{"id":1672,"date":"2014-01-02T20:38:10","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T20:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=1672"},"modified":"2017-08-16T15:26:13","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T15:26:13","slug":"skinny-fat-people-need-self-motivation-in-a-peacetime-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2014\/01\/02\/skinny-fat-people-need-self-motivation-in-a-peacetime-army\/","title":{"rendered":"Skinny fat people need self-motivation in a peacetime Army"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”fadeIn” css=”.vc_custom_1500496395705{margin: 0px !important;border-width: 0px !important;padding: 0px !important;}”]Commentary By Sgt. Margaret Taylor, 29th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css_animation=”fadeIn”]\"\"
\nI turned to one side, then the other, and sighed at my reflection in the mirror. \u201cI\u2019m fat.\u201d I poked at the skin on my arm. Yep, there\u2019s definitely a wobble there. My reflection was flabby. I was flabby. Not overweight, but very out of shape: skinny and fat at the same time. That\u2019s not a happy state to be in with an Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) coming up.<\/p>\n

To add to the pressure, my command had just reminded us about the Army\u2019s revised retention posture, which came into play in 2013 and is expected to last through 2017. To shift to a leaner, peacetime fighting force, the Army intends to take a closer look at who is in the service, and trim the excess (i.e., mandate separations). Part of the \u2018to trim or not to trim\u2019 determination would come from enforcing tighter physical fitness standards for regular and reserve Soldiers.<\/p>\n

No more coddling: Pass that APFT or get out.<\/p>\n

Would a skinny fat girl like me continue to have a place in this Army?
\nI haven\u2019t always been so blubbery. As I stared in dismay at my reflection, though, I realized things had reached a tipping point. My physique was due in part to laziness, in part to poor diet, in part to injury (bad backs \u2013 yeah, they suck), but the decline was of my making.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I could squeak by with a minimal pass in my APFT, but would the minimum be good enough? Mediocrity is a terrible thing, and I can only imagine a promotion board looking at my packet one day and saying, \u201cThis Taylor\u2026she\u2019s okay. But this Soldier over here is awesome.\u201d And being \u2018okay\u2019 wouldn\u2019t be good enough.<\/p>\n

But what would you do about it?<\/p>\n

At 32, I no longer have the whippet-like ability of my younger self to go from flab to super fit at the drop of a hat. I also don\u2019t have any experience designing my own fitness regimen. And I certainly don\u2019t have tons of money to throw at a personal trainer to play drill sergeant to my lazy, wheezy self.<\/p>\n

Even with all those excuses, though, I decided to do something about it.<\/p>\n

I started going to the gym in my neighborhood. That gym is free for residents \u2013 always good for a girl on a budget \u2013 and I muddled my way through a week of workouts before admitting I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I nearly gave up.<\/p>\n

Instead, I contacted a friend of mine who has a background in personal fitness and competitive bodybuilding. She is also a Soldier in the Oregon Army National Guard who I met on deployment in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrittany: Help!\u201d I said to her. \u201cI sat on my butt too much and the flab is overwhelming!\u201d<\/p>\n

Star that she is, Brittany pointed me in the direction of a website (bodybuilding.com) that offers free workouts and nutrition advice for all kinds of people, newbies to incredible hulks alike. I jumped on it right away. Maybe you\u2019re wondering, \u201cYeah, sure. Was it really so easy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, that part was. But the next part was harder. That was the carving out time each day to exercise part, the part where I noticed what I was eating and when, the part when I tried to replace bad habits with good.<\/p>\n

Egad that\u2019s tough. I\u2019ve slipped up. I\u2019ve eaten cake. I\u2019ve drunk a soda or two (or, ahem, three). I was sick for a week (yay, food poisoning) and my momentum stuttered. But I kept going to the gym. I kept trying.<\/p>\n

After a few weeks of working out, I took my APFT. I did the best I\u2019ve done in years and scored a 270 combined out of the possible 300 points. Of course there\u2019s plenty of room for improvement, but that\u2019s miles better than my flabby self, who sighed at her reflection, would\u2019ve done. Even with the APFT done and gone until next year, I still go to the gym because I don\u2019t want to see that out of shape girl in the mirror again.<\/p>\n

Mediocrity is an awful thing, but it\u2019s possible to be better than just okay. Let\u2019s end the skinny fatness with a bit of perseverance, grit and sweat. Our health and our careers are worth it.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I turned to one side, then the other, and sighed at my reflection in the mirror. \u201cI\u2019m fat.\u201dI poked at the skin on my arm. Yep, there\u2019s definitely a wobble there. My reflection was flabby. I was flabby. Not overweight, but very out of shape: skinny and fat at the same time. That\u2019s not a happy state to be in with an Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) coming up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[452,453,333],"class_list":["post-1672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-news","tag-commentary","tag-fitness","tag-health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2248,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions\/2248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}