It's my Fitoversary!

Today is my one year Fitoversary! WOOOOT! I've been using Fitocracy diligently for exactly one year now. It was kinda neat to page back through the months and see all those workouts. Damn. (Full disclosure: I actually joined Fitocracy back when it was in beta, but I didn't really start using it until Dec. 30. Also note this means that last year at this time, I was a "resolutioner". See? You can stick with it!)

Everyone seems to be doing a Year in Review sort of thing with their blogs. Okay, I can play that game. This year I dove headlong into fitness, really for the first time in my life. I finally accepted my deep loathing of cardio, embraced my love of lifting heavy, and have never looked back. Early in my process I saw another female lifter say something that had a huge impact on me (from Buzzfeed of all places):

“Treating exercise as a means to be more, as opposed to viewing it as a never-ending struggle to be less, is absolutely a game changer.” 

That line was huge for me. It captured in words something I was already experiencing.  I love going to the gym, because it's a place where I become more than I am. Instead of dieting and depriving myself, I cook and eat to feed my body. Instead of exercising to make myself less, I push myself to become better and more. I don't hate my body anymore, I love it. My body is awesome! It can lift 150# straight up off the floor! It can squat 80% of my bodyweight! (see the badge over there on the right? Yeah, I earned that.) It has some fat on it that is not healthy for it, but my body is capable of taking care of that.

I'm happier, healthier, more vibrant, have more energy, more enthusiasm, and just generally a higher quality of life than pretty much any other time ever. And I suspect I'm also gonna live longer, so there's that. (I'm six months off of being 40, so that whole "mortality" thing is starting to creep in on me.)

During this year, I have read a lot of stuff on fitness, nutrition, and lifting. Here are some of the things that have had the most impact on me, maybe they will be of use to others as well:

1. Fitocracy, "Why Women Should Lift": Here you go, all in one place, including the first lifting plan I used. 
2. Dick Talens, "The Myth of 'Eat Less, Move More'": everyone should go read this right now. I get angry that this mantra is still used (and even angrier that Marion Nestle, a hugely important nutritionist and generally great person, is the one who coined it). At the very literal, structural level, it's probably right. But at the level of lived experience, it's somewhere between totally false and actively dangerous. Read this to find out why, and free yourself from the shame of believing "this should be so simple, why am I still fat, I must really be worthless!"
3. Dick Talens, "Fitness is a Skill": While you're destroying the nutrition myth above, why not go ahead and hammer away on the myth of willpower and motivation, since they're largely BS too. Stop beating yourself up for not having enough willpower or motivation! No one does! There are better ways that brute force + bloodymindedness for getting on a healthy lifestyle plan.
4. Dick Talens, "The Other Side of Strength": yes, another Dick Talens article. Yes it's good and you should read it. Learn about the importance of humility, self-compassion, and mindfulness in fitness. (Bet you didn't know that fitness was so zen?)
5. Buzzfeed, "What weights taught me about being a woman": same article that the quotation above comes from. Good stuff.
6. T-Nation, "A Calorie is Sometimes not a Calorie": great piece on general nutrition. Yes, we are still subject to the laws of thermodynamics; however, our bodies are highly complex systems, and "calorie in vs. calorie out" is a damaging oversimplification of how we use calories on a daily basis.
7. Girls Gone Strong, "Making sense of Carbohydrates": this is a three-part series, I'm only linking the first article here, you can find the others off of it if you want to read it.
8. Mike Vacanti (On The Regimen), "How to count your macros (A comprehensive guide)": yes, it really is a comprehensive guide, probably the only sane or sensible discussion of macro counting I've ever seen online.
9. Mike Vacanti (On The Regimen), "Breaking: First ever "top protein sources" post to ever help a single human, ever": yes, it really is, and it really does.

I sort of feel like I should have 10 things, but.... really, this should be enough for anyone to be getting on with. These are the articles that stick with me, that I put in my Evernote, that I forward to others when they start asking me about lifting, nutrition, fitness, etc. I hope it's valuable to others besides just me. =)

Happy New Year!

UPDATE--> Here's #10! Just saw it reposted.

10. Girls Gone Strong, "The 3 Biggest Myths about Fat Burning for Active Women": I'm gonna let Susan Kleiner (the author) speak for herself on this one, "To put it simply: the diet world has invaded my sports nutrition space, and now I’m pissed. That’s why I wanted to write about the 3 biggest myths perpetuated by the diet world in regards to the best ways to burn fat for active women."