Do You Know What Fit Looks Like?

Marion Bartoli won Wimbledon 2013. Keeping in my long tradition of watching almost no sports, I did not watch the match. I learned about her win when someone posted an article on facebook. It turns out Marion Bartoli caused quite the upheaval by winning an athletic competition while not looking traditionally fit. She is not of slight build so the logic is, that she must be out of shape and unworthy of the championship. After all being skinny and athletically gifted are practically synonyms, right? As result Marion Bartoli was subjected disgusting amounts of criticism about her looks. She handled this with absolute grace.

This article was posted by a friend of mine who is also an incredible athlete herself, and she posed a very important question, what is the proper response to this type of behavior?

My answer to her question is to destroy the fitness myth and educate people on what numbers actually matter in fitness.

Let me start by asking a few questions. Do you know what fitness looks like? Are all thin people, fit people? If you start working out and training to compete, do you think you will walk away looking like a fitness model?

I think you see where I am going. Fitness takes on many different forms and sizes. Weight is not always directly related to someone's level of physical fitness.  Genetics and other external variables play a huge role in body shape independent of workout regime. Lastly fitness models are models, just like any another part of the fashion industry. There are all kinds of tricks to looking more defined than one actually is, many of which are unhealthy.

For the 2004 Olympics, there was a campaign to address the issue of fitness coming in different sizes. Several different U.S. Olympic atheletes were lined up so we could see their different body shapes along with their height and weight. Below is one example:

I like this campaign and the message it sends, world class athletes who have devoted hours a day to their fitness still come in all different sizes.

I think it is a time for a new message to surface. What does the average athlete look like? What I mean by average athlete, is the individual works a full time job and has all the pressures of a normal life all while training and/or competing in athletic events. For this athlete there are no regular 8 hour workout days with teams of people to ensure they achieve perfection. This is the type of athlete that most people can become. Most do not look like fitness models. They run marathons, swim marathons, do triathlons, race cyclocross, and all sorts of other athletic events. These individuals look delightfully normal, especially when you see them on the street. They come in all different sizes. If you want a specific example, take a look at me. I am an ordinary athlete.

I want to encourage those like myself who are ordinary athletes to come forward with the numbers that do no matter (weight and clothing size), followed by the numbers that do (distance ran/biked/swam, weight lifted, etc.) Let us try to re-educate the population on what achievable fitness looks like for the ordinary person. I cannot raise a challenge I am not willing to do myself, so here goes about me.

At present, I am 5'4 and weigh around 138 pounds. Does my weight surprise you? I am at the high end for my height. I wear size 4 in the US and 8 or a 10 in the UK. I am running a half marathon tomorrow and I did a 1 hour cyclocross race last Monday and I have another one this Monday. I would say that I am in pretty good shape for an ordinary person.

This is a picture of me in college with my younger sister. I was 21 when this was taken. I am in the one in the white swimsuit. At this point I weighed 124 pounds and I wore a size 2. However at this junction in my life, I would not have been able to even run a mile and 20 minutes of aerobics would have been exhausting.

I was fairly slim, but not even remotely an athlete.

After college I continued my inactive lifestyle and the weight caught up to me. I decided to lose it by focusing on training for events, not just weight loss. Below is a picture taken shortly before my 25th birthday; the day I ran my first marathon. At the time I weighed 134 pounds (down from 160 pounds) and wore a size 4 (down from a size 6). Working out will make you slimmer than not working out, but what size and weight you can healthily reach and maintain is determined by other variables.

So you can see I weigh more, but I am far better shape. The extra weight is partially due to muscle mass and partially due to my inherited curves. 

Here is a picture from last summer. I weighed 137 pounds and wore a size 4.  I was 26 when it was taken and competing in an 180 mile bike race. (A concussion and the heat resulted in only biking around 90 miles.) That summer and spring I had biked two gravel centuries, competed in a mountain bike race, competed in a time trial bike race, and trained for another marathon. (I was not able to afford the marathon entry so I did not compete.) Not too bad for an ordinary athlete. 

Last summer I was in the best shape of my life. I also had an excess amount of free time that allowed me to do additional training. As a graduate student, I can no longer boast this luxury.

This is me today at 27 soon to be 28 doing what I love best, racing. I may never weigh in the 120's again. But I bike further, run faster, and lift more than I could before. I know other athletes both bigger and smaller than myself who have the same level of fitness or better. This level of fitness or higher is attainable to even the most ordinary of people.

So here is my challenge. To those you who are athletes, come out with your number, the important ones and the not so important ones. Let us try and change the perception of what people thing fitness looks like.