Eat less and exercise more? Even Homer Simpson knows he should put down that donut and get off the couch. But reversing the ratio between energy input and outgo carries its own dangers, and compulsive exercise can become a habit with life-threatening consequences, as well as stress fractures, arthritis and reproductive problems.
Where to find the balance we can live with, the moderation in motion?
I go to a gym where there are people way fitter than me, and not just the younger ones. Some adults are there for hours. They seem to use the gym as a sort of day-care center, sweating through several sets of slinky fitness wear. Others are there on doctor's orders to get perhaps the first aerobic exercise of their lives. Plenty would have been at home on a Black Sea beach during the Soviet era.
If we were all lined up according to fitness, I'd be somewhere in the middle. My daughter's struggles with eating disorders has taught me not to get too hung up about a few extra pounds. In high school, my daughter, Lisa, got hung up on a few extra pounds, and then it was a slippery slope to anorexia and bulimia, which involved overexercising. As she wrote in our memoir, Hungry (Berkley Books, August 2009):
"I had soccer practice twice a week, which never wore me out. So, after practice I either went back to the gym or ran a few miles. I felt like a failure if I didn't burn at least eight hundred calories. I even left practice early to go to the gym. Occasionally I would cut class if I knew ahead of time that I would not be able to fit the gym in that day. Weight literally dripped off me like a melting ice cream cone. I had to have been losing three or more pounds a week but never really weighed myself. I could just tell by how my previously flattering pants hung on my boney hips and sagged, barely nearing my tiny legs. I went from a healthy size five to a size three but wanted to be a one, and then that turned into a zero and even a zero did not seem quite right. Eventually I got to double zero."
I didn't even know there was such a thing as size 00. Less than zero? What would that even mean?
It meant, in Lisa's case and many others, exercise bulimia. Like eating, exercise is vital to life, so it's hard to tell when it becomes unhealthy. Like people with anorexia use food to control their feelings and lives, people with bulimia often use exercise, instead of or in addition to laxatives or forced vomiting. It becomes a compulsive, endless habit that never provides satisfaction, even though people schedule their whole day around exercise. Here are some symptoms, from http://exercise.about.com/cs/exercisehealth/a/exercisebulimia.htm
• Missing work, parties or other appointments in order to work out
• Working out with an injury or while sick
• Becoming seriously depressed if you can't get a workout in
• Working out for hours at a time each day
• Not taking any rest or recovery days
No, thanks. It turns out exercise bulimia is as common among men as among women, which matches what I've noticed at the gym.
If I had to choose to spend an hour with the exercise bulimics or the somewhat plus-size swimmers, I'd definitely go with the latter. They finish their swim class, and lounge around, undressed and unembarrassed, in the locker room. At least the women do. (I'm assuming the same goes on in the men's locker room. Men tend to be even better at lounging around.) Often I finish my workout around the same time as the Shallow Water Fitness class ("Low-impact, water-specific exercises designed to build strength, flexibility and endurance in a refreshing and joint-supportive environment.") The classmates chatter away. They aren't tortured; they're having fun.
The super-fit, on the other hand, are busily counting today's weights lifted and calories burned versus yesterday's and the day before. They never look like they're having a good time.
As I remember a wise old jazz lyric:
Everything in moderation,
And moderation is the first to go.
