Makena and I had the pleasure of chatting with Ayana Terán-Calderon on F*ck Wellness this week and the conversation was so aligned with this newsletter’s mission that I wanted to include some of the interview here. Ayana is a personal trainer dedicated to reclaiming space within the fitness industry to decenter conventional, skinny and white-centric representations of being "fit." I selected some of my favorite parts of the pod episode and put them below. Enjoy!

I had an epiphany last week. Most “rest” in group fitness class settings is performative. What do I mean? Well, I feel like in most HIIT classes I’ve been to, the rest period just becomes transition time or is so short that it can hardly be called “rest time.” There is obviously a purpose to that; for some HIIT intervals, keeping your heart rate high is the goal. But it feels so odd to call it “rest” when it never feels very restful.

I think at this point most of you know my complicated relationship with movement — a saga that sometimes feels a bit never-ending. During the pandemic, I felt so sure I was listening to my body. I went on walks, did yoga, taught a few virtual classes, and occasionally biked. I was gentle with my body. I was kind and compassionate (for the most part, nobody’s perfect lol). I honestly thought that I would never go back to HIIT or cycle or weight-lifting. I was happy with the movement choices I had adopted.

Yesterday I had the loveliest conversation with a sophomore at GW who was interested in becoming a group fitness instructor. It felt very full circle because during my sophomore year is when I met with Erin (the previous fitness and wellness coordinator) about becoming a group fitness instructor. But my conversation with Emily (fake name for anonymity) was so fundamentally different than my conversation with Erin 6 years ago.

Have you ever described yourself as “lacking willpower?” I certainly have. It is the term we use when we ate a cupcake after spending four dreadful hours trying to ignore it. It is what we say when we sit on the couch instead of going on a run. It denotes an air of laziness with a splash of shame and guilt. But what is “willpower” and what does it mean to “lack it?”

My friend, a fellow trainer and group fitness instructor, sent me this post a few days ago. It was created by an Instagram influencer that calls himself “Diesel Dad” and has almost 100K followers. I can’t get it out of my head.

During January on F*ck Wellness, Lara, Makena, and I discussed the Grit Scale, developed by psychology researcher Angela Duckworth. We knew about the concept at the time, but a lot of people messaged us that they were big fans of her work, so I felt obliged to give the entire book a read. 

I’ve spent the last three weeks thinking about discipline for Generation Three Girls’ January theme and I have so many thoughts that my brain may explode. The more I research and learn about discipline, the more I realize how many layers there are. Discipline and privilege. Discipline and moral value. Discipline and responsibility.

On this week’s episode of F*ck Wellness, “The Allure of Discipline: A Case Study of Lara Vanderbilt”, Lara explores how growing up in primarily disciplined environments shaped her identity and personality. She talks about the challenges of transitioning out of the Coast Guard Academy, how she is relearning who she is after spending so many years with a structured and prescribed life, and how she believes discipline can be incredibly helpful, but sometimes destructive.

Generation Three Girls continues our January focus on discipline with a new episode of F*ck Wellness, “Discipline or Abuse? A Conversation about Athletics, Group Fitness, and Performing Arts”. Continuing the conversation from last week’s deep dive on discipline, Lara, Mallory, and returning guest, Meredith Clemons, discuss the good, the bad, and the hopeful of discipline in fitness. 

On this week’s episode of F*ck Wellness called “Discipline, the Grit Scale, and How Society Measures Success”, Mallory, Lara, and Makena unpack the term ‘discipline.’ Makena, our internet whiz, googled the term and came up with this definition based on the initial results: “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior using punishment to correct disobedience.” YIKES. 

On this week’s episode of F*ck Wellness called “F*ck New Year’s Resolutions,” the GTG team talked about how we are throwing out resolutions and goals in favor of habits and intentions in 2021. New Year’s resolutions, a preferred sales tool of the wellness industry, have become synonymous with diets, workout plans, restriction, and control. The problem is that the research is pretty clear that resolutions are not effective. Most people drop them within days or weeks. So how can we meet our new intentions without goals, you may ask? The answer is habit-setting.

I used to crave being sore. It was a badge of victory, an affirmation I had done enough. My pursuit of muscle soreness led me to prioritize workouts that would reliably leave me sore, like BodyPump and lifting heavy weights. Gingerly lowering myself down onto the toilet the days following a hard leg workout made me feel productive and successful. I remember days where I would do a hard workout and wake up the next day without soreness and panic. Had I done enough? Should I have lifted heavier weights? Did I workout for long enough? What did I do differently? It almost felt like a retroactive deletion of the workout in my mind. I guess if I wasn’t sore I hadn’t worked hard enough.

I can’t even remember the first time I was told that we should take at least 10,000 steps a day. I must have heard it so many times that it just became another unverified claim that implanted into my subconscious. We are told an incredible amount of lies, exaggerations, and context-less facts from the fitness and diet industry, so it can be easy to forget the genesis of a single fact. They become ingrained in our perceptions of exercise, nutrition, and self-worth -- so much so that it can be hard to distinguish our own beliefs from what we are told by these businesses.

What did “fit” mean? What constituted “exercise”? What was “good” food and “bad” food? What was a “productive” day? Who was “athletic”? The answers hit me like a ton of bricks. These words mean nothing, yet they mean so much to people. I had defined myself by these words for so long, thinking they had meaning and gave me worth as a human. Who was I without these labels?

A year ago I got an Apple Watch and I was thrilled. I am a big data girl, and as a fitness fanatic I hoped to see the numbers affirm my love for movement and exercise. All seemed well for a while…