Dumb Blonde Bitch

Lately I feel like I am carrying a pig. Here’s what I mean:

A blonde was walking down the road with a healthy looking pig under her arm. As she passed the bus stop, someone asked, “Where did you get that?”The pig replied, “I won her in a raffle!”

With my long dyed hair, visibly muscular pipes, and tight preteen skinny jeans (now size 3), I too look like a bimbo. At least, that is how I am being treated by a growing number of people. Continue reading

My Metamorphosis

This morning I awoke from anxious dreams to discover that in my bed I had been changed into a monstrous verminous fish. Lying awkwardly on my back, I twisted a long flexible spine while trying to move legs that were fused into a greenish-gray tail. I could catch only glimpses of this speckled body for my eyes were strangely immobile, showing mainly side views. There amongst the pillows I spied a small feline sniffing the air happily while creeping toward me. When its rough sandpaper tongue licked the whisker-like projection now growing under my chin, I felt a surge of panic. Oh God. Is this how it is all going to end?      

What was happening to me? I tried to cry out loud, but my thick oval mouth could only open and close, wordlessly. This was no dream; it was the result of a transformation that had, I finally realized, begun about four weeks earlier, when QMR Continue reading

Can Objectification Be Empowering?

I am always attentive to visual politics. I notice and think about acts of looking, being looked at, putting oneself on display. The gym is a realm of exhibition—more than it is a zone of exercise—and many people go there to work out their eyes as well as their guns. The other day I was in a spin class, pedalling away on my favourite stationary bike in the designated mirror-clad room, taking in a plethora of layered images. The shiny surface in front of me reflected the mirrored column located behind and to the left of me, which itself revealed the adjacent transparent windows opening onto the expansive weight room. There I spied Eye Candy #2 resting on a bench,  Continue reading

Disordered Eating

This title is a misnomer, for my eating is incredibly orderly these days. Everything is weighed, measured, and consumed at appropriate intervals. It might interest a few of you to know exactly what my diet consists of, though I try not to write the typical pre-competition blog, filled with such monotonous bullshit as: ‘Did double cardio today, then ate 5-7 almonds! or ‘I am hungry—hungry to visualize my success on stage!’ QMR is a nutrition expert who does not give it away for free and neither will I, at least not in complete detail. Today, however, was a medium food day, so I had 170 grams of bison, 8 egg whites, 60 grams of sweet potatoes, 115 grams of basa, 140 grams of chicken, 215 grams of brussels sprouts, 100 grams of butternut squash, 55 grams of wheat bran, and one scoop of protein powder. This is not a massive amount of food, nor it is particularly small. So when people wonder—or secretly ask one of my friends—if I have an eating disorder, I can only respond with a stunned expression revealing that I think they are idiots. Because they are idiots.

Just look at a recent picture of my body to see what I mean. This 8-week-out frame is visibly muscular, relatively lean, and hard. It is the result of years of working out, targeted weight training, and clean eating, notably during the last 80 days. It looks nothing like the bulimic body of my unstable housemate in graduate school, who would cook incessantly—often with the mushrooms and flowers she found outside—and then vomit her creations Continue reading