{"id":63,"date":"2008-01-17T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2008-01-17T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/17\/being-a-fat-athlete\/"},"modified":"2008-01-17T06:00:29","modified_gmt":"2008-01-17T11:00:29","slug":"being-a-fat-athlete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/17\/being-a-fat-athlete\/","title":{"rendered":"Being a Fat Athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was doing some research on swimming and sore abs because… Well, I went for a good swim today and my abs are sore<\/em>! Look, don’t you Google every damn thing you go through? You don’t<\/em>. Fine. I’m a weirdo. Deal.<\/p>\n

Anyway, as I was maundering around the Internet and avoiding finishing my last article for today (but I did <\/em>send out a good query for AT THE FOOT OF THE THRONE three days early thnxsomuch!), I ran across Fat Girl on a Bike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This chick made me ashamed of myself and face how damn’ vain and shallow I can be.<\/p>\n

Vain? Yeah. You see, I’m fat. No, it’s not a value judgement. I am.<\/p>\n

But I’m also an athlete, dammit. I never called myself that because I’ve always felt I “wasn’t there yet”. I played soccer, but I wasn’t great it at. So, I wasn’t really<\/em> an athlete. I was a martial artist but I never earned a black belt, so I’m not really<\/em> an athlete. I’m fat, so I’m not really<\/em> an athlete.<\/p>\n

This woman, who is doing triathelons not to “get skinny” or any other damn reason than she bloody well wants<\/em> to compete in triathlons puts me and my scale stepping to shame. I’ve actually had to psyche myself out to go to the pool and swim, which I love<\/em> because I didn’t feel like I really belonged <\/em> in the pool with all the real<\/em> athletes. It’s idiotic. Like you don’t deserve to claim a love of movement, which I do have, unless you’re committed to “getting skinny”. That’s gotta me more important than loving the movement for itself.<\/p>\n

Now, I know swimming is good for me. How I feel after a good workout (and the sustained good mood for many hours) is a powerful motivator to get me moving. Yes, yes, yes, I’m all for<\/em> the increased health benefits of being active.<\/p>\n

But I swim because I love to swim. It feels good. I lift weights because I love to do it. I adore moving heavy stuff. When I was a martial artist, the love of having the guy a foot and a half taller than I am go THWACK! on the mat was immensely satisfying, and so was being knocked flying. (Hey, you know<\/strong> I’m a weirdo). Anything that requires finesse of physical control excites me.\"abbyestockton2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Will I get stronger and more fit the more I do it? Of course. But I don’t have to have goal of looking like Pudgy Stockton (I know, not fashionable, but I really, really like the way she looked) to just enjoy the workout for its own damn sake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was doing some research on swimming and sore abs because… Well, I went for a good swim today and my abs are sore! Look, don’t you Google every damn thing you go through? You don’t. Fine. I’m a weirdo. Deal. Anyway, as I was maundering around the Internet and avoiding finishing my last article … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Being a Fat Athlete”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-the-foot-of-the-throne","category-fitness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}