Ep. 6: Reconstructing Definitions of Self

Jill: All right, so what do you got going on today?

Shakira: I was going to share with you, besides the massage that I have at 2:15. My body's sore, Sore as fuck. I've been doing this, this training, which is a little different than the training that I normally do. And that is really lifting small cars. You know, I feel about powerlifting. It's been fun. I just find it's been, you know, time to switch it up. I like to do something different and work with a different style, a different style. So I found this woman. She's lovely on the TikTok.

Jill: On the TikTok.

Shakira: And she has developed her own app.

Jill: Oh. I'm seeing more and more of this.

Shakira: Yeah, it's so cool. She plans macros, but then there's food and recipes that she's created that tell me exactly how many macros and this and that and the other that are in, you know, whatever recipe or dish. She plans, the the workouts, which, you know, I have the unfortunate opportunity to record video record so she can see. And the workouts do the things like count the rest in between each movement. Which is basically like she's right there with me. Terrifying, you know, all the measurements and the weight and the journaling and the non I'd say food or exercise related goals, you know, are tracked as well, based off of how you know what I say and what I journal, she does zoom calls, she's you know, it's a chat function like she is it's been great. Well, despite the fact that I look at the the workouts and I did it first like, bullshit, you know. My deadlifts 305. I can do this in my sleep.

Jill: Because you lift cars

Shakira: I can squat better. 10 pound weights or some laderal sides. I'm talking all kinds of shit. And it is like, you're using tiny muscles, small, much smaller muscles than like, your quads, you know, my glutes. My arm like I'm using the smaller muscles. And as a result, I'm using way less weight and I am wrecked. Yeah, wrecked! I can't remember what we did yesterday, or what I did. It was like 25 minutes on the Stairmaster after shoulders and arms. And there was like bicep, I couldn't get over like a 20 pound dumbbell for biceps. You know, I'm strong girl. I was beat!

Jill: It has nothing to do with our strong you are. It has everything to do with technique and what you're working.

Shakira: Miserable. I am miserable.

Jill: Are you miserable, or are you still transitioning to, I want to just lift heavy shit, I don't wnat to do this?

Shakira: I do. okay, I do. I just want to lift heavy shit.

Jill: I'd be really curious about this. So how long is your program with Gabby?

Shakira: I have six weeks left, maybe four weeks left? Yeah, yeah.

Jill: I'd be super curious that in this next four weeks when you're done with your six weeks with her,

Shakira: Sorry, 12 weeks total, I have four weeks left.

Jill: Okay. So after your 12 weeks, when you go back to powerlifting. I'd be curious on how quickly you advance in your weights because now you've built up the little muscles that support those big muscles to be able to get your body into better alignment to be able to lift better.

Shakira: Yes, I'm positive, I shouldn't say positive. We'll see how you know how much stronger I am. But yeah, it's been interesting. I haven't felt this kind of soreness in a while This is fantastic. because, you know, I think the point you're making is that I've been doing the same thing for so long, though the loads have progressively gotten more. It's just, you know, the same muscle groups the same things like so. Anyway, I'm doing this thing. I'm in this great gym now here in beautiful San Diego, which has a roof top. Did I tell you about this gym. It's like a fucking spa. Girl. Do you want to know? Do you want to know? All right. It's three floors. It's facing the ocean. There's a floor on top of it. That's a rooftop deck that has like turf and all of like your more CrossFit, cross functional equipment. The what do you call it like the cardio room is literally just like all of the kinds of the different treadmills now which I don't even know what they are, but those curvy ones, you know. Do you know what I'm talking about? But I've seen those too. There's another room, huge studio again, floor to ceiling windows overlooking the ocean for you to do the yogas. There's a retractable roof in the middle of this space where there are two Olympic size pools. There's a steam room, a chiropractor. I mean it is luxury! So I'm excited about going to the gym right, like everyday. All day! yesterday spent two and a half hours there doing a little the workout you did gave me getting on a Stairmaster that took me forever going to the Steam Room for 15 minutes which was too hot for me but whatever my hair was soft. Taking a shower in the really nice showers. I literally could spend all day there every day. I'm happy to go because I can start with the either the sunset because I'm going at night on top of that rooftop deck, just looking at the ocean. It's beautiful. It's beautiful.

Jill: Excuse me. Do you prefer sunset or sunrise?

Shakira: Well, here I prefer sunset because you know getting up and having an essentially start work immediately. Six o'clock in the morning is a little tough for me to get up earlier than that, but so it's been sunset sunset workouts. I think if that's the context you're talking about, but in general sunrise all day. I love a sunrise. I love sunrise. Anyway, I got my point. The whole thing. Yeah, this workout thing and that will kind of put me in a bad mood was when I was at you know, saying like, one of the things I kind of put me in a mood and I'll be honest here is that every week I have to check in you know, I do all the measurements, the arms, the glutes, the thighs, the chest, the waist and the stomach. And you take pictures front back side side and you weigh yourself and this shit gets ugly. This is where shit gets ugly, despite having lost several inches over the last six weeks and losing another I think I think cumulatively three inches over the last week. I gained, two pounds. Yeah, two and a half pounds. And I know that this is muscle like I get it. My body is definitely recomposing itself. But the fact that I am still at a weight that would be considered. You know well above my BMI. I mean, I'm like 200 pounds. Like I'm 200 fucking pounds. I've never been 2 anything in my life. Like ever. I've never had a problem, quote unquote, a problem with weight and it's not gonna It's, this isn't a problem. It's just my body is re composing itself, especially the older that I get. And my body is recomposing itself with how much muscle I've been putting on. And it is just like, I can't weigh myself. I just sent her a message like bitch, I can't weigh myself no more. I can't I don't want to know, like, let me do these inches. Let me keep lifting these weights. I know this is for the better. I know this is for good for me as I get older to have more muscle than not on my body. The older you get, the more you know, it really protects your entire skeletal system. And I get that I want that. But oh, the mindfuck of seeing a number that you don't want to see every week.

Jill: Yeah, I have gone strongly the opposite way over the last course of a year, I would say over the last year and a half. But over like the last six months hardcore anti diet culture. And I've been working out with a trainer since July. And we do measurements every four weeks with weight. And my weight has fluctuated within two pounds. The entire time. And he had me on macros, doing all the tracking. And I started reading intuitive eating with a girlfriend of mine. And I'm just like I because I'm the same as you when it comes to getting on that scale. It used to dictate my entire day. My entire week, my entire vacation. So I've have strongly gotten away from doing that a long time ago. But I was doing it with him and I've been able to detach myself from that mood fluctuation with the weight and I've lost I don't know like 9% body fat even staying within that same two pounds. My measurements. I don't know what my measurements are. He just says the pinching whatever. And I think for me where I'm going with it is okay. How are things making me feel? Because I'm like you I like to lift heavy shit. I like to feel strong. And I'd like to see strength in muscle definition. I would agree with you that I am also the heaviest I've been in my entire life and getting to that place of accepting that this is just where I'm at, this is not necessarily the season of my body, because I feel like we all go through those things. But I also I'm thinking about the shit that my body has dealt with, for the last two years of my life. And same for you. Right? Like, I feel like we might even have this conversation about like, my body has gotten me through a lot of things. And for me now, going back to what we were talking about earlier, for me now to be in a place where I'm trying to manipulate myself to do something better. When what the fuck else do I want my body to do for me? My body is healthy. My body is not broken. It's been broken. The only thing I think that I had that was a little bit different was like I had a higher cholesterol. Last couple of times that I went to the, to the doctor, but I think that was just pandemic beer shit that I was eating, you know, whatever. And I wasn't concerned with it. She wasn't concerned with it. But then I was just like, Okay, let's do something a little bit different here. But yeah, I've noticed a lot of changes and shifts with lifting. And even with no longer doing as much yoga as I've been doing. And shifting into that sort of a fitness has made a big difference.

Shakira: Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I actually, wow, oh, I can go several different ways with this, especially like, put a pin in the yoga conversation, because, actually no, let's pull that pin out. One of the things that I recognized, okay, no, put a pin in that. So the shift of Yeah, so maybe we're, we are talking about acceptance. And maybe that's kind of where I would say if I'm, you know, if acceptance is sort of the middle of the fence and non acceptance is, you know, one end and accept me complete acceptance as the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm definitely somewhere between the middle and the middle of complete acceptance and acceptance. Like, that's probably where I sit. I somewhat accept where things are right now.

Jill: Okay, I hear you on that spectrum. Yep, I'm there.

Shakira: I would like to get to the point of where I fully accept where things are without the need to change them, which are important. A part of the acceptance is, I think, what you said around like, you know, my, I'm not my body's not broken, there's some cholesterol shit that I need to tighten up, you know, things were also, pandemic was the pandemic. I think if I were to focus on those things that are true for me, and for me, it's my blood pressure, like, I never had a problem with high blood pressure. And when I went to the doctor last last summer, she basically said, like, your blood pressure is on the cusp of like, hypertension. I was like, Excuse me, ma'am. Like, it's never been a thing. Of course, she's like, well, you could lose some weight, you know, and that'll help. And then she looks at my chart from a year ago. And she says, okay, so clearly, you know, based off of your numbers a year ago, and your weight, which has changed, it's possible for you, and I don't want to put you on medication. But you can see like, this is it's not like I'm looking at someone who has lived a life of what what one would call obesity, you know, by doctor standards, for sure, you know, five to 10 years. I'm looking at someone who maybe had a rough pandemic, you know, in her eyes, but I hate Western medicine in the sense of how it assigns health to a number that they deem is healthy, without taking into any consideration the amount of pure muscle that I know is in my body.

Jill: Absolutely. And that's the problem that I have with the two hence the reason why I have I have chosen to step out of diet culture because it makes me crazy. Like you go to the doctor's office, you do not have to be weighed, you can just say I know we can we don't need to do this. It's not that necessary for anything. No, take the bloodwork take the blood work, that's all you need to do is take the fucking bloodwork and if I if I have high blood pressure, okay, let's talk about it. What are some things and then you can draw your own parallel versus feeling like you're getting this western judgment of healthy weight versus unhealthy weight because, again, being the weight that we both are, we're both healthy people.

Shakira: Yeah, for the most part

Jill: There's not diabetes, there's not heart problems. There's not you know, liver cancer, anything like now right and not that any of that's really tied to weight but, you know, because people can be diabetic that are not over weight as Western culture will say. But I mean, yeah, it does make me crazy.

Shakira: It did. And it did make me crazy looking at it, and it just clicked with me. And I'm positive, she'll tell me Well, then don't do it. Yeah. It made me think of something that a very dear friend shared with me, which is, when I was feeling very guilty and shameful about behavior that I've had in the past. She said, your guilt and shame don't serve you. It was really simple for her the way that she sort of remarked, like, just stop, you know, guilt and shame, don't serve you. And I'll never forget her saying that to me, because it was like, Oh, God, you're right. Why am I like, why am I doing this, I don't need to keep feeling guilty and ashamed. It felt like the pathway to self compassion for me when she said that. And this doesn't guilt and shame, don't serve me. So you don't have to weigh yourself, what you would like to do, however, is see how you can recompose your body, doing the things that you love. So if I start to see things, you know, expand for example, despite doing the things that I love, then that's an adjustment for me to make. But recognizing that I will never be at a number if I like to do the things I like to do then why am I looking for that number to define again this identity this you know, sort of purpose this idea of whether people perceive me or how I wnat other people to perceive me or myself for that matter?

Jill: Yeah, because I feel like my only perceived thought that I have of others when I'm in this is I just want to look like I can kick someone's ass. That's really the look that I want to go for. Like, I want to be like walking on the beach and somebody looked at me go, "oohh, that bitch looks like she can fuck someone up.

Shakira: That's a fighter. Yeah, yeah.

Jill: I don't I mean, I don't want to look like a bodybuilder. I just want to look like I can fuck someone up that's it. I can handle myself compact, I'm five three don't bother me like I got a lot going on for five three. That's really that's my perceived thought that I want others to have of me.

Shakira: Yes, yes, yes. Yes, I haven't given I have been asked myself that question. How do I want how do I want to look I want to look strong. And there are women on the TikTok.

Jill: Yes, I will get on TikTok.

Shakira: there get it there a woman on the TikTok there's a whole corner that I discovered called the mid size power lifter corner or muscle mommy corner and it's varied you know, they're the muscle armies that are ripped with veins you know, sure literally bodybuilding fitness bikini this and that the other, you know, competition. And then there are what are like, which, like, I guess what's called, like, the mid size powerlifters. And I was talking to about this to a couple girlfriends who I was like, you know, I think I like this corner of Tiktok it feels like it's given me a definition that I can accept. Sure midsize I'm not plus size. I'm certainly not thin, but I'm like, I am a mid size strong bitch. And one of them was like, I can't get down with that mid size feels like it's, it's short for mediocre or average. And she's like, I just can't I can't get behind. I'm not average. Like I'm not you know, she's like, I agree that there's this culture of a binary, either your small or your fat, you know, there's no sort of inbetween and but for her mid size felt like, I don't know, average and I was like, Nah, doesn't feel like average. For me. It feels like a girl who has thick thighs and a thick bottom and broad shoulders. And she might be chesty too. And she's, you know, got biceps like she can you know, she's strong.

Jill: It sounds like, to me, it's without the busty like, I'm an A cup. There's nothing, there's nothing busting about an A cup. But yeah, I'm never, thigh gap is not ever a thing that's gonna happen for me. Like I just, I've, I've got quads, and I've got a booty, and I've got a waist, and I'm broad. I'm trying to decide what to think of mid sized I feel like the first thing that comes up is like a mid size SUV. You know, like you're the middle of the road.

Shakira: You know, easy, easy to handle, you know, easier on curves. You know. Gets good gas mileage.

Jill: Well, I mean, all of these things are true. I mean, I probably do get pretty good gas mileage.

Shakira: Can fit in a compact space.

Jill: Ah Absolutely.

Shakira: Easy to parallelt park.

Jill: I'm not mad about midsize.

Shakira: Me neither. I'm gonna send you a couple of the Tiktok girlies that really motivate me and they you know, they stay in the gym, not like in an obsessive way, but in a way of like, they approach it in the way that I want to approach it or that I do approach it, which is, I'm here to work. I am here to get stronger. There is no hiding the size of my thighs, or my arms, or my chest or my back. I am not here to compete with someone else. But I am here to compete with myself. And I'm not afraid of going heavy. And that is like, there's an empowerment. I feel like that sort of sits within this, this mid size sort of definition that feels like very real for me.

Jill: that feels real. That's what I think I like, like it's real, and it's attainable. Yeah. And it's being real with where it is that you want to get to, versus an unrealistic expectation of where you think you need to be right. Like when you talk about this number on the scale. What's your fucking expectation? What did you think was gonna happen in the last eight weeks when you're doing lifting?

Shakira: 135!

Jill: Well, sure. I mean, naturally, you should of lost 60 pounds in six weeks.

Shakira: It's such an old antiquated way of associating value of yourself to like, when I say it out loud. I'm like, girl you haven't been 135 since eighth grade, like will you shut up?

Jill: I don't think I've ever weighed 135, maybe, maybe, I don't know.

Shakira: Go away. Like you're never you're not 24. You know, you're not in your this is your CrossFit season. You know, remember that season for me? 30 through 36.

Jill: I always with you, like, brought me along on the wagon. But I also feel during that time I was running. So that was a very different body type for me.

Shakira: Running. Alot of running. Yeah, that was also a thing. That body type was a thing. And I look at pictures and I'm like, oohwe girl, eat.

Jill: That's just it. To get to this mythical 135. And to do the things that is required to get there and then to fucking be there. I have zero interest. I don't want to be tracking shit. I don't want to be told what I can and cannot eat. I don't want to only be eating chicken and rice. Nope. I want to enjoy food because I like food. I can't I'm not one of those people that can just eat to eat because it's fuel. Yeah, no, I It tastes good. It tastes good. And I get that food fuels me in certain ways. But I'm not looking at it as energy in and energy out. Like I that's just not my mentality. Probably the reason why I never had that runner's high that people experienced because I'm not that dedicated.

Shakira: I did get a runner's high. I did get I did get that but you know, I can get high off of anything.

Jill: No, for me like it was it was the experience. Like it was getting up every Saturday morning at 4:30 to go run with the six o'clock group down at the lake shore. Community, it was community.

Shakira: Do you ever find there's a running theme in the things that you find value and that you need and appreciate Jill, because I do.

Jill: I do. You tell me and let's see if that's what I'm thinking.

Shakira: Community. Your theme has always been one of creating community, being a part of community, helping within a community, finding community. There's this theme, you see so much beauty in it. In community, however that's defined. I feel like that's a big reason why we're friends. Because I'm supposed to get that lesson from you. And I have gotten that lesson from you.

Jill: I was gonna say like, over the last couple of years, like I feel like you are actually in that experience.

Shakira: Especially. Especially Yes, yeah. Was that what you're gonna say?

Jill: Welcome to the community. Yeah. It energizes me. And I feel like it's part of like, feeling like I'm fitting into something that I belong to. Yeah. It just feeds me in so many different ways. And that's why I feel like a little bit of struggling with during the pandemic. Closing the studio, losing my sense of community has been now a little difficult for me to be able to get that back. Hence the reason why I think that we're doing this podcast. It's finding those ways to be involved in community again, and getting myself outside of my four walls to be with community.

Shakira: Yeah. That's the exact opposite of how I used to feel. Now I'm finding the value of it. Even though you were always there like trying to get me to see the value of it. Like, no really this is great. Trust me. This is good. Even the marathon. You're training with the marathon. You trained with bunch of people. I was like, bitch, no way. I'm going out alone. I'm listing my podcasts.

Jill: You totally did. The second year, though. No, was it our first that we did the Girls on the Run?

Shakira: Yeah, but we didn't run with them. I didn't.

Jill: Well, we wore their tank tops. But I ran with Cara. The Chicago Area Running Association. And you used to run alone and high. I'm like, Oh, my God. How can you run high?

Shakira: Yes, all of that?

Jill: My legs always felt like tree trunks. I'm like, I can't do it. So unmotivated.

Shakira: I forget what time of day it was, I forget what like I just forget, I just forget. And it was just, I feel like that was a really good time for me to, like, get to know me, you know I wasn't with anyone, which was a whole new thing. Because I was a serial monogamist essentially, to just like constantly be from one thing to the next. One engagement to the next engagement.

Jill: Well, I mean, girl needs options.

Shakira: You know. So to have that, that space that decade, it felt like, you know, my thirties, was just a decade of not aloneness. But because I was never alone, but not in a committed relationship. Right. was, you know, that was important. So the I feel like, you know, all of that period, the running the exercise, like it was as difficult as that decade was, was a lot of like, kind of like, who are you? You know? I think that's your thirties in general? You know, it's just like, who are you? What are you doing?

Jill: I feel like mine were the flip like, I feel like my 30s are what are you doing? And I feel like my 40s are who are you? That's how I feel like I've flipped those maybe a bit.

Shakira: Ah, yeah, I think there were I think there's a combination of that. And I can probably appreciate the 40's being who are you? For me, at least now. 40's right now feel like, how do you do this? That's the question that's resonating for me.

Jill: Yeah. How do you do that?

Shakira: How do you do that? How do you like, everything's brand new again. Yeah.

Jill: Because you've basically recreated yourself. Yeah, maybe not recreated yourself. But you definitely got to the core. And are discovering what it's like to be you. And what does that mean to be you?

Shakira: Hmm. And how to have feelings without distracting myself from them? Yeah. Like how to have pain without trying to numb it and walk away from it or distract myself with it. I'm not just pain, you know, because that I mean, joy to. You know, how to actually be proud of yourself? How to have self compassion? Yeah, there's a lot of that question for me is like what? Who? What are we doing? What is this? What is this?

Jill: Yeah. How does sit with me with feelings? And what am I what? What is it that I'm going to do with this? And what do I want it?

Shakira: What is this? In your 40s? Question is what was it again? Who are you?

Jill: And I'm on the tail end of 40's and I'm so fucking excited for 50. Oh, my God, I'm so excited for 50. I'm so excited. Every girlfriend and person that I have met that has been 50, 51, 52 has this, I don't give a fuck aura. And I'm so excited to own that badge. Like, I feel like when you hit 50 It's like, you know, the night that you turn 50 It's just like, Yep, and here's your badge. You no longer give a fuck. I'm excited for my badge to put on my sash. I was never in Girl Scouts, but I feel like there's a badge coming.

Shakira: I'll make you one. I will absolutely make you one. So weird. We have I'm like as you're saying, I'm like we have friends who are going to like in their 50s Like, for whatever reason that always just didn't seem possible for me like I'm never getting that old.

Jill: Oh, you are my friend.

Shakira: I am. I am. I'll be 43 this year.

Jill: You're such a baby.

Shakira: 43 is a baby?

Jill: Ah, yeah. I'll be 47.

Shakira: Crazy. Well, at some point, we're going to start talking about death. But we don't have to do that today.

Jill: That's totally different podcast. we don't need to do that today. All right, takeaway

Shakira: Take away. God, I'm really stuck on that last moment, or that those last questions or definitions of how we're walking into or maybe summarizing this time, whether it be this decade or this age, but asking the question of like, what is this? You know, sort of, of in within myself, and reconstructing how I defined it on my terms feels like the takeaway for me.

Jill: Yeah, I'm with you. Because I kind of feel like the question of who are you? Like, I feel like that in capsules, encapsulates all of the whatever, all of the different things that we were talking about as far as like, how do I want to define it? Like, who am I? And how am I defining it, regardless of how it's being defined for me, or how I should be defining it, how it is perceived by somebody else? Like, what is it for me?

Shakira: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love that. We get to do it. Kind of, wouldn't it be nice to know this, like 20 years ago?

Jill:Here's the thing, though. Here's the thing and not to take us totally out of the takeaway and into a whole new conversation. Yeah, yep. Would we have gotten here had we known this information in our 20s? Before all of this lived wisdom that we are now getting to harness? I don't know.

Shakira: Cracking up because no, no, because in my 20s I knew everything I was fucking grown. You couldn't tell me shit. um, yeah, bitch. I know what it is. You tell me. What is it? I know what it is. It's me. It's all about me.

Jill: Yeah, it is all about you. Yeah. But with a hint of arrogance in the 20s. To now. Yeah. to Now a authentic. It is about me with boundaries.

Shakira: Yeah. It's also about others. Hence the community. I think that's just it. Yeah, yeah, we just brought up I just, you're welcome. I did that.

Jill: I love you.

Shakira: I love you too.