Body image boost: Why I stopped reading Cosmopolitan & started reading Esquire

I had body image issues before I started reading mags like Cosmo – but reading Cosmo made my body image worse.

Staring at Photoshopped models hurt my self-esteem. It was frustrating that none of their models looked like me, and most of the clothes they advertised or featured in their spreads wouldn’t fit or flatter me. I thought that there was obviously something wrong with my body.

Before I started reading Cosmo, I was already perpetually in pursuit of the “skinny” physique that all the fashionable clothes fit. After reading fashion rags, I started feeling like women’s magazines were selling me more body image issues than I went in with, and I was definitely buying into them.

The magazines were so saturated with ads for lipsticks and eyeshadow and diet pills that I felt awful after I finished every issue. I was buying the products the columnists recommended and spending a lot of money on items that promised a sexier smile, or a thinner, more toned body. None of it made me feel a shred better about myself.

So I stopped buying the magazines.

When I quit reading those rags, I was no longer in pursuit of the best teeth whitening product or the next natural, herbal weight-loss supplement. I no longer felt like I needed the newest trend in nail polish or dresses or shoes. I felt a lot better as a woman, and my wallet felt a lot better, too.

I started reading a different kind of magazine, instead – men’s magazines.

The content in men’s magazines is a lot different than women’s. Not all of it is focused on fashion. I love Esquire because they have serious long-form journalism – you don’t get that in a woman’s magazine! They have a column filled with smart political commentary. They still have celebrity interviews. Their recipes look delicious, and I’ve come across some very helpful pull-out guides – I can tie a tie now. That’s a skill.

The marketing in men’s magazines is different, too. I know I’m not Esquire’s target market and I love it. I love that I’m not being pandered to in their advertisements. In fact, I have nothing wrong with staring at a TAG Heuer watch ad featuring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Maybe if more women knew about all those things, they’d start reading Esquire, too.

* * * *

Do you read magazines? What’s your favourite magazine and why? Leave me a comment!

To Tough Mudder, or not to Tough Mudder? That is the question

The Tough Mudder is a charity social-fitness event for extremists.

The event bills itself as “probably the toughest event on the planet” – and for me, it probably would be. The military-style obstacle course is rigged with fire, electricity, ice water, mud, heights, and small crawl spaces – basically, it’s my worst nightmare rolled into one “adventure fitness” endurance event.

I want to do one.

Tough Mudder raises money for the Wounded Warrior Project and was created by the British Special Forces to test a soldier’s mental and physical stamina and strength. For the last few years, it’s been growing in popularity as part of the adventure fitness niche – according to the official website, over 460 thousand people tried the course in 2012.

Men make up 76% of the participant pool; 24% of all “Mudders” are women. Participants have to sign a waiver that Mudders like to call the “death waiver”. Only 78% of all participants make it through the 10-12 mile course to the finish line.

Why in the world would anyone, never mind me, ever want to do a certified insane endurance event with a death waiver?

The Wall Street Journal ran an article called Office Workers Run Amok in July of 2012 that explained it. Thanks to the tough appeal of the Mudder, extremely competitive (and possibly somewhat repressed) stock brokers like to sign up. They’ve taken their Type A personalities from the boardrooms and the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to the outdoor obstacle course in a brutal battle against themselves in an attempt to prove they’re as badass as they think they are.

I’m not an adventure fitness person – I’m not even an endurance person. The biggest fitness endurance adventure I’ve ever done was the Color Me Rad 5K where I asthmatically wheezed along through colour bombs and emerged messy at the end. That’s not even the Chuck E. Cheese version of a Tough Mudder in an alternate reality. If I want to test my grit against a Tough Mudder, I have a long way to go.

I want to do it because I like the idea of doing something that scares me. Mostly, I’m curious about the experience. I doubt you’d feel stress the same way after – I think climbing a 15-foot wooden wall with slimy mud-covered ropes after dragging myself through a small water-filled trench and running through fire and electricity would give me some perspective on every day life.

So, the question is: to Tough Mudder or not to Tough Mudder?

I think we both know the answer.

* * * *

You can check out the official Tough Mudder website here and you can read the Wall Street Journal’s article Office Workers Run Amok here. You can check out or donate to the Wounded Warrior Project here.

* * * *

What’s the most intense fitness event you’ve ever participated in? Do you have any tips on how to prepare for an endurance fitness competition?

I don’t play sports, so now what?: The evolution of exercise

As an adult, I’ve become alienated from playing sports.

I’m either not skilled enough to play on a competitive team, or I’m too busy and/or tired to play in a beer league at 11 p.m.. I’m stuck in the middle of a sports dilemma.

So what do I do to stay fit? Go to the gym – but the gym gets boring.

I’m not the only person who feels this way. The popularity of events like the Color Me Rad 5K are partly a response to this. The idea of the color run is where exercise, fun, and friendship go to mate – and where hopefully you as the participant will be born again with a love for physical activity.

The event encourages you as a participant to train before the event with your friends on your “team”, and then hopefully, you’ll continue training after the event in preparation for the next one. Sounds a lot better than pounding the treadmill next while watching Friends re-runs as the guy across from you grunts, right?

Grantland.com recently ran a really interesting piece on the “rise of social-physical challenges”.  The author argues that thanks to the growing popularity of challenge events like the Tough Mudder and Color Run, exercise is undergoing an evolution and a rebrand.

The author, Carles, says “Recapturing lost feelings of camaraderie, physical purpose, and a competitive context can be achieved through participation in social-physical events” like the Color Run.

I wouldn’t say that social-physical events will ever be a substitute for the feeling of playing sports – there’s a big difference between the satisfaction you get when you achieve a personal best and the one you get from a team victory. However, I do think social-physical events are a genius way to get people active and enjoying it.

The events are catering to a market, like me, that would like to have that team-feeling for a just a moment even if we don’t have the time, money, or skill set to be on the team. But although you can celebrate and high-five your friends when you cross that finish line, it’s never going to feel quite like when your teammates rush you after scoring the winning goal from a goal kick in overtime.

Team or no team – find a way that works for you to stay fit and have fun!

* * * *

You can read the Grantland article here.

* * * *

Do you play sports in a competitive adult league or rec/beer league? What do you play?

Fun run: Or how I learned to stop hating & enjoy the jog

Erik, Meg, Tess, and I after the Color Me Rad 5K in Winnipeg, June 2013.

Four years ago, I used to run a lot. I would run in the park, down the street, in the forest – I was like Forrest Gump.

Unlike Forrest Gump, I’m not a natural runner. Also unlike Gump, I hate running.

I was running to get fit. I wanted to pass the police physical aptitude training test when I applied for the force. I’d run against the clock, I’d run to see how far I could go,  I’d run in the forty-degree humidity or the rain.

I’ve always thought running is the most tedious exercise anyone could undertake. I’d take a lap or five or fifteen around the track and then stand at the finish line, hands on my hips panting like a dog, swig from my water bottle and call it a day.

The PARE was the first time I ever took running seriously, and after a year and half of practise, I decided I wasn’t going to apply for the police force after all. I finished my undergraduate degree and took a different path. I retired my sneakers and never gave it another thought – until this spring when I saw the advertisement for the Color Me Rad 5K.

I had to sign up. It’s the “fun run” to end all fun runs.

A fun run is basically any run that raised money or awareness for an issue (like Parkinson’s) and isn’t competitive (ie: timed run to qualify for a marathon).

Fun run – isn’t that an oxymoron?

I thought so, until I read about the Color Me Rad 5K. The premise is this: you wear a white shirt and neon sunglasses, and as you run along the track, you periodically get “color bombed” with coloured corn starch or sprayed with coloured water. They play music at every “color palace” (the station where the volunteers color bomb you) to keep you pumped up and having a good time. At the finish line, you should be four different colours and smiling from ear to ear.

You wear a runner’s bib with numbers so you can find yourself later in the photos the professional photographers take as you run the course. There is no clock. You don’t get a time. You just have fun, and part of the proceeds of the run support a local charity (in Winnipeg’s case, it was Camp Manitou.)

This opportunity to get messy spoke to me in a way no other fun run ever has.

If you’re thinking about learning to run or trying something new, I would suggest trying this event (or another like it). Some people like that it gives them a goal to work toward. Of course, it’s about fun, not about your time. What’s the fun in being #1 and not getting messy?

It was a great time and I’d definitely do the Color Me Rad 5K again next year.

* * * *

Photo taken by a kind stranger on July 21, 2013.

* * * *

Have you ever done a fun run? Do you run in marathons or on a relay team for the marathon? Why do you like it?

Food fight: The battle to beat diabetes & metabolic syndrome

Two years ago, my doctor told me I was pre-diabetic.

They said I have insulin resistance and the mysterious “metabolic syndrome” that seems to influence obesity. My specialist put me on a drug for diabetes to help control my blood sugar and to help me lose weight. I have been taking two white pills twice a day at meals – every day for two years.

Every six months, I have blood drawn and they test my insulin levels. Every six months, I stand on a scale and they measure my height (surprise! I’m still five foot five!) and weight. Every six months, my specialist calculates my BMI and tells me I’m still overweight.

Every day is a new food fight for me.

Every day, I decide what to put in my body. What I eat impacts me – it directly effects my energy level, mood, concentration – and obviously my health. I eat lots of fruits and vegetables, I don’t eat much red meat, I avoid bread and starches. On the recommendation of a dietician I use artificial sweetener instead of sugar in my tea. I count calories and fat and cholesterol and sodium. I exercise an hour a day or more.

The scale doesn’t budge.

In a provocative TEDMed talk, Dr. Peter Attia talks about the relationship between insulin resistance and obesity. He opens by sharing a story from seven years ago when he was an attending in the ER and had to make the decision of whether to amputate a woman’s foot due to a diabetic ulcer.

They had to amputate, and Dr. Attia says he felt contempt for her because he thought it was her fault – “she ate too much, she got unlucky, she got diabetes – case closed.” He believed that theory until three years later, when “despite exercising three or four hours every single day, and following the food pyramid to the letter, (he) gained a lot of weight” and developed metabolic syndrome, or insulin resistance.

His diagnosis scared him into action. He changed his diet by “…adding and subtracting things that most of you would find almost assuredly shocking”. By cutting out refined grains, sugars, and starches, he lost 40 pounds even though he exercised less than he used to.

The whole situation started to make him think, “how did this happen to me if I was supposedly doing everything right?” It led him to theorize that obesity is a normal, “healthy” reaction to insulin resistance – not the other way around.

His is a surprisingly different perspective than most doctors take – and it’s one he’s committed to researching. His TEDMed talk is a video I’ll share with my specialist in September when I see him next.

In the mean time, I’m going to keep taking my medication and exercising, and I’ll be eliminating refined grains, sugars, and starches from my diet, too.

* * * *

You can watch the TEDMed talk here.

You can check out the Canadian version of the “food pyramid”, Canada’s Food Guide, here.

* * * *

Have you reduced or eliminated food items or groups, such as grains and starches, from your diet? How has it affected you? Leave me a comment! 

Into the wild: Riding Mountain National Park

I’m a city girl, born and bred.

I’ve been to New York, LA, Las Vegas, Portland, Minneapolis, Toronto, Vancouver, and many more in between. I love the shrill scream of sirens that pierce the night in the city that never sleeps. The neon signs that light up the Strip. The smell of smokies sizzling on those grill carts along the curbs – okay, maybe not that.

I’m a flatlander. I live on and love the prairies where the sky stretches out to meets the wheat gently swaying on the horizon. But I love visiting the mountains – Montana has a special place in my heart. Same with Colorado and Vancouver. I’ve seen the Rockies. I’ve been to Yellowstone National Park and Banff National Park.

But I’d never seen Riding Mountain National Park, at home in my very own province.

Set in the Manitoba escarpment, Riding Mountain National Park is the only national park to have a town set inside the borders of the park. It’s an amazing place. The town of Wasagaming is adorable and Clear Lake is beautiful.

I’m such a flatlander that the hills in the escarpment scare me. I’m not a confident driver. I’ve never driven more than 50 kms out of the city on the highway. I’ve driven almost 300 km from home, into these hills.

So what did I do? Faced my fears. I hiked the Gorge Creek Trail. It was 6.5 km’s of fun, and by that I mean I scrambled up and down some very steep gravel trails on the side of a cliff overlooking a gorge, with no guardrails to hang onto.

Did I mention I don’t like heights?

Here are some photos from my hike and around town.

Gorge Creek Trail.

The lookout on the escarpment about three-quarters of the way through the hike.

My formerly pristine shoes after the hike.

Walking into town.

View from the town’s main street.

Frolicking on Clear Lake at sunset.

Looking back at the entrance to the floating boardwalk I also hiked.

During my hike on the floating boardwalk.

It was a very good trip and experience all around. I suggest you check it out if you’re into hiking, biking, swimming, boating, or just lounging around in a cute town.

* * * *

All photos taken by me with a Canon 60D.

You can check out Riding Mountain National Park’s official website here.

* * * *

What’s your favorite national park to visit in the summer or in the winter? Leave me a comment!

Happy hour is here: guesting on Pub Chat podcast

Sometimes I like to kick my blog off with words of wisdom from Gord Downie, of The Tragically Hip:

“$2.50 for a hi-ball,
And buck and a half for a beer.
Happy hour, happy hour,
Happy hour is here.”

– Little Bones – The Tragically Hip

Many people indulge in a brew now and again – an ice cold beer can be very refreshing and relaxing. Perhaps people pair their Friday night pint with pizza, or they enjoy it lukewarm from a plastic cup at a sports game with friends.

Some people prefer their beer cheap, while others drink to enjoy the taste.

My friends Colin Enquist (Cenquist) and Adrian Trimble are the latter – beer aficionados. They pay attention to the color, texture, taste and underlying notes in the brew.

Cenquist and Adrian started Pub Chat as a way to share their love for beer and to give you the low-down about the beers in your local liquor mart.

Although I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about beer as these two connoisseurs, I do love a good ice cold beer (and I love podcasting), so I’m excited to be their guest this Wednesday night on the upcoming Pub Chat Podcast. We’ll be reviewing beers from New Belgium Brewing Company’s Folly revival pack and talking about summer sports.

It will be a fun night of gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, some good New Belgium Brewing Company beers, and good conversation with friends.

Now that’s how I like to drink my beer.

* * * *

Check out Pubchat podcast here, find them on iTunes here, and follow @PubChatPodcast here. You can find Colin Enquist on Twitter @cenquist, and Adrian Trimble on Twitter @adriantrimble.

* * * *

What’s your favorite beer? Do you have a favorite summer sport? Leave me a comment!

This is your brain on pod: podcasting for the first time

For me, summer is a time to get creative – so when an old acquaintance, Adam Carroll, asked me to do a podcast with him, I jumped at the chance.

This is how Podthings podcast was born.

I jumped at the chance to work with Adam because podcasts are one of his passions – every week, he listens to hours of ‘casts from the likes of Kevin Smith, Adam Corolla, Joe Rogan, and Chris Hardwick, so he knows his stuff. Adam and his cousin even produced their own podcast, The Rec Room, in 2011.

Adam’s experience and passion compliments my interest and background in radio (I co-hosted a rock music show, Rock Haus, on Red River Radio this winter). To boot, Adam and I have a great partnership – he produces and edits the podcast and acts as webmaster, while I write and maintain the blog posts and copy. We both come up with the content and delivery – and we have fun!

We’ve only debuted two episodes, but we plan to publish on a bi-weekly basis. You can stream to Podthings from our website, or download the podcast from iTunes (it’s listed under Society & Culture).

Our topics of interest run rampant from politics to paranormal – we’re all over the map. Check the show out and feel free to drop myself or Adam a line here if you have any suggestions or comments – we’d love to hear them!

* * * *

You can check out Podthings on our website, Podthings.ca, Like us on Facebook here, and follow us on Twitter here.

What does Adam do? Photography, motion graphics, cinematography, and more! Check out his portfolio on his website, Aria Creative, here. You can also follow him on Twitter, @NotAdamCarolla.

* * * *

Do you listen to podcasts or talk radio shows? What’s a topic, theme, or guest you’d love to hear on a show?

Pay it forward: random acts of kindness

I work in a building at The Forks, a historic meeting place in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The Forks is always a bustling place – people are out enjoying the river walk (when it’s not flooded), trying the eclectic tastes of the marketplace, and watching the buskers that perform around the area. The Forks is also a National Historic Site that does school tours, so it’s not surprising to see a big yellow school bus parked in the cobblestone parking lot, and kids dressed in uniforms walking around.

Today, when I went down to the market on my lunch break, I saw a swarm of kids dressed in neon green t-shirts wandering between the two buildings. A few were carrying big signs that read FREE HUGS. As I was walking to the marketplace building, a boy about 13 or 14 years old and taller than me, ran right up to me and put his hand high in the air.

“Can I have a high five?” He asked me.

I looked skeptically at his shirt and shot a glance at the FREE HUGS sign nearby. “Sure,” I said, and followed through. I wasn’t sure what this was about.

He smiled big at me. “We’re spreading the joy,” he said, then disappeared.

Not even 10 feet later, I encountered the FREE HUGS boy. He was about 13 years old, and looked at me expectantly. I would feel awkward hugging a perfect stranger, never mind a 13 year old boy, so I suggested we high five instead. He was happy to high five me.

I went inside the marketplace and bought a small frozen yogurt. My throat hurt, and I had a headache. I sat by the big glass windows that look out onto into the concrete courtyard. I watched groups of these neon-clad kids wander around, saying hello to strangers, happily leaping into each others arms for a friendly hug.

A group of boys walked up to a rough-looking man smoking at the corner of the building. They talked for a few seconds and one of the boys went to hand something to the man. The man refused, but the boy persisted and gently lay the thing down next to him. Then the man shook their hands and the boys walked away.

Then, a group of girls walked past the big glass windows where I sat. Two of them were carrying plastic bags full of something. I made eye contact with them. I saw writing on the back of their shirts. “I came, I saw, I cared”, I thought it said, but I couldn’t be sure. They came in through the doors and around the corner.

“Excuse me,” a blonde girl in one of the neon shirts said to me.

I looked up, puzzled. “Yes?”

“This is for you,” she said, and handed me a card.

“Thank you,” I said, perplexed.

I opened the card. I thought this was a church group spreading the good word and expected to see a Bible verse printed on the inside of the card. Instead, there was a message printed in pink pen, and a gift card to Tim Hortons taped inside.

“Keep passing on kindness! :)” the card read. Inside the gift card envelope was another message: “Today is a new day… Keep going! :)”

“We thought you could use it,” the girl said to me quietly as her friends stood around her. Then she smiled at me and they walked away.

I was genuinely surprised at what happened, and it brightened my day when I wasn’t feeling so well. I never did find out who those kids were, or why they were doing what they were doing – but I was touched that they were doing it.

This is a thank you to the girls who made my day. The next chance I get, I’m going to pay the kindness forward.

* * * *

Have you ever been the recipient of a random act of kindness? Have you ever committed a random act of kindness? What happened, or what did you do? Leave me a comment.

Summer meals: Simple ways to get that bikini body

Summer can cause real anxiety for some people – the wonderful weather means less clothing and more body showing, which can be scary.

Magazines market the diets and exercise plans to help you “get your perfect bikini body” in time for the beach – which means they start in March. It makes sense – if you’re serious about losing a bit of weight and toning up before you have to bare it on the beach, you need time to do it in a healthful way.

You don’t need a magazine to build confidence to bare your beach body, though. You don’t even need a trainer – you just need to set aside some time to make your meals ahead of time and get in some exercise.

If you prepare your meals ahead of time, you can make yummy, healthy foods and make it easy to keep track of your caloric intake if you’re trying to lose weight. I find what works for me is eating lots of lean proteins and veggies with fruit, and avoiding breads – based on exercise and nutritional science!

Summer makes cooking easy. There’s lots of seasonal vegetables and fruits to choose from.

Making lunch for this week: Salmon steak marinated in a lemon-butter-Worcestershire sauce, seasoning salt and lemon pepper, with green onions and chives.

My Summer Meal Recommendations

Cottage cheese and berries – This has been my go-to for a light lunch or simple breakfast for a long time. The cottage cheese has protein and calcium, and the berries add a dash of tart, sweet color and are loaded with antioxidants, too. (Raspberries are my favorite.) If you don’t like cottage cheese or want to change it up, try plain or vanilla Greek yogurt, which is also packed with protein.

Grilled veggies – This is one of my favorite things to do for dinner on a hot summer night. Grab a pepper, rub on a little bit of olive oil and spices, and grill on the BBQ. Easy, tasty, quick, and a great way to get in some veggies. If you’re feeling exotic, pineapple also tastes great grilled.

Fish – You can BBQ salmon steaks or just cook up some fresh caught fish from a day at the lake (if you’re allowed to keep the fish and you know it’s a clean fishing hole). You can pair the grilled veggies with this, have the grilled pineapple for dessert and boom! You have a meal.

Salmon steak all cooked up!

Chicken and vegetable kebabs – It’s a meal on a skewer. You can prepare the veggies ahead of time (a range of colors looks and tastes good), then just slice up the chicken and stick it all together and grill. No fuss, no muss, delicious.

Veggie dogs – Have a hankering for a hot dog? Replace the beef or pork hot dogs and all their casings and unknown ingredients and grill a veggie (tofu) dog instead. I love mine with grilled onions, ketchup, relish, mustard – and a little bit of Sriracha sauce for a kick!

Hard Boiled Eggs – These are so simple and quick, they’ll soon become a staple. I love the How to Make Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs recipe from Simply Recipes. I add some Miracle Whip (lower calorie, lower fat) instead of mayonnaise and chopped green onion and chives (great to use leftovers if you make the baked salmon) It’s my favorite sandwich if I feel like cheating with bread.

You can grill and you can enjoy your supper on the deck under the setting sun. It’s peaceful, and will help you to eat slow and savor it.

If you plan and prepare your meals ahead of time, it’s a great way to keep track of your caloric intake, too. I find it’s really easy to leave some room for an ice cream on a hot summer night if you make your meals and journal your meals for tomorrow. It’s a simple way to stay on track.

* * * *

Photos taken by me. Follow me on Instagram @dj_iller.

* * * *

What’s your favorite seasonal summer snack or meal? Leave me a comment 🙂