Dreaming of a White Christmas

It didn’t snow for Christmas this year, which really was a shame. I dare say Norway is one of the most beautiful countries in which to enjoy the season when it’s cold and white and beautiful. Instead, it rained for the majority of Christmas Eve and Day, and we just had to make do with candles and music inside while listening to the rain whipping on our windows.

The other tradition to be neglected this Christmas was my sugar intake. I didn’t have any. At all. About three weeks before the time was upon us I decided to quit refined sugar for good. I remembered those two weeks sometime early this year when Ariz and I experimented with taking refined sugar entirely out of our diet and the ensuing cleanliness my body thrived in. But regardless of how good I felt back then it’s still needless to say that Christmas 2013 has been full of interesting new experiences and surprises – the holiday doesn’t exactly scream sugar free, at least not in Norway.   

The day after my epiphany/challenge/”Oh my god, what have I done?”, I sat down to collect recipes for all my favourite Christmas cookies without sugar. Gingerbread was an obvious one, then chocolate balls, oat nuts (havrenøtter) and finally, goro – a very Norwegian tradition. It’s actually so traditional that they’ve stopped producing the goro irons – luckily my mum sampled one before it was too late. I was filled with enthusiasm and willpower and thought a sugar free Christmas would be a pure, healthy piece of cake. It’s funny how excited we are about new things – a new haircut, a new car, or a new resolution. I don’t think I’m ever as determined about the new year as I am January 1^st. But then comes the 2^nd and the 3^rd and soon enough you begin to lose the initial fascination with the new and become tired and sick of the usual.

Having that said, I was still motivated to stay sugar free when I decided to try out a gluten-free, sugar-free gingerbread recipe. I’ll just skip right ahead to the ending for those of you who haven’t got time for the story: gluten-free gingerbread should only be made by those with a special license and/or magic ability. The thing about baking without flour is that almond flour, which is most commonly used as a substitute, does not bind the dough as well as its counterpart. Imagine my surprise, but primarily horror, when I mixed everything together and not only did it taste absolutely nothing like gingerbread, but it also crumbled like a week-old, dried out slice of bread. It was literally impossible to make anything that was even mildly similar to the slim, delicious, crispy gingerbread I had so hoped to achieve.

Setbacks like these almost make me want give up. I didn’t want to have a sugar free Christmas anymore. It was a dumb idea and I would go back to the refined yummies immediately. But after some comforting words from my mother and husband I decided to try again, and simply attempt to find a sugar substitute, rather than a gingerbread substitute altogether. It worked beautifully. The cookies that came out of the oven were, indeed gingerbread. And that’s coming from someone who loves gingerbread almost as much as she loves Christmas itself. My spirits were officially restored and I went on to the chocolate balls and goro. And they were both successes. Particularly the goro, which was so delicious that we finished them all before Christmas, forcing me to make another batch on the 25^th.

It’s the 29^th of December today, and I’ve survived my very first holiday completely without sugar. Even though it’s tough I still think I prefer it to feeling awful and buying premade cookies that anyone could have made. Making everything from scratch sort of adds that little traditional and personal touch of having to spend a few hours baking and reflecting on what a beautiful time of year it really is. So next year I’ll dream of a white Christmas again, though just the cold, outdoors, kind of magical one.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year J

I'm back, baby!

When I lived in Auckland, New Zealand as a kid there was an amusement park called Rainbow’s End. They ran a TV commercial at least 20 times every day, especially in summer time when my mother and I were living in Kiwiland. One day, my mum said that she would take me and my friend Kimone on a Saturday to go visit Rainbow’s End. Obviously, I was ecstatic. I believe we had to wait something like three weeks before we finally found a Saturday that suited all parents and both children involved, and finally, we were on our way.

Entering the gates of the amusement park was probably the biggest let-down of my life. The fanciest attraction was a stinking rollercoaster that took something like a minute to ride, and that had looked at least twice as big on TV.  To say I was bummed would be the understatement of my childhood. Before moving to New Zealand, I had visited Disneyland outside of Los Angeles and my naïve ten-year-old brain had hoped Rainbow’s End would at least be reminiscent of the outstanding American theme park. Well, it wasn’t.

The difference between Rainbow’s End and Disneyland, LA is a good analogy to the complete joy I’ve been bathing in since returning to Norway from Kurdistan. Trying to stay healthy and fit in Sulaimaniyah was a little like living as far away as possible from anything that could be called health or fitness. Picture a desert island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean of training and good eating, and that’s Kurdistan for you. Needless to say, coming to Norway has been nothing short of magical.

Ariz and I have spent countless hours browsing the shelves of regular super markets, and jumping from pure excitement when we’ve so easily been able to find the products we’ve been missing in Kurdistan. Skimmed, protein-enriched milk. Skinny cottage cheese. 4% fat ham (of pork!). Full-grain bread. Fresh chicken fillets. Salmon. Salads, capsicum, celery, apples aplenty, and even blueberries and raspberries. To say I’m in Zone Diet heaven would be the understatement of my adulthood.

And then there’s the fitness aspect of it all. We’re members of a gym. A real one. Not the one in our spare bedroom which held a bench press, some weights, and a treadmill. We’re proud members of a gym that’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long. And they’ve got machines, and weights, and treadmills, and elliptical trainers, and all the space you can imagine. Ariz doesn’t need to hold my legs when I do oblique crunches anymore, cause there’s a wall especially made for just that. I don’t need to jump on the tiny bench press bench, cause they have squared stands made for jumping onto. There are other women at the gym, who are at least twice as strong as I am. And when we want to order protein, or vitamins, or casein, we simply do, online, and have it at our doorstep two days later.

My body is relieved, and I’m relieved. I’m very happy to say that I’ve finally landed – after five years overseas – in the Disneyland, LA of fitness.

No pain, no gain

There are more than six hundred muscles in the body. Yes, you read that right. Bet that explains the unexplainable soreness after your last workout, someplace you “didn’t know existed”. It sure did for me. Here’s another fun fact: humans are born with all the muscle fibre they will ever have. Which means we don’t produce any muscular fibres while we live, they simply grow thicker. Taking this, and a few billion other facts into account, you’ll slowly begin reach the tip of the iceberg that muscles are - my friend Eline who studies medicine will tell you all about this. What truly amazes me, though, is my muscles’ ability to gain strength.

When you work out you’re actually breaking your muscles. Not substantially, but weightlifting causes microtears in your muscular fibres, which in turn will build up again and thus become stronger. No pain, no gain, right, muscles? This is why recovery is of the essence; your muscles need time to recuperate, and allow for the fibres to become thicker. And my, oh my does the body learn how to do this at top speed and efficiency if you just teach it how. 

I remember lying on a bench in Swaziland about three years ago, struggling severely with one rep of 10 kilos on the bench. When I needed help for the second one, my friend told me that benching wasn’t for girls, anyway - something about boobs becoming smaller (now there’s false statement number one of that year) and chest looking less feminine. I think my peer was trying to comfort me a little in my utter failure, but all he did was plant a seed in my mind. It grew into two separate plants, which have taken a lot of pruning and pulling to remove. The first plant (the less aggressive of the two) told me that as a girl, there were some muscles I simply didn’t need to work on. They were men muscles - non-unisex. The other plant, however, was a dangerous sprout. It argued I wasn’t strong enough. That bodybuilding for women was reserved for those few on steroids who look like gingerbread on Christmas Eve.

It was long after this, sometime last year, that I begun some serious mind gardening. I began to realise that girls are just as capable to work towards a fitness goal as men are. And not just a fitness goal: a bodybuilding goal. Elementary, right? But not till March this year did I get back on the bench. Amazingly, my months of working on my chest and biceps off the press had made me strong enough to bench 20 kilos without much struggle, at least if I kept my reps low and sets few. Then, as Ariz and I switched to our diet, I decided to push myself harder. I started increasing my reps and sets until the 20 was a minor piece of cake. About a month ago, I started on the 30 kilo. In the beginning, it was tough, but not so tough as to make my muscles go home for tea and biscuits. I could do it. And every week, my fibres had grown thicker, giving me more power - more strength, I should say - to work towards my goal. It’s an intoxicating feeling, strength. Now, I’ve started to understand why professional athletes feel invincible. There is a riveting flow of happiness that rushes through you as you realise your muscles are fully capable of doing what you’re asking of them. 

Becca Swanson’s world record for female bench pressing is 270 kilos. Take that, you stupid boy from a few years back. 270 kilos. And her boobs look just fine and dandy. She’s probably got some of the thickest muscle fibre around, too. Me, I still have a long way to go. I don’t even know if I’ll ever reach my 90 kilo goal, but if I ever do, I’ll be the happiest muscle owner in the world. And now that they know - my muscles - where I hope to be, I’m sure they’ll get me there one day at a time.

Healthy heritage

In Tanzania, 1000 people of the Hadza tribe still live as hunter-gatherers. They’ve been largely unchanged in their way of life for the last (at least) 10 000 years. This fascinating people was used as the basis of a study published in 2012, which essentially proved, and highlighted, the theory I’m constantly presented with as fact whenever browsing health sections online: You wanna stay fit? Lose weight? Be healthy? It’s 80% diet, and 20% exercise. That is, no matter how many hours you spend pumping, running, and lifting, it won’t burn off those burgers from McDonald’s or delicious chocolate cake. Since the Hadza people live like we Westerners did as hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago, the team of scientists from the UK, Tanzania, and the States, weighted their exercise level against their metabolic rate. The latter was then compared to the metabolic rate of Westerners. And guess what they found? The metabolic rate of the Hadza tribe is exactly the same as yours or mine. It’s a human characteristic, which does not change.

Man, was I glad to read that. It would suck quite a bit if I’d put all the effort of this month into eating healthier (at a somewhat drastic level, I might add), and then found out all I needed to do was run a couple kilometres further on the treadmill. The change in diet I’m referring to is one Ariz and I made a few weeks back. Ramadan was over, my lovely mother had gone back to Norway (taking some of my heart with her), and it was time to get back on track. Ariz has been pestering me about the Zone diet for as long as I can remember us getting into fitness. All “Miniblocks” this, and “equal parts” that. But then I started thinking about this Hadza tribe (well, I didn’t at the time, but for the sake of storytelling, let’s pretend I did), and I thought to myself, it wouldn’t really hurt giving a proper change in diet a go. I know we’ve tried it before. But this was different. You’ll see.

I started reading from the two leaflets Ariz has carried religiously with him wherever we’ve moved, and realised this Zone diet makes a lot of sense. Don’t ask me about the science, though - I can’t really be bothered with that. The essence of this way of eating is that your body only needs a certain amount of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates per day (depending on gender, and activity level, of course), and these have set values in the form of miniblocks. These values go like so:

1 miniblock of fat = 1.5 g
1 miniblock of carbs = 9 g
1 miniblock of protein = 7 g

So, if I need 14 blocks of each of these per day, that means I need to consume 21 grams of fat, 136 grams of carbs, and 98 grams of proteins in 24 hours. Yes, yes, I know it’s a lot of math. It’s also an f-ton of vegetables to consume. I honestly cannot get over the amount of healthy food you have to eat in order to compensate for a teensie tiny bit of unhealthy food. Go figure. Anyway, getting back to my storytelling.

Ariz and I started this diet a few weeks back, and the change in everything related to physical and psychological wellbeing is just astounding. I know, I know, I’ve talked about this a billion times. But this Zone diet is something different. I just feel healthier. Like, long-term prospect, thinking about the future healthier - somewhere rooted deep inside my body, probably where that Hadza tribe hunter-gatherer is buried from thousands of years ago in my instincts. I don’t feel like chocolate and fast food and chips anymore. And I’m not just saying that. Honestly, I don’t. My favourite snack right now is a handful of dates and some nuts. It’s like my mind’s erased all those things I used to love putting into my body before, and replaced them with something equivalently tasty - but healthy. The mind’s a mysterious place - it’s almost like it wants my body to be happy.

Here I go again....

I know I’ve written a lot of blogs about what it feels like to start training again after a long break. But I don’t think anything quite measures up to level of pitiful state my body had reached when I got back on the treadmill and hit the weights once again this week. Two months of holidaying in Norway, with the country's delicious food, drinks, and not to mention (lots of!) wedding cake, followed by an even more sinful two-week stay in Florence takes its toll on muscles and heart. The uplifting thing, though, is how incredibly thankful your body becomes when you do decide to treat it to some cardio and muscular exercise again. All is forgotten; the pimples disappear, the joint aches vanish, and the concentration of your mind is suddenly top notch once more. 

Today, I managed to do TEFL, university work, the kitchen tidy-up sorely needed, bake cinnamon buns, Skype with my oldest friend, go to the shops, and still write this blog. This fascinates me. Particularly because last week, when I hadn’t started working out yet, I struggled with an hour and a half of study in the morning. After this ordeal, I felt tired, exhausted, and uninterested in any other form of physical or mental exercise. That knot of stress and unease in my chest was still very much alive, and the first thing I did in the morning was worry about how I was going to finish everything I needed to do during the day.  Keep in mind, this was just seven days ago. 

Now, fast forward to the amount of stuff I got done today. And the fact that my brain is still capable of writing this blog with some coherence. I know there have been studies done on all this, and I probably seem like a bit of a dimwit for saying it, but exercise seriously enhances your physical and psychological state of well-being! I cannot reiterate enough how wrong people who say exercise will make you more tired really are. It’s a flat-out lie. These people, they’re lying to you. Their argument is like doctors' recommending heroin to prevent a nasty cough in the early 20th century. Heroin is bad for you, and exercise makes you more energetic, joyful, and capable of doing whatever it is you need to do the day after your exercise. Can I get an “endorphins”, anyone? I’m off to make dinner now. 

Once upon a time in Swaziland...

When I was 17 years old, I moved to Swaziland in Southern Africa. My experience with gyms at this point was, to put it subtly, limited. I don’t know what makes a person who’s never gone to the gym tick, and suddenly decide to start going, but for me it was a close to two metres tall, severely bulked up kid from Africa, who said there were plenty of girls who would go to the gym, if the option was there for them. 

So I started going. I felt, literally, like a baby lemur in a male gorilla cage. These guys were growling and howling with their 20’s and 50’s and 100’s, and I stood there, in a corner, feeling like the most awkward person in world, struggling with three sets of 10, 2 kg’s in hand. But it got to me. Going to the gym is like getting the travel bug; it’s a lifelong obsession and once it’s got you, it never lets go. After a while, I was organising gym times for girls, and doing 150 sit-ups five times a week. 

It feels like an eternity since I got up at 6 AM twice a week to open the dusty, worn-down gym; the excitement I felt when the coach had bought a treadmill over one of our term breaks, and the happiness at the number of girls in attendance rising. I think back to the time before I started pushing weights and hitting the treadmill, and I cannot fathom how I ever didn’t. It seems like such an integral part of me now, like breathing or eating or watching films or writing. 

A few months ago, Ariz said to me: “I think you’re just going to have to accept you’re going to be one of these fit people who runs around in the forest and leaves the gym last at night.” This was a strange concept for me to take in. I never thought I would ever be able to even do a push-up, and now I can do five angled ones - ten if I really want to. Squats were an impossibility up until this winter:

“My knees are too weak,” I’d say to Ariz at Aqualife, “I can’t keep my balance and there’s too much pressure on them when I sit down.”

“If you do them more, and carefully, your knees will get stronger,” was his solemn reply. 

And he was right. Tell me to do 50 squats with 10 kg of extra weight? No problem.

I look at the journey the gym’s taken me and my body on, and I have to admit it fascinates me that the simple feeling of being tiny, and uncomfortable, and weak in a busted, African gym, is enough to get you hooked on a lifetime of strength, discipline, and fun. 2kg’s, I salute you.

Food, tranquility, Florence

Early yesterday morning, I arrived back in Kurdistan and thus, real life. I’ve had an absolutely amazing summer vacation, in which food has been one of the main foci, and particularly so on my honeymoon. This blog, then, will quite simply be a tribute to good food, Florence, and enjoying one of the simplest of pleasures in life. Let’s face it, I ain’t getting back on that treadmill just yet.

Florentines have a marvellous way of relaxing with food. They eat all the time, everywhere, everything, and they enjoy it to the fullest. At the B&B Ariz and I slept in Florence, fresh croissants, biscuits, as well as port wine was at hand 24/7. Around the corner, at the gorgeous Caffe Sant’Ambrogio, you could buy a glass of wine for 4 Euro, and enjoy complimentary prosciutto, pasta, nuts, and mini pizzas free of charge. A few shops down from that; the best chocolate ice cream I’ve ever tasted in my life. And then the beautiful Cibreo, where I enjoyed both cod mousse and stuffed rabbit, both cooked to perfection. All this, in the area of just four blocks. It is amazing to put this much delicious food into your mouth. And even though it’s not conventionally “healthy” food, I do believe there is something thoroughly good for your soul in sitting down, enjoying a glass of wine, and eating a dish someone has clearly prepared with skill and not to mention, love. 

Florence is a beautiful city in all its aspects; the sights, the people, the history. What you can’t read in a book, though, is how good the minestrone at Oleandolo just off the Duomo tastes with a glass of ice cold, fresh prosecco. You can’t describe the subtle hint of bacon in a porcini mushroom risotto at Olio and Convium, a few blocks down from Ponte Vecchio. And you certainly have to go there, be there - smell it, taste it, feel it - in order to fully experience the genuine hospitality and kindness Florentines treat their guests with. And this, this amazing feeling the city provides you with at all times, is best enjoyed over a glass of wine and some cold cut salami and pancetta from the wonderful Italian pantry.

It is almost as if eating is a kind of breathing to Florentines. And a different one to anywhere else in the world. In Norway, we breathe quickly, while catching the bus or chasing through the woods on skis, thermos in backpack. In New York, they breathe hot air, and run across blinking pedestrian lights to reach work on time, sandwich in hand. And in Bangkok, there’s a different kind of breathing altogether, preferably over some street food in the steaming humidity. But in Florence, ah, in Florence, lunch may take half an hour, or three, and either way, your breath will become calm and steady, over the immensity of pure pleasure that can come from a simple espresso and tiramisu at noon. 

Time for reflection

About two weeks ago, I told my mum I’ve started developing the nasty habit of looking down at people who don’t work out. When I see shopping trolleys filled with coke and pizza, I shake my head and frown. Looking out of the window while walking on the treadmill and catching the eye of a poor passer-by who probably has a very good reason for being overweight, a sense of pity and judgement overcomes me. Having spent the past two weeks in bed for reasons including sinusitis, influenza, urticaria, and a general feeling of being unwell, I’ve started to become ashamed of my swift and condescending evaluation of people I don’t know and know nothing about. Just like I gained more kilos than I’d like to share here while I had bronchitis last year, I have absolutely no right to judge the people who do not frequent the gym for reasons unknown to me now. 

Simply because I have chosen to prioritise exercise as part of my life, and keep it high on my value list, it doesn’t make me any better or stronger or more enlightened than the people who don’t. They may be followers of the belief that when life gives you a spare moment to breathe, it should be enjoyed with relaxation, wine and chocolate. Or eat tons of pasta, like the Italians. Or watch their favourite re-run on TV. Good on them. They may have four children at home, perhaps one sick with something, the other needing help with their homework, or all four waiting to attend a soccer tournament for which cinnamon buns must be baked. They may, like my mother, work 60-hour weeks, have a corpus librum floating around their knee, and be awaiting surgery in order to get to the gym. In the end, no extension of authority for passing judgement is given to me simply because I choose go to the gym six times a week. 

After all, I have an almost completely stress- and carefree life. I may choose to pile projects and exercise onto my plate, but it’s an easy choice. The only person I have to consider when making my choice is just as keen to re-visit his weights and reps as me. Piece of cake, some might even say. So here it is, my public and broadcast promise: I will never pass judgement upon a non-gym-goer again. 

Sickly strain

Two days ago I got the flu, bad, with a fever, runny nose, chesty cough and aching bones. It reminded me (once again) of how incredibly lucky I am to live a healthy life, with enough money to buy medicine and food whenever I need it. Furthermore, it reminded me of how much I enjoy working out on a regular basis. It’s funny how my energy levels plummet (and no, it’s not just the flu), my concentration seems to perish, and anything other than lying in bed for a “24” marathon feels inexplicably demanding after just two days of staying home from the gym. Saying goodbye to Ariz as my mum dropped him off earlier today adds just a little bit of a bitter touch to the whole thing. 

This bitterness is incredibly fascinating to me, because, just one year ago, going to the gym was a chore. It was an effort that had to be factored into my stressful and rushed day on par with making dinner and doing my homework. Admittedly, going to the gym has become a lot easier in the last few months, what with a home gym and all, but even now when I’m in Norway, and have to drive the same distance as I did to Aqualife in Vic Park, it has ceased to feel like an effort. Now, I crave the treadmill, and the weights, and the simple act of putting on my workout gear. My muscles ache not just from the flu, but also from their lack of resistance training, subsequent soreness, and relieving recovery. It feels like my entire being is begging me to put on my trainers, get into the car, and drive off to what should be its daily workout. 

And even though I want to finish my university work for the day, my eyes droop, as my mind promises it’ll let me concentrate on academics if it can just bargain with the body for even a ten-minute walk on the treadmill. Then I cough, and swallow with some difficulty, reminding my body that I am, in fact, sick with the flu. It sighs. Fine then, keep your droopy eyes and wandering thoughts. We can wait. I smile, because the (bitter)sweetness to it is, I really can’t. 

Hurry, heart!

On Wikipedia alone, there are eight different formulae for calculating your maximum heart rate. I hadn’t really looked much into the topic until I came into a discussion with my uncle last night about why it’s relevant, and what it’s relevant for. I’ve just been doodling along with my heart rate monitor, proud to reach anything above 185 beats per minute (lunges are particularly good for this), cause that’s when I really feel like my muscles cease their interest in any kind of movement, after just a few seconds. Then, at the end of my workout, my watch tells me my average heart rate, my maximum heart rate, and how long I’ve been in the “Fat Burn” zone, in addition to how long I’ve been in the “Fitness” zone. The latter hasn’t really peaked my interest much, until I got into this discussion with my uncle last night. 

The most widely cited formula for HR_max, would have my mum in cardiac arrest pretty much every time she gets on a bicycle. It was developed in 1970, and simply calculates your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Then you’ve got the reaaaaally complicated ones, like the Lund Study, which has different formulae for women and men (plus, plus), and incidentally gives one of the most accurate calculations to what I’ve experienced when running as fast as I can for a little while. It goes:

190.2 / (1 + exp (0.0453 x (age - 107.5))) (put it into Google - it does the math for you)

But everyone agrees: if you really want to find out how hard you can go - you need a set-up ala Captain America’s muscle transformation machine, with at least two specialists overseeing you and monitoring an ECG machine, while simultaneously screaming at you to run faster and faster, until you collapse. I’m not that keen on falling off a treadmill (and particularly not the consequent burn marks from the mill band), but an approximate is handy to have up your sleeve.

Now, the reason I’ve been going on about this, is because the most useful thing about knowing your maximum heart rate, is that you can tailor your workout accordingly. If I want to burn fat, I need to be at between 60-70% of my maximum heart rate. If I want to do anaerobic training, I need to be at 80-90%. In other words: when you have an estimate of your 100% heart rate, you can choose your exercise, choose the results you want, and train thereafter. And that’s pretty darn useful. Plus, it might be good knowing just how fast your ticker can go if you’re out in the woods being chased by dogs, bears, or wolves, just in case you’re running so fast you might be in danger of a heart attack. But then you’re maybe not wearing a heart rate monitor in the woods, or worrying about cardiac arrest when you’re being chased through them, anyway.

Build a house, build a body...

Bodybuilding has a tainted name. To this day, this is still what generally comes to mind when I think of the term. But let’s re-cap for a second, and break the word down. Body and building. So building your body. Isn’t that what we’re generally after at the gym, anyway? I know I am - I want a strong body, like a carpenter might want a strong house - and I build it. Until Ariz showed me the website www.bodybuilding.com, I wouldn’t even have thought to go near anything like it. And it is, admittedly, a tad over the top. Some of the profiles look ridiculous. But the website’s expert advise, workout programs, and nutritional information are all astoundingly good. 

I’m currently reaping the benefits from a training program that won the competition “What Is The Best Female Bodybuilding Workout?” No steroids or strange, chemical supplements included; it’s a basic program. For building my body. To me, there is something strangely empowering and interesting - almost like learning a trade - to discovering how your body functions pretty much like a machine. It needs oiling and fuel and regular check-ups and security controls - and bodybuilding is the way (I’m almost sure of it) to secure that your body machinery is working properly and needs less servicing than before.


Of course, there are those who go way too far, and ruin the image for the rest of us who just want a healthy and strong body - a well-built one that functions as it should. That’s why I head to the gym six times a week, drink my energy drink, and eat my banana at the end of each workout. Why I don’t mind the utter agony of climbing my mother’s staircases a day or two after my legs have been pushed to their limit. I’m building my body for the future. Kind of like an investment into my own health, and stocks are looking pretty good at the current moment. So here goes, without any excuses or shame: I am a bodybuilder. And it feels pretty darn good.  

Reckless running

I’ve written about this on several occasions before, but I feel like it can’t be stressed enough: will power is a very, well, powerful tool. It can make you do the most amazing things, and the strangest. At present moment I’m fairly dizzy and quite delirious - all because of will power. I decided that today would be a good day to start running again - I haven’t for about a week, substituting my intended cardio increase with a brisk walk instead. The effect’s the same. I thought. Well, that was until will power happened this evening. I was feeling sluggish, tired, and annoyingly warm by the time I’d finished my 30-minute strength program, and thought, “Hey! Tonight might be a good night to start running again.” So I did. But not on last week’s cardio program like normal, sane - and not currently possessed by will power - people would do. Oh no, sir. I did the cardio program for this week. Which I’ve never done before, by the way.

Now, a little bit about this cardio increase thing: it increases every week, as the name suggests. I’m currently in my third week of a ten-week workout plan. The daily strength programs stay the same, but cardio, you guessed it, increases. So the first week, I ran for one minute and walked for two minutes, and I did this seven times. Then, in the second week, I ran for two minutes and walked for two minutes - five reps. So, it would kind of make sense, right, to perhaps start with last week’s running scheme, considering I haven’t run for a little less than a week? Nope. Will power stepped in. “You can do this, Synne! Prove to the world you can do this.” So I did. I picked a spot on our wall, somewhere between my favourite quotation that I mentioned last week and a picture of Jesus walking on a water treadmill. And I ran for three minutes on full speed, and walked for two minutes at approximately 160 heartbeats per minute, four times. Now I’m sat here, with eyes half-open, trying to comprehend if Ariz is asking me if I’d like chicken, or if I’d like to climb into the oven myself. I don’t know. I’m pretty tired. Thanks, will power. You did it again. Chicken, anyone?

Fantastic (home) fitness

So, I used to think that having a home gym was for those people who either a) are too lazy to go to the gym or b) want their guests to think they train so much they have to have their equipment in immediate reach. It turns out, I have been utterly disillusioned, and completely wrong. When you’ve got space for it, having a home gym is probably one of the most practical things I have ever experienced in my entire life - and I’m Norwegian, engaged to a Swede, so I know practicality when I see it. 

The best thing about having a home gym is probably that you don’t have to organise to actually go to the gym - so there’s no “Well, we’ll do it after the groceries,” or “Yeah, let’s drive there before lunch.” No, sirree - you just put on whatever clothes you want to train in (that’s another perk), and walk the two metres from your bedroom to, voila, your training area. Admittedly, it’s neither as big, nor as fancy as a gym, but the actual amount of space you’d spend at a real gym probably isn’t much more than what you can do in a little room at home anyway. Plus, you get all that space to yourself. 

Second favourite of mine is the fact that I can behave exactly as I like in our home gym. Even though that was pretty close to the case at Aqualife too, there’s just something amazing (perhaps particularly being a woman) about being able to groan like the steroid-heads from Predator whenever I’m pushing heavy, or just plain feel like it. I can put my Schwarzenegger face on and grumble as much as I want.

Then, the third best thing about having a home gym is the fact that you can decorate it to your heart’s desire, and play whatever music you want. Our walls are covered in pictures of everything from Dr. Life to Mr. Olympia himself, plus some good motivational quotes for me, my favourite of which is “Skinny girls look good in clothes - Fit girls look good naked.”

Superior to all these things, however, is the fact that I’m getting much better results at home than I was getting at the gym. Ariz noted this a few days ago after a workout session, saying he had started to sense an inkling of actual back muscle on me. I immediately walked into the bathroom, posed in front of the mirror, and tensed my back. And there they were: microscopic little patches of uneven where muscles have slowly started to form. Perhaps groans and moans are the way to go after all. 

Slemani sweetness

So, a couple of months back, you may remember Ariz and I doing a two-week long sugar free experiment. Now, this experience taught me two things:

1. Going without sugar is refreshing for the body, soothing for the mind, and provides a strong sense of accomplishment
2. I have a pretty severe sugar intolerance

I discovered this on the flight from Perth to Dubai, on which I indulged in a yummy Emirates dessert and one soft drink too many. I felt miserable - and not just “Ew, I’m eating sugar again,” but actually “I don’t feel well.” 

As you may have guessed, this latter lesson has been harder to grasp and take on as fact, but it remains just as true no matter how many Daim-chocolates I drool (and practically cry) over here in Kurdistan; when I eat sugar, my body is incredibly unhappy. 

This would have been a fairly easy problem to overcome in Norway or Australia, I thought when we got here, but looked gloomily at the prospect of having to survive in Slemani without any kind of sweets. Two weeks before my birthday, however, Ariz dead-stopped me at the supermarket. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, and I was irritable and anxious to move on, so didn’t really pay attention at first. 

“Synne! Look!” he exclaimed, pointing in utter disbelief at a shelf section of - you never would have guessed it - healthy foods. I mentioned last week how fatty Middle Eastern food is, and make no mistake about it: people’s attitude to food here includes neither nutritional values nor calorie counts. To find this treasure trove was like finding a laptop in Tutankhamun’s tomb. And most unbelievable of all, at the shelf’s bottom left corner, there was Steviola. 

Steviola is a sugar-alcohol product that tastes just like sugar, but contains no glucose, sucrose, fructose, or other sugar kind. In Norway it’s called Sukrin. I couldn’t believe my own eyes, and didn’t actually believe the product was real until I made lemon meringue pie with it for my birthday. In thorough disbelief, I baked the pie base, whisked the meringue, and stirred the lemon cream. Then, as I bit into a completely sugar-free deliciousness the night before the 11th - perfectly balanced in its Steviola sweet and lemon sour - I realised that I had found my life-long sugar substitute. And in Slemani, Kurdistan at that. 

Welcome to Kurdistan

Kurdistan is an eruption of impressions, cultural differences, flavours, and sights I hadn’t prepared myself for in any way. In the midst of relocating to a different continent, and the chaos that ensues (every time, I believe), we’ve tried to maintain the two things we both need to stay stable, sane, and strong: going to the gym and eating healthy. 

The former of the two was easily solved when we found a supermarket down the road from our apartment that sells training equipment. About a week and a half ago, we bought a treadmill, a bench press, and a few weights for a quarter of any Western price I’ve ever seen, and man, oh, man, was I thrilled. Running again, after nearly two weeks of no exercise at all, has been marvellous, and on my birthday five days ago, I got a brand new pair of running shoes. The Adidas shop on Salem street is neither licensed, nor as fancy as any European running shoe store - but they had a pair that fit me, and fit me well.

“They take in the stuff that’s made for the Indonesian market,” Ariz translated to me as I tried on the neon pink and black running shoes, “so it’s like - second-grade Adidas.” We both laughed, I skipped around the shop in the wonderful things, and paid the $60 they cost. I’ve run every day since then.

Second on our list of health and sanity, there’s food. Anyone who’s ever had a kebab, a falafel, or any other typically Middle Eastern dish will know that one ingredient brings them all together, and that, my friends, is fat. When we first came here, it felt as if my love handles grew by the minute, and everything that was put in front of us had a fat content higher than McDonald’s put together. So we’ve done what we did in Australia: we buy the ingredients in the wonderfully smelly and magical bazaar, and cook our delicious, wholesome food at home. I’m not giving up the samosas they have here, though - those things are delicious.

All in all, we’re slowly coming back into routine. I’m starting to think of our home gym as our actual gym, and my longing for the fancy machinery at Aqualife is starting to fade. And when Ariz puts delicious dishes like his chilli con carne in front of me for dinner, it’s hard not to feel like I’m at home. 

All natural

I’m not a fan of extremes. Having claimed the book Nutrition as my only guide to food in the last couple of years, I tend to be sceptical at the least when hearing about diets that exclude one or more of our five basic food groups. Having that said, I am a fan of dietary schemes that seem smart and different to what I’ve already read and discarded as ludicrous. So when my friend Lana picked up a copy of Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar, I was fascinated. Here was a woman who had finally got it right, I thought, scanning through the 8-week program of giving up sugar in its entirety. I would have bought the book hadn’t it been for money, and went home feeling like this was something I definitely would think of trying. When I told Ariz about the length to which Wilson quits sugar, however, he reminded me of my utter disbelief in extremes, and I remembered that while quitting sugar may seem smart, quitting fruit and honey along with it does not. 

So I started reading my Nutrition guide again, realising that fruit is one of the five basic food groups, with a small disappointed sigh. Just as I had put Sarah Wilson’s marvellous ideas in the back of my mind, however, Ariz presented me with a brilliant compromise.

“I think I want to try out this quitting sugar thing,” he said at the gym on Monday morning.

I was flabbergasted.

“But you just said, like two days ago -”

“Yeah, I’m not quitting fruit. I’m thinking, like, refined sugar. So anything that has “sugar” on its ingredient list, I’ll quit. Want to do it with me?”

Now, those of you who know me well, know that this is a difficult proposition for me to consider. I love sugar. I love ice cream, chocolate, baked goods, candy, and the list goes on into the ridiculous. But I decided that he was right; sugar is bad for you, there is no doubt about it. It certainly isn’t included in any of the five basic food groups, and nutritionists reiterate time and time again that our body actually doesn’t need it. Sitting on a bench at the gym between sets, I said yes. 

And it was incredibly difficult - for the first couple of days. For the first two days, I really was in agony; the sugar cravings were of a ferocity I’d never experienced before. But then, it stopped. And I know this is a total cliché, but since about two days ago, I don’t even feel like the stuff anymore. Once I’ve had my chock-full-of nutrition dinner, all I really crave are some raspberries in a bit of honey or a mandarin. The effects on my well-being are extraordinary. For one, I have never felt this calm and energetic at the same time in my entire life. The amount of energy my body manages to harvest and make accessible to me is surprising to say the least. I have energy to go to the gym every day, and still pack down our entire house with a smile; heck, I’m even writing a premature blog when I could have been sleeping. And that’s another thing; I fall asleep when I’m tired, and wake up when I’m rested. It feels like my entire body is coming into some sort of balance I wasn’t aware existed, and it feels absolutely incredible. Perhaps I have at last found a training and eating program that I thoroughly enjoy in its entirety, even without chocolate snacks on a Saturday night. Still, one thing’s for sure: this will be an unbelievably challenging lifestyle to maintain in my new home city of Sulaimaniyah. Stay tuned for future struggles.   

Insane inhibitions

Yesterday, I went for my first appraisal since Christmas. I was happy with the results, but that’s not what I want to write about. What I do want to write about is how little - and I’m talking, I’ve probably never wanted to go to the gym as insignificantly of an amount as today - I desired completing my newly designed, hard-ass training program when I woke up and realised this was yet another day at the gym. I dragged myself out of bed, and actually questioned, for the first time in a long time, whether I even needed training at Aqualife this Sunday. Of course, my motivator of a fiancé got us there right on time, but even with a larger portion of energy drink than normal, today’s workout was absolutely awful. The weights felt twice as heavy as when Ebony showed me my new exercises yesterday, and the sets were a never-ending horror story from beginning till end. My muscles were aching; I was practically crying, and sets I usually love turned into monstrous, impossible challenges. Why? you may wonder, and this is all I have to say: Nothing compares to the excruciating battle that has to be won over one’s mind in order to go training when you’re on your period. 

There is literally something fiercely reluctant pulsating through your entire body, and today, that something was hitting every single cell in my brain.  And it was incredibly frustrating. 

“Okay, I’m going to do another set,” said my muscles, keen to get going.

“No, you’re not,” replied my head, leaning back, clenching my eyes together and demanding that my body stay completely still and undisturbed.

Hadn’t it been for the general misconception that may arise when you shout “Shut up!” to yourself in a gym, I probably would have done so. Several times. I was annoyed with every part of my being, but also somehow fascinated at the pure unwillingness my mind was casting upon my entire body. Remember how I talked about this last week? Mind trumps body every time? Well, it’s just as true this week. 

“It’s a two way street,” my mind whispered to me, “what? You think I’m just gonna let you kick it with your muscles every week? Uh-uh. Nooo, ma’am. You’re gonna have to work for it today.” 

And, man, did I. One hour and twenty-nine agonising minutes after I entered the gym, I lay down on the mat to stretch my dreadfully tired body. Then something strange happened. While listening to my mind laugh at my pitiful workout, I could hear my muscles shouting right back at it: 

“You better shut up next time, brain, or we’re gonna have everyone at the gym think you’re absolutely crazy with our chicken dance and locomotion moves.”

Mindblowing opportunity

The physical capability of the human body truly is an astounding phenomenon. Whenever I’m pushing myself really hard at the gym, I always ask myself: How much further could you go if you had to? 

When I first went through my new training program a couple of months back, it was the most challenging, physically difficult hour of my life, from the squats to the jumps, from the lunges to the pulldowns. I was exhausted, and thought that there was absolutely no way I could have done any more than what I had just pushed myself through. On the 14th of December 2012, I took one hour and 21 minutes to burn 690 calories. I did three sets of all my exercises (there are twelve of them), and I was utterly beat, and incredibly proud. 

Of course, the first time you do something physically challenging is always going to be the hardest, and so it’s gotten easier and easier for me to complete the training program, each session feeling just that little bit less intense and arduous. I think that because my mind had learnt that “Yeah, I can do this,” the body simply followed. Which is why I’m certain that a human being can do practically anything, once they decide that they can with their entire mind.

Today, my body managed to do something I didn’t think would be possible such a short time after that intense day in mid-December. In fact, I didn’t think it’d be possible at all. I probably realised that it would be, at some distant, far-away time in the long, long, long ahead future. But not now. No way. Then, something magical happened; my mind made a judgement call and decided that my body was capable of what I thought it couldn’t do. And this is what happened: I went to the gym to do my training program. But today, I did four sets of each exercise. So instead of 45 squats, jumps, push-ups, lunges, pulldowns, and shoulder lifts, I did 60. Which may not seem like a huge deal, but when your heart is beating at 193 beats per minute and you still have 10 jumps to do, it’s hard convincing. But I did it. My body did it, and the best part? I completed this entire ordeal in one hour and three minutes, eighteen minutes faster than in December, burning 656 calories. My heart, pushing more weights and beating harder, still finished with a lower average heart rate at the end of a workout session that had been increased with 25% of its original volume.

I couldn’t believe it. When I pulled my green, elastic band its last fifteen times, I smiled in utter joy and pride, and my mind silently said to itself: That’s how far you can go, when you have to. 

Yummy tummy

On Saturday, I ate a bagel and cinnamon roll for breakfast. Not in a long while have I felt as horrendously out of energy, unable to concentrate, and distanced from my own body. My eyes were droopy, my head pulsating a soft headache in my right-side cranium, leaving my body feeling awfully slack and reminding me of my cat, Mars, stumbling through the house while waking from his anaesthetics after his annual haircut. It truly is marvellous how influential diet is on our behaviour and physical well-being; how defining what you feed your body and soul is to the quality of your day.

This morning, I started the day off with a natural yoghurt, raspberry, and granola smoothie. This allowed me an hour-long session at the gym, with core and cardio galore, increasing my training program weights and speed. When I came home, I ate seven slices of pancetta, with zucchini and capsicum tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper, before heading off to a power walk through Perth zoo. And only at five o’clock this afternoon, seven hours after waking up, was I once again hungry. While I only had to do four hours at the shoe shop yesterday - four sluggish, draining, long, long, long hours - I managed to enjoy a highly active Sunday today, without struggling with neither concentration nor awareness. These obvious facts still seem to amaze me every time I practice them in reality. 

I think it’s only in the last couple of years that people (wholeheartedly including myself) have truly started to realise: no matter how many times you sweat your butt off at the gym each week, it’s gonna make practically a squat, zero, nada, niente difference unless you accompany your hard ass self’s ordeals with a proper diet. Never in my training life have I encountered someone on the adjacent treadmill or weight’s section who’s convincingly said to me: 

“Oh, yeah, totally, I had a donut right before the gym and I feel great!”

You are what you eat, they say, and as I’ve mentioned in previous entries, I couldn’t agree more. But then again, maybe it’s the other way around, too. I certainly think that after a hard workout at the gym, there’s nothing more satisfying than a juicy, deliciously fresh apple. So perhaps it can kind of go like this too: You eat what you are. 

Goaldigger

I believe that the single most important thing when attempting to achieve an ambitious goal, is to be gentle and compassionate with yourself on the path towards it. Don’t feel too bad if you stagger along the way, or if you have to take unexpected rest stops in your climb to the top. Now, I’m not at all a good example of this attribute; for me, there’s nothing worse than saying I’m going to achieve something (no matter how ridiculously impossible it is), and then have something not go exactly according to my second by second plan. Thus, if I don’t go to the gym when I’ve said I would, it’s a personal disaster. Not because I feel less healthy or happy. Not even because I think I'm being lazy. If I don’t train on my scheduled day, I will criticise myself for the rest of that week. At the very least. If I don’t go, I’m the biggest failure in the world. So you can imagine the internal wars I’ve had going on this summer; in November, I decided I would go to the gym every single day until uni started (disease not inclusive, of course) in the beginning of March. I should’ve known better, if for no other reason than from my extensive experience in failing not in my goals, but in my time frame of those goals. Have you got any idea how hard it is to get your ass to the gym every single day? I would almost go as far as to say that, unless you’re a professional athlete whose job it is to work out, it’s almost completely impossible. 

This is how it always goes with goals and me: I set them up, and then I fail in the utterly unrealistic time frame, and then, usually, I give up. The interesting difference this summer has been that I haven’t wanted to give up. I love going to the gym. It was quite an intense realisation once I had it some time in December; I knew I wasn’t getting myself to the gym every day as per my goal, but that was no longer the point. The point was the absolute joy I felt spending 60-70% of my weekdays working out. So, I modified my goal. In fact, I kind of removed it. It’s weird, isn’t it? I managed to find something I like so much that I didn’t need the goal anymore; the absolute necessity of completing my now habitual sessions turned into a magic potion of energy and motivation. Now, I’m a bit more realistic; I do a two days on, one day off schedule, and have set up a calendar to monitor my progress. For fun. Can you believe it? I even bought a little sticker book, so like when I was a child and got my piano homework right, I can reward myself with a star, a snail, or even a small sailboat. It’s back to basics with me now; pure pleasure drives me to the gym, and that annoying, criticising, obnoxious goaldigger has vanished in its entirety. 

Defiant dead weight

While I was sitting on one of the rowing machines at the gym yesterday, I looked through the window onto the adjacent street to Aqualife. On the sidewalk, a woman was walking her dog. She was perhaps seventy, although I find it incredibly hard to tell, and was assisted by a stroller, to which she seemed inevitably attached, like a snail to its house crawling slowly on the ground. I found myself sympathising with the woman, feeling extremely thankful for my own body, and all it lets me do, both at the gym, but more importantly in my everyday life. 

It truly is a gift, being able to simply decide that I want to go running, or cycling, or swimming, or training, and having the physical means in my body to do just so. I thought back to September, when my doctor told me I had subcromial bursitis that inflamed my left shoulder and made it impossible to lift my elbow above my head. He also told me I had an inflamed tendon in my thumb, explaining my difficulty in holding onto things, and suggested I lay off the weights and stretches for a very long while. It was an incredibly disheartening message to receive. I can only imagine the horror it must be for any person to be told they are physically unable to do something, however small or big that thing may be to them. Our freedom to move is perhaps one of our most liberating tools in life, and being disadvantaged physically in any activity can be terrible for morale.

I do believe, however, that anyone can choose to be defiant with their bodies and, working around the pain, ache, or handicap, rather than against it, succeed at things they never thought possible. My own experience with this has been particularly positive at my gym, where no less than two training instructors (one of them a student of physical recovery) spent over an hour creating my personal training program. This takes into account both my shoulder’s and thumb’s weaknesses, and attempts to build strength around the inflamed areas, in order to further protect them. My shoulder never aches anymore, and my thumb is rarely more than an annoying ache when I’ve done a heavy session of training. I think to my mum, an absolute champion in the way of determination and persistence, who has pieces of cartilage on the loose in her knee and still attends the gym weekly. I suppose that even if it’s as small as an inflamed thumb, or as big as needing assisted walking, anyone can rise to the challenge of maintaining their inherent right to move with independence and dignity.

Unusually normal

Normality is a much stranger thing than it appears be. After a holiday like the one Ariz and I just enjoyed in Norway, we are once again reminded of this fact, and I seem to be re-learning (although at a quicker pace than a toddler would) all the things that is my “normal” life. The sting in my eyes from onion being cut in the kitchen; the pace and settings of the treadmill at the gym; the fantastically expensive vegetables in this country exceeded only by the selection of sun dried and pickled tomatoes. It’s in the little things I notice I’ve been on holiday, and to me, the little things include both food and exercise. But while I’ve indulged in inhumane amounts of pork, gravy, potatoes, potato chips, cookies, chocolate, and much too little physical exertion while I was away, it was nice to feel that I was fully capable of completing my horrendous lunge/jump/push-up supersets when I once again entered our much loved gym on Saturday. It was almost like an extra treat, after all the deliciousness of Norway, that we were still (albeit a tad less) fit. 

On our last day at home, Ariz and I went shopping for a cookbook. 

“We need some inspiration,” he said to me, “if we’re going to keep up with cooking homemade food.”

In Scandinavia, we pride ourselves in the culinary art of husmannskost, literally “houseman’s food,” meaning basic, nutritious, and tasty food that fulfils your dietary needs all day long, even through the arduous skiing and mountain climbing we do every day at home. Maybe not the last bit, entirely, but it does keep you alert and concentrated. So we roamed the aisles of a small bookshop in Oslo, and finally came upon a cook book literally called “The Cook Book”. Which is saying a lot in Norway. We paid the 80 dollars it cost, and soon realised that this book is the most marvellous thing to have hit our shelves; separate sections for fish, pork, beef, vegetables, grains, and anything else you can think of that is a basal element of cooking. This thing has everything from standard cooking measurements to basic sushi craft; how to fillet a cod and how to make the perfect steak. I’m thankful that in my slow, and somewhat reluctant, ease into the everyday life of Perth, I have this guru with me; just as a reminder that even a boring stew can be mixed with spices I won’t even begin to attempt spelling here.