One weird tip to lose belly fat!

So here we are, at the beginning of week 4 on Whole30. We have 6 days left of this thing. I decided to base this blog more on some inspiration that I've gotten these last three weeks over how I've progressed.

Whilst browsing pinterest, I'm constantly inundated with pins from others they have pinned to their "weight loss" or "fitness" board. I see the same sort of posts on facebook. It's always a shot of a tanned and toned fitness model, usually in a sports bra and glistening with sweat. There is usually some inspirational quote photoshopped over the top, saying something along the lines of "hard work is the only way to results" or "strong is the new skinny" or "10 minutes of runnign is ten minutes longer than the person sitting on the couch." Relatively speaking, it is much easier on the eyes than a typical fashion model in at least it shows women who are fit and in good health. I would prefer using them for inspiration over posting pics of some anorexic celebrity and stiving to acheive that look. However, I still hate those photos. I hate them because they are still encouraging women to strive for something that the media and society has told them they need to strive for. Strong is the new skinny, so try to get six pack abs, a rock hard butt, and totally toned arms. Women are being subliminally told that they must achieve all those things to be attractive and it's total bullshit.  Eating healthy, having a good physical and mental relationship with food, and being active and fit enough to enjoy life and your family should be what all women strive for. Starving yourself, counting calories or carbs or grams of fat, and spending two hours a day in the gym doesn't achieve that. All it does is stress you out and maintain the control your body image has over you. Don't get me wrong, I've repinned and reposted my fair share of those photos but after taking a good long look at them and what they mean, I've taken them down.

Another disturbing trend among women I have come to notice, are all the fad diets that promise fast weight loss. "I heard if I only drink homemade juice for 30 days I'll lose 60 pounds!", "If I take this pregnancy hormone and eat less than 500 calories a day, I'll lose a ton of weight by summer!". 

Its bullshit. It's all bullshit.

I will say again: WEIGHT LOSS IS NOT EASY. Nor is it supposed to be. You aren't supposed to lose 60 pounds in a month, or two months. Even 3 months. Because the SECOND you stop drinking juice, or start eating cupcakes again, you will gain all of it back. Fad diets teach you nothing about eating healthy and maintaining that weight you worked so hard for. There is no "one trick" to a skinny body. It's a multitude of tricks and education and a strive for health over weight that will get you there.

My best advice: eat healthy. Do your research. Learn how food affects us biologically and psychologically. Stay away from crap our bodies were never meant to eat. Humans have inhabited this planet for millions of years, yet we've only been eating grains for 10,000 of them. Our bodies simply cannot process grains and dairy. But don't take my word for it, look it up!

For more info on Whole9/Whole30 and the paleo diet, including all the benefits and resources you need for your own research, check out www.whole9life.com

Roller Derby and the Empowerment of Women

Before I get started on this post, I'm going to preface this by saying that I am in no way singling out any one person, or even any one league. I still have lots of friends that skate WFTDA derby for other leagues and this is not a post to state how much they suck or how other derby is so much better. Those who are my friends on facebook are ones I trust and who agree with me to a certain extent.


That being said.


I started playing roller derby a little over three years ago for a huge league in my area. I had seen their championship bout a couple of years prior and fell in love with it. I loved the outfits, the attitudes, and the fact that these women were accomplishing an amazing thing while simultaneously flipping the bird to conventional attitudes. Fuck, those women were awesome. They wore ripped tights, booty shorts, they had great makeup.  They skated around the track with an intensity and rebelliousness I admired immediately. I knew I had to do it.


I joined the rec league with high expectations. I poured my heart and soul into derby. Six months later, I decided to try out for Fresh Meat.


Lo and behold, I made it.


My hopes rose even higher, with the prospect that I was that much closer to getting on a team. My ultimate goal. The thing I wanted above everything else in my life. Literally. As the days went on and my Fresh Meat career  lengthened, I put derby above everything else. I was skating 4-6 nights a week, participating in 2 committees, and going to every single bout put on by our home teams. I was basically home long enough to cram food in my mouth and leave again. My family life suffered, my friendships suffered. I couldn't complain, though, because "everyone has lives outside of derby, you're no exception." as I was told by coaches and leadership at the time. I nodded and grinned as big as I could, because it was true. I was also told that the league supports skaters with families and busy lives, and I wholeheartedly believed it. Because a league that says it supports and empowers women couldn't possibly be unsupportive of women with families and kids and lives, right?


Right?


Right around my one year anniversary on Fresh Meat, my enthusiasm became harder to come by. I had been through 2 or 3 drafts at that point, and hadn't been picked. But I wasn't going to let that get me down. I gladly rolled over and exposed my belly to the league again. I pushed harder and invested everything I had, mentally and physically into the league, because that's what was expected of me. Anything less and I was deemed "not dedicated". I saw it happen multiple times to other people. There were no good excuses for missing practice. We had an 80% attendance policy, but were expected to use that 20% as "emergency padding" in case something devastating prevented us from getting to practice. We were told that if we showed a consistent 80%, we would probably still not get drafted. We needed to be at 100% or higher to even be considered. I was starting to become a husk of a person, my obsession with getting onto a team becoming the only motivation to attend practice. I didn't care about having fun anymore (I wasn't), I didn't care about being empowered ( I wasn't) and I certainly didn't care about the amount of dedication I thought it took to get to the top. 


As my second year anniversary approached, I had made it through 6 drafts. I had watched as spots opened up on teams, only to be disappointed when a vet skater came back and took that spot under the new "immediate draft" policy. I listened as others would fawn over visiting skaters, begging them to transfer and join their team instead of focusing on the talent that was waiting on Fresh Meat. I tried to ignore it when skaters from other leagues told me team captains had visited and attempted to recruit. From the outside looking in, it seemed our league was hurting for talent. While attending a training committee meeting, I overheard the head of that committee tell another skater that "If someone gets on FM who doesn't show potential to join the A travel team, they are a waste of our time." Verbatim. If you were not a talented skater from the get-go, you were considered a waste. Our travel team was consistently in the top five rankings in the nation, so our league was focused and dead set on being number one. They trained their travel team hard, and that trickled down to home teams, and then Fresh Meat. Nobody cared if you weren't having fun, they needed to be number one and they were willing to steamroll anyone who didn't show enough potential to get them there. It no longer mattered how much heart and soul you had for derby, how hard you pushed yourself, how much personal improvement you made, or how bad you wanted it. Home team skaters were no exception. Only the best ever got rostered, and in some cases, only the best were allowed to scrimmage, rendering the less talented skaters even more useless by not getting any game time. We were still expected to shut up and show up, though. We were expected to sell tickets to events we were not skating in. We were told not to cry if we weren't drafted or rostered because that showed we were poor sports. 


That year several aspects of my personal life turned themselves into a crisis. By the summer I was in full on crisis mode, trying to deal with some pretty bad shit. Derby finally took a back burner to my personal life. My attendance was abysmally low, because dealing with my crises was more important to me than showing up. I was informed in August that I was no longer welcome on Fresh Meat due to my poor attendance. I was devastated. Not only was I trying to pick up the pieces of my personal life, but the one thing that offered me solace in that time was being taken away. I appealed to the board, and was told my appeal would be considered at the next training committee meeting a month away, and in the meantime I should come to practice as normal. By then, my life had started to stabilize and I was able to dive into derby once again. During that month, I did EVERYTHING. I went to every practice, every bonus practice, every team practice, even if I didn't get credit for it. I wanted to show them my dedication was back in full force, and it was. During the meeting, I stated my case. I said my personal life was under control again and I was ready and willing to give derby everything I had. The committee consisted of several team skaters and two FM skaters. I answered questions, and agreed out loud that in hindsight I should have communicated more about my struggles. In my head, I was still wondering what good that would have done, however. Everyone has personal problems and I know I would have gotten a "suck it up and show up to practice anyway" speech. I was not empowered, no one gave a shit about me because I didn't fit the social mold, I wasn't a super star skater, and god forbid I put something above derby for once. 

It was a unanimous vote. 

I was out. 

Even the two FM skaters voted me out. I cried harder than I had cried in a long time. Derby was all I knew at that point. I was invited to keep volunteering and try out for Fresh Meat again in a couple of months. I laughed, and I laughed hard. It just went to show the attitude of that league. "We'll keep you on Fresh Meat for two years, make you feel like shit the whole time for not being super talented, and kick you out when you have a crisis in your personal life, but please keep volunteering and doing shit for us and maybe we'll consider you in the future sometime"


In November that year, myself and a handful of other girls, some of them whom had also left that league, banded together and started our own league. A Renegade league. We wanted to bring back the showmanship and the campiness that is embedded in derby's roots. We wanted to bring the fun back into derby, for EVERYONE, not just a select few. We wanted to empower all women again. Anyone who wanted to skate with us would be welcomed into our fold and not judged based on appearance, social skills (or lack thereof) or talent. We planned to have a cohesive and respectful relationship with the flat track derby league in our town, and planned on presenting ourselves to the Executive Director as soon as we had a drawn out business plan and got ourselves organized a bit. Word spread like wildfire, though, as it does in derby, and soon I got a call from her asking what the hell we were doing. I explained to her what our plan was, and how we wanted to offer a different derby option for anyone who wanted it. I told her that flat track derby has been going a different direction than a lot of people had expected, and we wanted to be there for those that don't want to be a jock. She advised me that if it was showboating and campiness we wanted, we could probably have special bouts or something to entertain the fans. I respectfully told her that with a league that laughs at and mocks fishnets and themed bouts, it couldn't happen. That league was too far absorbed into being “athletic” and getting into the olympics to let anything like that happen. We later received an email stating we are attempting to start a competing business and the league skaters would be expected to sign a non compete agreement so that they couldn't skate with us. We were then openly mocked on social media. Friends of mine who were still in that other league told me about several skaters that couldn't stop badmouthing us. Is this really the roller derby women want to join? A league that considers anything different from them illegitimate? Is it really so wrong to have different ideas and goals for roller derby than what is set for you by your league? Why would anyone want to stay in a league where they are openly mocked and ridiculed? One of my good friends, when experiencing frustration during a skill plateau (which is common and normal) was told to "put on her big girl panties and quit crying about it." Does that sound supportive or empowering in any way? When I hear "I don't wear derby skinz, I only wear athletic gear now." following by a snort and giggling gossip after that person walks away, my faith in that league officially goes down the toilet.


I have had more fun in the 8 months I have been skating renegade than I did in almost 2.5 years of skating flat track derby. Yes, we are still a baby league and we have our issues just like anything else. But all of us still remember what it's like to first start out. People who don't show crazy talent right off the bat are encouraged instead of condemned. We don't have tryouts, we don't have Fresh Meat, and the only thing that keeps a person from getting rostered is if they haven't reached a point where they are safe to bout. We just recently implemented an attendance policy, but it's not set in stone and if a skater is struggling, she feels safe enough to come to us to work it out. We don't care about winning as much, or being number one. We care about everyone having a good time and playing some motha fuckin roller derby. Just because we skate Renegade doesn't mean we skate dirty, dangerous, or we aren't athletes. We train clean and mean. Our first priority is safety and fitness, our second is the show. 99% of the haters that criticize Renegade have never even watched us skate. Our first bout is coming up on October 19^th, and I can honestly say I am honored to skate with each and every person on my team, regardless of how they look, and regardless of how they skate.