Thoughts on Squats

My knee is crunchy. I think that's the right word to describe it. It makes crunchy noises when I walk.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

A crunch with every step. Like I'm a walking bowl of Rice Krispies. Or if a Sunchips bag is localized entirely in my patella.

Crunch crunchity crunch.

It doesn’t hurt much, but it is tender. If I run, it gets worse. If I take slow, deliberate steps, it gets better.

I'm not trying to diagnose the problem. I'm just telling you about it. Talking to you about my day, how I've been feeling lately. Just making chit-chat. You know, conversing.

I tweaked it last week. While squatting.

Oh, you didn't know I squatted? Well then, you should pay more attention when we're conversing.

Delma and I began squatting about a year ago. Powerlifting, actually. Squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, etc. She wanted to get stronger and I decided to tag along.

I didn't take it seriously at first. Or at least no where near as seriously as Delma did. For her, it became an obsession. She'd read books on powerlifting and watch videos on proper deadlifting/squatting form. I'd wake up in the morning and find her calculating her macros on the living room floor, typing everything into an Excel spreadsheet while sipping on a shaker filled with protein.

I just went through the motions. I’ve had a gym membership since the 9th grade, so I assumed I knew what I was doing.

I did not.

To a novice, Olympic lifts are intimidating (especially the clean, snatch and jerk press. Also, doesn't that sound like a sex move?). Take deadlifts, for example. It looks simple enough, right? Grab the bar and stand up. Boom. Done. But there’s more to it than that. You have to push through your heels and you have to not round your back and you have to keep your chest up and chin down and activate your posterior chain and squeeze your glutes and your arms are ropes and I don't know what it means to have my arms as ropes. My arms are arms. How can they be ropes? They're arms.

After a few weeks, I came to the realization that I had no idea how to lift correctly. I didn't want to hurt myself doing those lifts, so instead of doing the sensible thing and learning how to lift with good form, I took it easy and lifted manageable/light/ wussy weights. Delma, on the other hand, went HAM and tried to lift as much as she could every time we went to the gym (go big or go home, etc).

In addition to learning the complex technical aspects of powerlifting, I had to hike up my caloric intake in order to get stronger (you gotta FEED those muscles, brah). Which worried me. I wanted bigger legs, but not if it meant a bigger belly.

So I half-assed it. I wouldn't go ass-to-grass with my squats. I'd use my back and shoulders more during deadlifts instead of my legs (which is a great way to fuck yourself up). I didn't really eat enough because I didn't want to get chubbier (while Delma would always get double chicken at Chipotle). I really, really did not want to gain weight. It's a big concern of mine. Being chubby, I mean.

After a few months, Delma was squatting over 200 pounds. That's as much as an adult male red kangaroo. Her quads were huuuuuge. Meanwhile, I plateaued at 160.

Then she got pregnant and stopped powerlifting. I presume so that she wouldn’t poop out the baby while squatting (that’s how it works, right?). So I stopped too.

And then I did get chubbier.

Not fat. Just chubbier.

It's a stupid concern of mine, I know. Who cares, right? It does't matter whether I weigh 150 or 450. I can still write, I can still crack jokes. I can still do all the things I want to do and hang out with people I like. Most people wouldn't even notice if I gained a few extra pounds.

But I notice.

I used to be fat. As a kid. People are always surprised when I tell them I was a fat kid. And I don't mean a chubby kid. I mean, at the beginning of 8th grade, I topped out at just under 200 pounds (remember, adult male red kangaroo).

Growing up, my pediatrician would warn my mother that I was borderline obese. Which, later on in life, would mean diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis and other fun health conditions. All that seemed far away, so I didn't worry about it. Why bother with my future health when I feel fine right now? I just wanted something tasty to munch on while I watched my telenovelas (big fan of La Usurpadora and Dos Mujeres, Un Camino). And, as a kid, portliness/chubbiness/flabbiness/whatever is a somewhat endearing trait.

In middle school though, it is not an endearing trait. It is a weakness, a scab that others can pick at and pick at and pick at until you have a ragged, gaping hole in your arm, oozing metaphorical blood and pus. Kids can be cruel, but middle schoolers are savage, relentless and unforgiving. At that age, you're struggling with so many changes, you search for a way to help you deal with the insecurity of it all. Picking on the "big boned" kid is an easy outlet. Because, while you might have terrible acne or a voice that cracks or raging erections 24/7, at least you're not fat.

Truth be told, I was handling the abuse pretty well. I would get called "fat ass" and "lardo" and "Alfonso Za-FAT-a" while waddling through the halls during the passing period, but I was in the "gifted/talented" classes which housed all of the nerdy outcasts. My classmates understood what I was going through. For most of the school day, I was safe, so I didn't really care about being Za-FAT-a.

That changed one day in 7th grade during Pre-Algebra. I was solving for 'x' when Adriana Bautista came up to me.

"You're Alfonso, right?"

I put my pencil down and nodded. Adriana wasn't just the most attractive girl in Pre-Algebra. She was one of the prettiest girls at Spring Woods Middle. I started sweating. Partly out of nervousness, partly because I always wore a sweatshirt to hide my fat, even when it was 90 degrees out.

"Someone's been telling everyone that I like you..."

I gulped and wiped sweat off my forehead with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

"Well, I just want you to know that I could never like you."

My heart stopped.

"You're too fat," she said. And with that, she walked away.

There was no wit in that comment. No cleverness, no tact. It was a cold-blooded truth that tore through my sweatshirt and plunged straight into my core.

"Too fat."

Since then, I've associated my being "too fat" with being unliked.

There were other incidents that led to that conclusion. The time my mother took me to Dillard's and I was too "husky" for the husky pants. The time I took my shirt off in Mexico and a cousin said that my boobs were bigger than hers. The uncle who would constantly say that I looked como un barril.

But "too fat" pushed me over the edge.

I'm not conversing this with you to gain any sympathy. I don’t want you to think “Ay, pobrecito.” Just merely giving you some backstory. Making more chit-chat.

Every one has body image issues, right? No one's body is perfect. That's the cool thing about bodies. They're all unique. And, if you’ve ever been to that Bodies exhibit, you know we’re all just blobs of muscle and guts and cartilage and spongy tissue. We’re all made of the same shit underneath.

But, in 7th grade, it’s hard to keep that perspective when your body is deemed "unacceptable" by your peers. In my mind, all of my problems were tied to that. Being too fat is why I didn't have friends, why girls didn't like me, why I wasn't cool. And that's stuck with me since, even though I stopped being fat once I reached high school.

Fat is bad. Thin is good.

Logically, I know that's not true. Logically, I know that a) I am not fat, but even if b) I were fat, it would be ok because my friends and family love me for my winning personality and endless puns, not my looks. Because the people I associate with are not vain, shallow assholes. They're good, kind people.

It's hard to shake that mindset though. "Too fat" is ingrained into my subconscious. To me, being fat is tied directly to the way people perceive me. Even though, like I said, I logically know that's not true.

It's stupid. And I know it's stupid. If I have a six-pack, people aren't going to automatically like me. Delma won't love me any more. I won't be smarter or richer or happier. I'll be me, only with a six-pack. Which no one will be able to see anyway because we all have to wear shirts in the modern day workplace. Again, logically, I know that this is true. Buuuut...

It's hard to accept that.

Which is partly why when I started gaining weight after Delma became pregnant, I tried to embrace it. Almost as if I were trying to tell myself, "See? You're chubby now, but people still like you!" The other part was to get back into powerlifting.

That’s the reason I've been squatting a lot recently. And why my knee is crunchy. The more I eat, the more I lift (go big or go home, etc).

I've gained twenty pounds over the last few months. A combination of sympathy weight and lifting more. According to the BMI calculator, I am indeed overweight (though to be fair, the BMI calculator doesn’t take into account muscle mass or my beard).

Nothing's changed, really. I mean, I'm stronger. Like, I actually have leg muscles now. My pants fit snug and my belly pops out more when I wear a tight t-shirt. But my wife hasn't left me. I still have friends. I haven't been laid off.

If anything, I'm ever-so-slightly happier because of beer and ice creams (sometimes at the same time).

And yet, I still can't get rid of that feeling of being "too fat" and all of my problems stemming from it. There's this disconnect that I can't shake, a mental gap between knowing that and believing it that can't be bridged.

In my mind, I will forever be "too fat." In my mind, I am forever unlikable.

I don't know if I'll ever get over it.

We all have our own insecurities, physical and otherwise. Some we get over, other we don't. Some we never get over and all we can do is push them deep down inside ourselves and hope they don't affect us too much. Plug our ears, ignore them and drown them out with the good stuff. Like squats and beer and ice creams (and the fact that I’m about to be a goddamn dad is pretty exciting).

There's a lot of bad to focus on. With me, it's not just the belly. It's "Am I smart enough?" and "What if I'm not funny?" and even trivial stuff like "Does my beard look good?"

But there's a lot of good stuff too.

A lot of good stuff. Not just internally, but so many good things around me. My family, my wife, my dog, my friends. I've been so #blessed that I take it for granted. I spend so much time focusing on the bad, I forget the good. No one cares about "too fat" except me. The people around me, the people who love me, they care that I'm a good person. They care that I'm going to try to be a good dad (been listening to Will Smith's "Just the Two of Us" on loop for the last eight months). They care that I'm trying to work hard and be kind and make people laugh. They're not worried about me being "too fat." They're worried about me and my well-being and my happiness.

It's easy to forget that.

I'm not trying to get anywhere by telling you this. There's no point, no moral. Again, just conversing. Chit-chatting. Just wanted to tell you about my crunchy knee.

Crunchity crunch crunch.

The crunching is annoying, but it's harmless. And it's an indicator that I've been pushing myself. A reminder that, "too fat" or not, I'll someday (hopefully) be "too swole." I'm almost up to squatting 200 pounds now (what up, adult male red kangaroo?).

Everyone's insecure about one thing or another, right? We just gotta focus on the positives.

What's the opposite of an insecurity? A security?

That doesn't sound right... But we'll go with it.

Don't let the Adriana Bautistas of the world bring you down. Remember your securities, y'all.

Remember the Titans.