured all sorts of athletes, from Joe Frazier, the boxer, to Jean-Claude Killy, the French skier, to Bob Seagren, an Olympic pole vault gold medalist (who won), taking on different sports, such as weightlifting, swimming, running, and the infamous obstacle course (which, unlike the other sports, really tests the various elements of fitness).

Most of the athletes were mediocre to good at the various events, although Frazier nearly drowned during the 50-meter swimming race since he didn’t know how to swim. “How was I to know I couldn’t unless I tried it?” Frazier said afterward.

It’s notable that the winning athletes were either Olympic non-group sport competitors, such as the decathlon, or football players (including O.J. Simpson).

Unfortunately, when asked “who are the fittest athletes discussion,” sports writers and fitness enthusiasts rarely consider women, even the best in the history of their sport, such as Nadia Comenci’s (who scored five perfect 10s at the 1972 Olympics) or Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the track star, who Sports Illustrated for Women (a now-defunct magazine) once called the Greatest Female Athlete. (To see the whole list, go to http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/siforwomen/top_100/1/).

But, of course, people also never look to the arts, such as dancers, in figuring out who is fit, even though many male athletes have used ballet to improve their overall fitness level. In 1998 Herschel Walker, previously of the National Football League, danced on stage with the Fort Worth Ballet.

Back in non-televised, non-celebrity life, most people would agree that the fittest non-athletes are firemen or Navy Seals, who train to be strong in every way and who now often rely on previously-considered “female” activities, such as yoga and Pilates, to be truly “fit.” In the same way that ballerinas lift weights or take aerobics.

In other words, men and women now realize that in order to be truly fit, it is not enough to be good at a sport, you have to reach a high-level of ability in a variety of categories: muscular strength (how much can you lift), muscular endurance (how long you can lift a weight), flexibility (how well your body moves in a variety of planes), and cardio endurance (can your heart rate keep up with your desire to do a certain activity, such as climb a long flight of stairs or hike?). I would add that people are now, rightly, concerned about balance, too.

If you, like me, aren’t trying to excel at a sport, but instead want to be very fit in all ways, what can you do? For me, the best solution is to find exercise DVDs, gym classes, and activities that include the words “functional fitness,” “boot camp,” or “playground.” The first two might be self-explanatory. Functional fitness and boot camp are code words for a combination of exercises that work your body in all ways. My favorites are Cathe Friedrich’s, Drill Max and Boot Camp.

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Why do I mention the playground? Because if you go the playground with a kid (school-age, not younger) and simply ask him to play Follow the Leader (he’s the leader) you’ll end up with a workout that will include pull-ups, sliding, running, jumping, squatting, and other heart-pounding, flexibility-challenging, and strength-improving movements. Afterward, if you want to give a boost to your by-now probably weakened ego, you can challenge him to more grown-up moves you can do on a jungle gym, such as push-ups and sit-ups.

Because I really think the fittest people on earth aren’t athletes at all, but active kids.