I must thank Glenn Gaesser’s Big Fat Lies for the idea of the two-minute walk. The book is an older one, but has a lot of goodies IMO.

Why two minutes? I got the idea from Dr. Steven Blair, Director of Research at the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas [and] one of the world’s foremost researchers on the health benefits of exercise [...] Dr. Blair suggests a two-minute walk as a great way to get started, particularly for the inertia-afflicted who protest “I just don’t have the time or energy.” Everyone has two minutes to spare, and everyone has enough energy for a two-minute walk.

So do it. Then think about how you can incorporate several two-minute walks into your day — just by making simple changes in your routine [...] Pretty soon the minutes start adding up, until you’ve got twenty minutes or so per day, for a total of at least 140 minutes a week.

Gaesser is careful to point out that this practice is great for metabolic fitness. It’s not necessarily meant for cardio-respiratory fitness or strengthening. He suggests working on those (as well as stretching) in other ways. He’s also wonderful about not overwhelming you with advice on what you “should do.” He makes suggestions and emphasizes that any steps towards a healthier you are beneficial. I found that approach very quieting to my perfectionist tendencies when it comes to eating and exercise.

Still, I usually prefer a more “cardio” approach to my physical activity. I started belly dancing this year, and I just beyond love it. (After reading about a pro-fat Arab culture in Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession and seeing many fat women take to belly dance like nobody’s business, I have to wonder if we weren’t all fat belly dancing superstars generations ago in northern Africa.) I also enjoy certain types of aerobics. No, really. Man, it’s just a revelation that I even enjoy exercise, and I don’t think that would have happened without being introduced to the concept of HAES (health at every size).

The two-minute walk approach is great because I literally have no excuse for not moving my body every day. And it feels good to move my body. There are days when I’m really pressed for time and can’t set aside 35 or 40 minutes for belly dance or aerobics. If I skip that day, I might not feel my best. Of course, there are days when rest is just what the body ordered, but more often than not, I feel better getting movement in every day. The two-minute walks allow me to do that even when my schedule is closing in on me.

If I’m not feeling 100 percent, again two-minute walks to the rescue. They’re just too easy. No equipment needed. If I’m just kind of having a blah day and don’t feel like changing into my tennis shoes and exercise clothes, I don’t have to do that. It’s strictly come as you are. Whatever I’m wearing, I get my two minutes in here and there, and it usually improves my day and how I’m feeling. I’m a big fan of exercise for its mood-lifting and sleep-improving qualities.

I also try to incorporate higher intensity intervals just to mix it up. Normally at least one of my two-minute walks will be up and down stairs for the duration. Here’s where the walks become more of a traditional cardio workout. One of my goals is to do all ten of my two-minute walks up and down stairs.

It’s such a shame how physical activity has been and continues to be ruined for fat people. I see this happening in two ways. First of all, tying exercise up with weight loss makes it drudgery. Not only that, it’s difficult to sustain when weight loss is one’s goal and that goal is an elusive one. See the New York magazine article “Does Exercise Really Make Us Thinner?” for a brief history on how exercise and weight loss got mangled together.

The other way that exercise is stolen from fat people is fairly obvious. They just aren’t allowed to play. My little cousin who’s turning 10 next month wanted to join the neighborhood football team (American football, not soccer). The coach told his mom that he’s too heavy to play. That is just all kinds of frakked up. We’re actually discouraged from moving and working our bodies for fun. We are encouraged to do so in order to lose weight, but I just view that as a different form of discouragement because exercise for weight loss is not sustainable or enjoyable physical activity. Unlike fat itself, sedentariness is unhealthy … at any size.

My New Year’s resolution was to exercise at least four times a week. Switching my focus to HAES early in the year (thanks to finally reading The Obesity Myth) enabled me to stick with this resolution in a way I never have before. For starters, it was unintended but lucky that my resolution wasn’t “lose 50 pounds.” It was almost an unconscious first step toward HAES to make my resolution regarding my body one that was independent of anything but the activity itself.

Let me just say that this has been one of my most successful resolutions. It hasn’t been perfect: there was a month when I had to refrain from exercise because of an old back injury. Before, when the focus was weight loss and the attendant attitude seemed to be perfection or else, a month off would have derailed everything. I would have given up. And then not seeing the numbers on the scale or measuring tape go down? Forget it. I’d have been done with exercising until my next weight loss attempt.

Now, with this new outlook, I was back to my four or more times a week of physical activity when I felt able to resume — when my back felt better. I see this as amazing progress in so many ways. I’ve consistently exercised 10 out of the past 11 months. This is the most amount of consecutive physical activity I’ve ever gotten in my life. Even when I was “successfully” losing weight decades ago, I had only exercised for four months straight. I’ve now beaten that. In your face, weight loss exercising.

Last week I learned via The-F-Word that fat haters think Santa should go on a diet. You’d think such ridonkulousness would snap everyone out of their obesity hysteria, but alack, alas …

Anyway, I’ve been making my way through the fat acceptance/fat liberation literature. (Is “fat liberation” out of style? I kind of like it.) I’ve seen some invoke Buddha as a pro-fat symbol/icon. It got me curious because I seem to remember learning in high school that Buddha was, in fact, not fat.

So I just began a very casual search about the reality of Buddha’s girth. Not really close to a definitive answer yet, but I did find a comment that was, well, pretty much expected:

With obesity in the West reaching what might be described as epidemic proportions, some might argue that the Buddha hardly set a good example. Popular depictions of the Buddha often show him as having rolls of fat, which seems to contradict the monkish ideal of living a simple and frugal life. The
so-called Laughing Buddha is just such an image.
It seems highly unlikely that the Buddha was
overweight. He no doubt practiced what he preached to his disciples when he urged them not eat after noon and to “eat at a single session. By doing so, you will be free from illness and affliction, and you will enjoy health, strength, and a comfortable abiding.”

First of all, eating only once a day is a method for weight gain, last I heard. Messes with blood sugar levels, too. But this comment just takes for granted that overeating leads to weight gain, which is not actually true.

What I found interesting was the reply to the above comment:

Indeed, I agree.
Glad this is cleared up because I was becoming tired of people calling Maitraya Buddha the “fat Buddha” because he wasn’t ‘fat” per sey. It was suppose to be a symbol of greatness in size. The greater the size, the more powerful the figure is… and the stomach symbolises the persons tolerance (as goes the saying ”I can’t stomach this” )
Basically Maitreya Buddha had a great stomach to
tolerate and hold all the suffering of sentient
beings. His stomach is that of great compassion, to
stomach that which no one on earth can stomach.

OK, there are some mistakes in that quote, but I didn’t want to interrupt with “sic” after “sic.” And the speaker is still being yucky about fat, but I love this idea of another positive attribute of fat! It led me to conclude that Santa is not fat because of tired old fat myths like he eats too many Christmas cookies and only exercises one night a year (but what a workout ;)) … he’s fat because he’s generous.

The historical Saint Nicholas was generous as well. “Upon hearing that a local man had fallen on such hard times that he was planning to sell his daughters into prostitution, Nicholas went by night to the house and threw three bags of gold in through the window, saving the girls from an evil life. These three bags, gold generously given in time of trouble, became the three golden balls that indicate a pawn broker’s shop.”

Trying to come into my own as a fat acceptor/activist, I’m always trying to find positive associations with fat. A lot of them, like prosperous and wealthy, seem woefully out-of-date. That’s why I’m excited to find some gems borne out of some fat hatred.

When you’re in an argument with someone, you’re often urged to “be the bigger person” — big as in forgiving and magnanimous. I think it works for fat also.

 So three new positive qualities associated with fat:

• tolerant
• generous
• magnanimous

Well, new to me anyway. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s new to you, too! To all a good night … and Buddha bless!

“People are fat from overeating and under-exercising.”

 Majority rule does not apply to Truth.

The ultimate American Dream is the weight-loss diet. I think that is why America is the fattest nation in the world. We believe in dieting the same way we believe everyone in this country has the same chance at any opportunity and that our prospect of success depends on hard work and never giving up.

I’m only now becoming more versed in fat acceptance, and I still find it hard to shake off the idea that weight loss is anything but a pipe dream and dangerous. It’s hard to introduce others to the movement, even when I think they could benefit from it as I’ve begun to do. Many really blame themselves and trust that the next diet will succeed as long as they dust themselves off, pick themselves up, grit their teeth, get determined, work hard, and never ever give up.

I personally think the real American Dream can be as full of shite as the American Dream of Dieting. I grew up believing in my heart that this country was a true democracy and meritocracy. Wow. Naïve, huh? There were some growing pains learning the truth about that one. I’ve recently experienced similar pains letting go of everything I was ever taught and believed about the Dieting Dream.

I wish a new American Dream. We are known for our individualism. I want us to dream of ourselves, of becoming who we were meant to be, coming into who we are right now, and being true to the self. I once heard that we are truly cool when there’s no one else in the world we’d rather be than ourselves. That’s a dream that risks no disillusionment and one that needn’t be confined to one country. “To thine own self be true.” Sure, that takes work and determination, too — but it’s a dream that’s far more rewarding.