An Introduction.

Balance.

Not too much, not little. A state where things are of equal weight or force.

I named this blog balance, because that's what it amounts to. An effort to find it and an effort to live with it. If you’re reading this, I want to take a moment to say, ‘thank you.’  Thank you for visiting this tiny, humble corner of the internet. Here you will find an arrangement of words and spelling errors intended to form an opinion, that means something, to someone. My hope is that by finding my words, you might find yours. If you choose to read back further, you’ll see that at a younger age, I had written previously on matters related to physical/mental health and fitness, and perhaps at the time believed I had some knowledge or personal experiences worth sharing. I realize now how little I  ‘knew’ and how little I ‘know’ about health, and how little I know about humans.

    Though I had considered taking down previous posts, I have decided (in spite of my embarrassment), to keep them up. Not merely for amusement purposes, though what harm if a chuckle or two is had,  but as a testimony to the journey of growth and humility. A testimony to the experience of believing we knew more than we did, and the experience of realizing how little we know. At one time I would have even called this a ‘health blog’. I now know I cannot call it that. Writing a ‘health blog’ is a contentious endeavor, as it might give the impression that I am an ‘authority’ in the area of health. I am not. The internet has already reached capacity with those. And fortunately, there are people who are genuinely more knowledgeable than I, who can offer more valuable insights and experiences in areas related to health promotion. What I can offer, however, is a blog about being human, about being imperfect, and about having bad days and better days.     

    When I was younger, I used to think that health came down to the food you ate (or didn’t), your propensity to engage in copious amounts of exercise and the way you looked. These days, I realize I very little of that contributed to much in the way of ‘health’. Under the guise of ‘self-improvement’, I slept too little, worked out too much, and monitored my nutritional intake to excess. This did very little to make me feel ‘healthy’. I wasn’t able to sit still with my thoughts for five minutes, and oftentimes still struggle to. The response to this, was to drink too much coffee and workout despite my body's craving for rest, and unsurprisingly, I didn’t feel better. But I do know that long walks, honest conversations and good food with friends have always made me feel better. 

  Personally, I feel that our thoughts and the stories we tell ourselves have as much of an impact on our sense of well-being as the foods we do or do not consume. And in an era marked by over-consumption and under-consumption, it’s hard to tell what ‘health’ is and what it isn’t. Perhaps the answer is somewhere in that vast space we might call the ‘in between’. And perhaps part of the problem is that for so long, we have been led by marketing and social media to define health in antagonistic terms. We’re either on a diet or off one. We are either drinking or we’re not drinking. We are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The room for imperfection is marginal. The room for balance has been blurred.This blog’s ambition is to explore what that balance might look like. And it’s likely that your balance will look different from mine. It isn’t my intention to tell you what your world should look like. I can however, be open and honest, about what mine might appear to be. If this makes you feel a little less alone in your own journey, then that will have been worthwhile. 

In the past few years, I have worked as a personal trainer and in a healthcare setting, and more recently have been accepted into a Master’s programme to study Public Health. This is an extension of my desire to explore on a deeper level how social, economic, cultural and environmental issues influence health. I am interested in how we as individuals can interact with these factors to find a balance amidst them. As the days, weeks and months progress, I hope to write further about finding that balance. I hope you enjoy the words and join the journey.

 

Sweatshirts, seaside and struggle.

My grey sweatshirt is the most valuable piece of clothing I own. It's a tough and worn cotton, the type of material you could dry the dishes with. I bought it for a modest 99 cent in a charity shop and I wear it when I run.

I've taken as much time off running as I have off writing.
So I start with humble but testing intention of getting out to the Marina and back, about 3K. Enough of a distance to test the legs again. I ease into it. My stride is slow and meditative. My joints are stiff and cold as I haven't warmed up and there's clouds moving faster than me.But my knees are pain free so far and that's a good enough motivation for me.

I jog past Spar and pass men in suits who are scoffing sandwiches on their lunch break with their eyes fixed on their phones. I nod towards the local wino, with his New York Yankees cap and Black Eminem Tshirt. He's parked outside of the shop with purpose, in one of those chairs you'd trade 12 cans for at Electric Picnic. What a regular Tuesday.
 Unsurprisingly, it doesn't take long for sweat to seep through the shirt. And as my legs get heavier with each landing along the pavement, the shirt absorbs sweat like a sponge.

On the outskirts of the city, I run past the Church of Jehovah that leads onto the bridge above the link road. There's two homeless men just before the bridge, one sitting down with a can smoking a rollie ; the other fidgeting with something in his backpack. They have tents laid out and I wondered if they have been set up their for long. I don't stop and stare, they have their business to carry out and I have mine. I keep moving.

I pace over the bridge and look down. Cars moving endlessly, going somewhere from nowhere. i wonder where each and everyone of those cars is going. Each little moving box carrying a story and a world of people, each with their own dreams and fears. Each just trying to get on with it.

It isn't long before my legs begin to feel pretty rough, but I decide to hang on and keep up the pace until I reach the Marina. I'll rest when I can see the sea. I arrive and the view is everything it always has been, enough to make me forget about the city. The sea is blue and deep. I wondered if I fell in could I swim. I thought it best to admire the sea but not fuck with it.

I got back to running and once I reached the end of the lane, I decided to keep on going. I wasn't too tired yet. I reached Blackrock, with it's market stalls, cafe and beach strand.
It doesn't take long to escape the city and the poverty seems well hidden here. There's no tents, only artisan stalls. Scones and sandwiches, seaside and sun.
A grandfather sits with his grandson and chats away, looking out onto the waves.
I wondered if I would live to be that age and what my grandchild will think of me. 26 is a long way to go.

After taking some time to take in the view and wonder why I don't do this everyday, I decided to run back home. The shirt is drenched at this point and I can taste the salt water rolling down my face.
The legs are somehow still going, though I don't feel connected to them at this point. I am merely a head on moving limbs at this point. I realize it has been a long time since I ran. The return journey home is mostly uphill and I laugh at my decision to have kept going. Running is all resilience. It's a mental game. The mind is stubborn, if not stupid. That's how you keep going. Even when you know you should stop.

A dirty white van passes. Written on the side is a warning to the masses: Prepare, for the Coming of the Lord is near. I did wonder if the end of the World would be such a bad thing after all. I wonder where the guys in the white van will go. I bet they'll be as surprised as me.

As I draw near home, I pass the bridge again. The two homeless are packing up their tent and the rollies are put out on the floor.  I struggle along home and decide to walk the last 500 metres. 10K in total. More than I've done in a while, but I'm glad I did it. Tomorrow I'll drop the volume and up the speed. I won't do more than 5k. I can feel it in my legs already.

I'm looking out of the window and I'm thinking of those men in their tents.  I wonder where they're sleeping tonight, and how easy I have it. Running along Blackrock for leisure. Sipping coffee on the bay. We're worlds apart.

Delusion: Why I don't believe in heroes.

I had an interview a few months ago with a sales company in Cork. I am pretty good at talking utter nonsense so I figured if I could maintain a consistent flow of bullshit, for fifteen minutes, we’d be golden. The interview unfolded in the usual manner; they asked the questions I wanted them to ask. I gave the answers they wanted to me to give. But, the last question asked, it threw me off. ‘Could you tell me some of your heroes?’ I wasn’t expecting a question of such grandeur. It posed an unconventional depth that I honestly wasn’t expecting from the young man in the suit across from me. He had barely grown hair on his face and looked younger than I. Yet, he assumed the authority to enquire and assess who I was as a person. Here I am, sitting across from the Wolf of Wall Street, contemplating if I’m applying to an entry level sales company or Trinity College. Maybe the interviewer had read my blog and had heard I was a dispenser of wisdom. Whatever the reason, I was perplexed.

 And my answer?  Who was my hero? I said it wasn’t John Lennon, that’s for sure. He might have ‘imagined’ peace, but he still beat women and suffered from an intense God complex. I said it wasn’t Ghandi either. He was a great man, but still held some racial views that don’t even deserve discussion. And certainly, it wasn’t my father. He was a soldier and a man I looked at as a boy with an intense mixture of awe and fear. But he was just a man too. It’s dangerous to idolize men and women.  Let’s not forget that Adolf Hitler was formally hailed as the 1939 Times man of the year! (Prior to his reign of terror, that has left a permanent stain on history) ‘The more I see of men the more I admire dogs.’ 

In spite of this reality, why do we insist upon christening individuals as heroes? Why are certain humans dressed in divine expectation? History has shown time and time again the sequence whereby the public propel certain individuals to divine levels, only before realizing that those individuals weren’t as perfect as they had been perceived.  Yet we continue to insist that one day, we will find it, in someone, if not something. We crave perfection; and failing to find it in ourselves, we seek it out in others. In potential mates, celebrities we adore and Instagram selves. Why we invest our perfect expectations in imperfect people, I know not. Perhaps it is a human instinct to put others on a pedestal?  If it is, I can understand why. Imagine the first time you we’re blown away by a crush. You met a nice guy or a girl and were immediately taken aback by them. Their personality, their appearance and their every being appeared flawless. They were beautifully estranged. In that moment of anonymity, anyone can appear as truly perfect. Some people will avoid ever delving beyond that point of falsity in a relationship, so as to escape disappointment. And ultimately, can you blame them? We all want a hero. It’s comforting to know that there is someone who is seemingly perfect in spite of all our crap. Someone who has the answer, or knows the Way. Mark Twain said we admire in others what we perceive as lacking ourselves. We envy them. We make heroes out of them, regretfully, for their ability to accomplish what we believe we cannot. No doubt, there are inspiring men and women. However, 'if everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.' Only more individuals in touch with life, how short it is, and how vital is to make our time here valuable. Our inability to separate imagination from reality and perfection from imperfection has sown a world of false and first impression. 

We don’t need more heroes. More porcelain kings with porcelain crowns. We need more imperfection, more honesty and more of what is raw. If I really was to give an answer about who my hero is; ‘who’ I admire: it’s the parent working 12 hour shifts five or six days a week to give their kids a shot at a life they themselves never had. It’s the young man who is brave enough to admit that he’s struggling. He’s having a hard time dealing with the real world, his confidence is blown and he needs some help. A cup of tea and a chat. I admire the person who’s afraid of failure, but is willing to give it a shot and pursue their passion, despite the conflict within them. The person who decides to silence the doubts and the opinions of others.  The person who says, ‘ I have potential and am going to do my best to awaken it.’ We all have the opportunity to be these people and more. We are born to be fighters, to be contenders. Paul Simon’s Boxer comes about as close to displaying the imperfection of a real hero as is possible. A fighter by trade, he carries the reminder of 

‘every glove that laid him down or cut him ‘till he cried out, in his anger and his shame, I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains.’

Real, worked and worn. The boxer has felt adversity from outside and within himself, yet continues to withstand. We can all relate in some way to that. So, rather than throwing all your cards in on those men and women who are as morbidly temporary on this earth as you are, place your trust in yourself. Who you are. Will people understand the path you’re taking?  Maybe not. But as a great friend of mine once said, ‘fuck them’. Atleast you’ll be original. That’s someone I’d admire. Be your own hero.

Pillars don't fall as hard as we do

Some months ago, I found myself in a local bar with a friend. Lost for conversation, a pillar in the back of the establishment became the prime suspect of our discussion. It was intrusive. Stuck there. In the way. After a few beers I can recall asking some punter why it needed to be there and if anyone felt as inflicted by the pillar's presence as I. He didn’t seem to care, nor was he taken-a-back by it. It was only a pillar after all. ‘It’s probably a structural integrity issue.’ Not being familiar with construction lingo, I vowed to google structural integrity when I got home. The definition I found was practically poetic. 

Structural integrity is the ability of an item to hold together under a load, including its own weight, resisting breakage or bending.

When I heard it, I found it instantly relatable. 'The ability of an item to hold together under a load, including its own weight.' I thought, humans have that same conflict. Iv'e been having it since ninety three. It seems as though often our biggest conflicts are not with externalities, but with ourselves. It took a simple explanation of a pillars structure to make me examine myself! And it hit me so hard. We're fighting our own weight at the worst of times. All of the doubts, the self-criticism and pressure we put upon our selves is enough to cause serious breakage on any human being. And we fall harder then any building or pillar. You  just won't hear it. That little voice that say's 'you're not good enough' can't be underestimated, not should it be accepted. We're designed to adapt. We adapt to challenges, geographical chances and ecological opposition. That's evolution 101. Without challenge, we cannot grow. Muscle tissue is one and the same. But internal resistance is a unique challenge, one that's defined my generation and keeps me awake wondering who I am at three in the morning on a Thursday night. But if we can overcome that dark voice, we can surely overcome everything else.

If you're still at a loss, if you can't relate to this internal voice, I'm very happy for you. But if you've ever allowed you're first thought of the day to be strictly negative, read on. Imagine this.  You wake up one gloomy morning, meeting the day with discouragment. A lack of excitement. You stumble into the bathroom, teary eyed, still half asleep and glance into the mirror. All you see is failure. All you see, is failure.

Why are we profoundly hurtful to ourselves?

We go through our day with an inner voice that hangs on our shoulder, uttering doubt and saying 'you can't'. And we assume that to be normal! It’s insane that we not only expect that voice but encourage its existence. And we do encourage it. Every time we choose to believe the negative voice in our head, we are encouraging its existence. You'd never talk to a friend like that, yet we willingly abuse ourselves? Take writing as an example. It's something I'm new to, and it's an interesting experience for me. I write a paragraph, only to berate myself immediately after for what I’ve just written. Like a broken record, I build myself up only to be torn back down. How much more fruitful would the writing process be if I could write without self-depreciation. How much greater could any situation be if we could simply stop being  hard on ourselves. You are not your thoughts. If I was mine, I’d be a piece of shit. That’s not healthy. If we feed into that negative voice every day, we allow it direct our circumstances and reaction to them.

Getting back to structural integrity; my understanding is that in order for an object to maintain stability, we need to study previous breakages in order prevent future failure. Can you identify previous situations where the voice in your head has largely prevented you from experiencing what could have been a better day? I can, that's for sure. Are you going through the same motions of self-criticism, day in day out? I'm not saying you need to force a smile or beat yourself with diluted positivity but you do need to be nice to yourself. Don't beat yourself up every day. I challenge you to look in the mirror in the morning and say one decent thing about yourself. I want you to mean it. Find one thing and believe it. If you could see yourself the way others see you, you would really know how much you are loved. You are intimately designed and possess talents that set you apart from anyone in the entire planet. That's pretty cool. Just think about that. Next time you're gonna beat yourself up, just remember that you have a purpose on this planet and that somebody, at least one person, thinks very highly of you.For everything you dislike in yourself, there's an abundance of things people love. 

We are not at the mercy of external forces, but rather wounds of our own self infliction.

Peace

Positively filtered

Shit happens.

I'll take that from Forest and say it again, Shit happens.

There ain’t no denying it. I’m probably 75% on my best day; and those are the good days. Other days, I wonder why I'm still hanging in and if I’m leaving any significant impact on anything. And that’s okay.  In fact, it's actually positive. I think social media has had a strong influence on the promotion of positivity and mental well-being, but they aren’t necessarily one and the same thing. You see, recently we’ve entered an age of insincerity. We filter our faces and our feelings, leaving our hearts at the door and a strained smile on our sleeves. The 'positivity' you see proposed on social media  looks more like denial than hope.  It's shallow and unrelatable. The reality Is that life is hard. If you’re breathing, you’ve experienced pain. Unless you’re asleep, or dead-or asleep. Life does not ease by smoothly. To be human is to feel. Pain and heartbreak inevitably come with that. It’s when you deny what you’re feeling, that you’re actually being the opposite of positive. You are being precisely negative! Life can be an awful song, but it can also be a beautiful one. However, the recognition of the latter is not possible without the existence of the former.

In case you’re not getting my point, I’ll say it again, we suffer. I suffer. I struggle most days. Just because I write words and post them to social media doesn't mean I have 'it' together.  But we need to be honest. I'm saying this to make dialogue. The more we continue to spread positivity without allowing ourselves to feel, the more damage we sow.  Though it may sound strange, it is in our fundamental interest to suffer. CS Lewis, the man who wrote one of the most well known happy-ending tales of all time, acknowledged that experience was the ‘most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.’ Without experience, without pain, we cannot learn, and therefore grow. When (not if) we approach a difficult or alarming time in life; when we are beat up and worn, turning our heads and forcing a smile won’t enable growth. Sometimes the best remedy can be to simple meditate on your pain. Sometimes the most important lessons come from weeping. 

THINK POSITIVE BE POSITIVE may not be the answer to dealing with the realities of life. I found myself becoming depressed after viewing positive mantras repeated and perverted time and time again on social media. They're not real. That blogger doesn't know me. You don't know who I am, or what I've been through. I don't you, either. Only we know our stories and their ups and downs. But we can make them worthwhile by accepting them. There needs to be sincerity. How can anyone ever grow if they aren’t real? My room-mate told me recently that if someone’s grass seems greener, there’s generally more shit. That’s accurate. There are some people who genuinely wield more optimism and I admire them. But, I’d equally argue that they’re more in touch with their emotions than they would either let on or you are unaware of. They’re probably that positive because they are in touch with their pain.

Here’s the reality, I’ve NEVER picked up heavy weight and thought it wasn’t heavy. My reaction to pain is the the same. Saying a  180kg deadlift isn’t heavy doesn’t make it light. And you don’t fight depression by denying it. Cut the BS. Be real. 
I've never regretted vulnerability and hurt.When I've gotten to know the pain I'm feeling, I've found the most beautiful understanding of myself. There lies forgiveness, acceptance and growth. Risk vulnerability and know what it is to be human or risk never really knowing who you are, what you’re made or who you can become.

Why pulling yourself up is important.

Why the pull up is an essential testimony to physical and mental strength.

There are certain exercises which reap ultimate benefits and are most conducive to muscular hypertrophy and strength gains. (In other words, they get you jacked.) Incidentally, I try not to neglect them, for fear of selling my results short in my training and getting a bigger bang for my buck. Think about the benefits of performing an explosive power clean in place of 3x12 ‘’shrugs’’. One hits your posterior chain intensely, developing your leg muscles, including the calves, glutes, and hamstrings, whilst also targeting the muscles in the lower and upper back and traps. The other can build or break depending on your posture, range of motion and dumbbell weight. I prefer to choose the exercises that give me the utmost results. You won’t see me on a chest press, ‘wrist curling’ or on any machine that requires a mechanical range of motion and very little core activation. I prefer compound exercises. 'They are exercises that engage two or more different joints to fully stimulate entire muscle groups and, indeed, multiple muscles'. These tried and tested movements are tried and tested for a reason, and they’re pretty badass too.

A full depth squat, where an athlete squats as low as possible; before driving their heels into the ground and ascending upwards with (relatively) heavy weight on their back. A full range of motion push up, where one assumes the push up position with elbows locked and hands centered about shoulder width apart on the ground before pushing back up.  I like these movements. They feel natural to the body, unlike the mechanic movement progressions found on the pec dec and smith machine. Incidentally, because the body is going through the full range of motion with proper form and weight, they happen to be the exercises that support muscle growth, time and time again. Of all the excercises I would choose, pullups would place somewhere in the top three. No exercise has given me a greater sense of achievement than successfully completing a full range of motion pull-up. targeting all of the major 'pull' muscles in your body, 'the back, biceps and forearms, pull ups are a must if functional strength is a desire; and it always should be.

 It’s what’s contributed to my own pull strength and has supported strength gains in my deadlift, overhead press and bench press. The pull up targets every muscle in your back. As a rule of thumb, if I am ever trying to put on weight, I not only allow the mirror to be my guiding point for when to halt my caloric intake, but also allow my ability to perform a pullup to guide me. If I have gained weight, yet can no longer perform ten to twelve pullups, something is wrong and my strength gains are likely stalling. People might call me crazy, but a pullup has always had so much symbolic value for me. Pulling one’s own weight up with your arms and back is a true testimony to functional strength. The pullup says, ‘I can carry this’. No matter how hard things get, if you can still do a pullup, you’re still strong. I sometimes imagine that life can be as daunting as hanging from a cliff, and the only option you have is to pull yourself up or fall to death. Everytime I perform a pull up, I feel like I am making a step in the positive direction, becoming a stronger and better version of myself. 

 Be like Travis Bickle

I first fell in love with the pull-up after watching Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver (1976) for the first time. Travis Bickle’s desire to redefine his identity, gain strength and get back in shape after late nights in the cab inspired me. ‘’June twenty-ninth. I gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined my body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on there will be 50 push ups each morning, 50 pullups. There will be no more pills, no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight.’’ Travis progressed from being weak and gaunt to building some functional strength and consequently, muscle. Appearance is a consequence of fitness. It is never the other way around. If you can perform 50 pull-ups, say for 5x10, there’s no way you won’t be on the road to getting jacked. Of course, this won’t happen over night. Most will struggle to perform one pull up, let alone ten. But those same people will get as much, if not more personal satisfaction, from performing one pull up for the first time then ten.However, slowly but surely, you will get there. Whether you perform it in one set of ten or ten sets of one, it’s still ten pull-ups.

Performing the pull up

Grab a bar which will support your weight with your hands slightly wider than shoulder width apart. Your hands should be facing away from you (that's a pullup). Hanging all the way down from the bar, breathe in and while bracing your core,  exhale while pulling yourself up until your chin is above the bar. Lower yourself back down before pulling up again, concentrating on engaging your back, core and biceps.

SCALEABLE

 Easy for you to say Sam, you don't have a life and presumably spend hours in a playground, swinging off the jungle gym. I can't even do one pull up!

True as that may be, if you can't do a pull-up you're not alone. When I was underweight and trying to overcome anorexia, I couldn't even perform half a pull up!

Fortunately, there is a variation for every level of Athlete.

Can’t do an overhand pullup? No problem! Chin ups are easier. Grab the bar with your palms facing towards you an pull yourself up, placing more emphasis on your biceps. Can’t do either? Inverted rows are your starting block. It doesn't matter where you are on the pullup scale. Whether you can do 1 or 10, the important thing is that you progress. For some, that's going to mean performing pullups weighted with a 20 kg vest. For others, that first unassisted pullup is the golden prize.


FUNCTIONAL

You’ll see most guys who can bench 225 lbs, yet can barely perform one full range of motion pull-up. What’s the point of pushing all that weight with questionable form if you literally can’t pull yourself up? If you’re not including the pull-up in your arsenal of exercises, you’re selling yourself short. This is particularly poignant given all of the benefits you can reap. Pull-ups (and the shoulder press) are for the upper body what squats are to the lower. They are a compound exercise which trigger a release of growth hormones while targeting your back, biceps and core. In other words, pull-ups = gains maximus. Every man wants that V-taper, and pull-ups are essential in achieving that desired physique.

CONVENIENT

 Pull-ups can be performed anywhere. If you have access to a playground, you can do pull-ups. No playground? Find a tree. They are too convenient and require no fancy equipment. When I first started to workout in Beijing, all I had access to was a pull up bar in the garden that the locals would use. Performing just pushups and pull-ups, I made significant upper body gains. Now that I have access to a gym, they are still one of my number one go to exercises for the upper body. 

There you have it, now that you know, you know. Do not take this as an instructional fitness article. My thoughts on pull ups cannot replace the value of an intelligent training routine by a professional trainer. I am just an everyman who enjoys staying active and strength training, I felt a desire to write an article on my appreciation of the pull-up. I need a new hobby. Stay safe!

-Sam

References:

http://www.allmaxnutrition.com/post-articles/training/back-to-basics-the-5-best-compound-movements-for-maximum-gains/

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/04/25/do-a-pull-up/

(b)eating disorder

I lace up my asics, noticing how worn, overused and reaking of sweat they are. My body resembles much of the same, yet I'm far more oblivious of that than I am of the asics. It's Saturday evening in June and as school is finishing up, boys-now men- are untieng the laces that the last six years had held on them. School was over, life was just beginning. Most are conclude their education by having a final blow out, saying their goodbyes and simply thanking God that it's all over. Either way, someone is doing something. But not me. I'm running. I don't even know why at this point. I'm eight stone, 119 lbs and unlikely to get any thinner, but I know what will happen if I don't. I'll be anxious, I'll be uneasy and I'll shame myself for not continuing in this race I've started with myself. You think you're winning. You think you're in control. But you're really killing yourself, stride by stride, on an evening in July. Now days, I try to remember who I was, but it seems so distant, and so unreal to me. I don't really remember who I was, and although my friends might have recalled some tangible difference, they may as easily recall that they don't. For all that was external about my eating disorder, more of it was internal. I'm just one or two steps ahead of who I was, and one or two steps away from it. And if I sat down with Sam four year ago, all I could probably utter is 'why?' I don't think I'd get an answer, either.

Remember when we were young enough to have sleepovers? I do. In one particular instance, a friend had commented on my torso when I was changing my shirt. ''You have boobs!'' The sentence  came out as a joke but hung in the air, and for the first time in my life I questioned my physical appearance. How is that we go from unconscientious babies, with no self concerns other than needing to eat and poop, to being self aware adolescents, questioning ourselves as putting our bodies on trial. You don't inherit self-hate. You aren't born with low self-esteem. You don't come out of the womb regretting what you were made of. At one point or another, I looked in my bathroom mirror, eye'd myself up and down and asked, 'what is wrong with me.' Looking back, now I laugh. Most adolescent boys, up to 70%, experience the development of breast tissue during puberty. Yet a simple comment, or slag about my own appearance, shook my world. The next day I ran. I didn't know how far to run or what I was even looking for, but I ran. I was 16 and hellbent on changing who I was.

I grew up without a dad around, and as such I never had a male role model. I looked around to other guys for example, but never felt like I was the same as they were. They were in better shape. They were stronger, faster and incidentally seemed to be more in control. My family didn't live on much and we endured some pretty challenging domestic conflict. So I guess, in one way, I was trying to control my life by running away from it. I started to count calories, run five miles a day and avoid social situations that involved unhealthy food and drink. The more I ran, the more my body begun to thin out, but I never saw it. In fact, I only thought I was getting 'fatter'. So I ran more. I dieted harder. If I went to a party on a Saturday night, I would punish myself the next day by skipping breakfast and lunch and running ten miles that night. My knees are still thanking me. And it's funny. I still never thought I had a problem. I had convinced myself that as long as I wasn't sticking my head down a toilet, I didn't have a problem. When I eventually began to do that, I told myself that it could have been a lot worse, I could not be eating at all. As my dissatisfaction with my own body increased, I binged harder, puked more, and ran longer. The irony of all of this is that I never thought I had a problem. I thought that if I ever had a problem, I'd know it. I was merely controlling variables to reach a 'better' weight. My skin got dry, my bones were brittle and my testosterone dropped. Depression, anxiety, you name it. I got it all and I thought I never had a problem. I have spent more time than I'd like with my head down a toilet, and you'd think with all that time you'd get to know yourself pretty well down there, but I never did.

Life has a funny way of sending you in situations you would never see as a benefit, but in the long run, it all fits into its pieces. I injured myself from excessive long distance running (who'd have thought) and couldn't run for six months! At the time I never thought I  could survive such a long stretch without running, but the absence of it actually forced me to find a new outlet.  I moved to China, thinking I could atleast escape home for sometime. And go figure, I didn't last very long before trying to run again, only relapsing into injury and frustration. I was still binging. I was still getting sick, but I was equally getting fed up. I was tired of the routine. I can still recall breaking down in the garden in front of my apartment in the middle of the night. I was frustrated and sick of the unhealthy routine I had subjected myself to. I no longer wanted to miss out on life. I was thousands of miles away from home with every possibility in my hand, yet I felt trapped.  That's when I realised I had a problem. I couldn't enjoy the foods of a new country without worrying about my weight. Not knowing calories put me at unease. I realised a change was needed and that I needed to disassociate with running. After taking a safe amount of time away from excercise, I began to focus on getting stronger, rather than  losing weight. I couldn't do five pushups, let alone a pullup. But I begun none the less. I ate more, worried less and lived more. I actually began to become happy with myself, regardless of how I looked.
To my surprise, a few weeks later, I began to put on weight! My body was naturally adapting to weighted resistance (strength training) by building muscular tissue. That I could gain weight and not be upset blew my mind. Three years later, I'm healthier than I've been. Sure, I still struggle with soe issues, but I'm a thousand miles ahead of where I've been.

Looking back, one of the main reasons I never sought help was because I was ashamed to admit that I as a male had an eating disorder. As an illness traditionally associated with females, having an eating disorder was a distinct insult, if not contradiction to my sense of masculinity. Guys had guy problems. Girls has girl problems. If you google eating disorders, you will find clinical definitions that identify EDs as prevalent amongst young women. While this might be true, how much of that is changing is undiagnosed, due to the silence of men struggling with E.Ds, shamed by their environment. We paint pictures of men who are muscular, ripped, jacked, call it what you will, and expect men to meet those standards. At the same time we call them to be silent in suffering. We build the idea that our body reflects our worth, and destroy them for a sense of peace we never get. Men are committing suicide. Men are suffering from a lack of confidence, a lack of purpose and are all the while shamed for what they're not. Men are less likely to seek treatment for eating disorders because of the perception that they are “woman’s diseases. For what it's worth, the moment I began to make peace with what I saw in the mirror, the more I began to accept myself. Having a close support group was crucial and I owe much of my recovery to some friends I won't forget. Suffering in silence is a massive misconception. There are more men struggling with societal expectations than you would think, and we're all body conscious from to time. Feelings those emotions are okay; but what you do with them is key. If you'd like to lose some weight, first learn to disassociate  your body from YOU. You are not your body, and your self worth is not measured by it. The only body you'll ever have is the one you're wearing right now. You can lose weight, you can get muscular, but you cannot change what's on the inside by sculpting the outer appearance.
“No matter how long you stand there examining yourself naked before a mirror, you'll never see reflected what's inside.”  

The process of writing is a spiritual and mental process. We write with the heart first and edit with the mind second. I thought that this article couldn't reflect much. It's the same shit as everyone else's, but it's my shit none the less. The very worst of those fears is making myself venerable. But without vulnerability, how can anyone ever have a real conversation? If you ask me how I am, and I respond by saying grand, that's all you'll say back. But I open up and tell you how I really am, the odds are you'll probably do the same. So let's start the conversation. Let's make the change. I hope atleast one person finds comfort in reading this. If you are struggling, you can send me a message, or call bodywhys helpline at 1890 200 444.
Saving this from becoming an allegory of who I was, or worse, a self pitying lament, I'll say that now I'm too busy being who I am to regret who I was.  And to be honest, if I had one thing I could say to my former self, it wouldn't be ''why'', it would be ''it's not your fault.'' As I write this, I'm preparing to throw on some Adidas sneakers and go the gym. In many ways, they remind me of the asics. Sure, they're worn and a bit beat up. But they're about all that are, and my body jumps with excitement as I tie the laces.



References

http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/

Sungot-Borgen, J. Torstveit, M.K. (2004) Prevalence of ED in Elite Athletes is Higher than in the General Population. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 14(1), 25-32.

Weltzin, T. Carlson, T., et al. (2014) “Treatment Issues and Outcomes for Males with Eating Disorders” in Cohn, Lemberg.