Happy Easter!

For those of you who celebrate, happy Easter!

I have seen talk on FB of group trail rides and other exciting horse related things going on this weekend and I have to say that I am a bit jealous. With the often unpredictable Eastern Canadian weather, this weekend can be a historical snowfall, or shorts weather. Fortunately, this weekend has been more on the side of shorts weather for us, but alas it is difficult to plan much ahead when you just. don't. know. what the weather is going to do.

My family doesn't have any sort of Easter tradition that specifically has to do with horses but my mother was known for clue based egg hunts. We would follow hand written notes from spot to spot to find our final prize - usually a large basket with lots of candy, a clothing article or spring toy. The absolute most memorable Easter treasure-at-the-end-of-the-hunt had to be the year that our big matriarch broodmare foaled the night previous. My hunt ended outside of her stall with a pair of tearaway warm up pants and a gorgeous loud coloured filly. Can you guess what we ended up calling her? Easter!

These days, this holiday is very family centered. My boyfriend and I took some time for ourselves yesterday, had dinner at the farm with my family today, and are doing a dinner with his side of the family tomorrow. Someday, I hope that we can incorporate some kind of horse related tradition into our Easter weekend, when we have children to share it with and a home with horses in the back yard!

And in the spirit of sharing pictures... this isn't a picture of the filly, Easter, but it's a picture of me probably a year or two before I found Easter at the end of my egg hunt!

Why hello there!

I'm just a wee bit embarrassed that it's been so long since my last blog entry. The truth is that there is nothing new to report.

Lately, I have been brushing Bronwyn a lot but not doing much riding. It has been about two weeks (okay, yes, two weeks exactly) since I rode Bronwyn, and the last time, I ended up leaving the barn looking like this:

We had quite an excellent ride under saddle and when it was time to leave, there was a good song on the radio so I figured I might as well cool her out bareback - which I haven't done in a while. Part of the indoor was quite mucky and so I jokingly told her, as we rounded that end "don't you dare drop me in that mud!" -- she took about four steps OUT of the mud, I believe I heard an enormous CRACK and she took off to the right and I went to the left, landing on my hip and butt. It took a few days for the bruise to see the day of light, but it sure was a good one!

Unfortunately, since then I have been having a lot of problems with my hip (not the same one I fell on and these are some problems that started before the fall), so I haven't ridden since then. I have, however, given a couple of "pony spa" treatments... mud is here but that hair is coming out (and as I say every year -- "IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIIIIIIIIIIIIIME OF THE YEAR!"), and that makes me happy.

I've started a new position at my job which now has me working 12 hour days (or nights) in 3 or 4 day runs, interspersed with 3, 4 or 7 day off stretches. The time off is nice but I have found with the 12 hour work schedule, it really does not allow any time for anything else if I want to get a reasonable amount of sleep (and trust me, I do - I am one of those 8 hour sleepers...), so there are stretches where I can't get to the barn. There are basically stretches where I can't do anything but go to work, come home and walk my dog, have supper and go to bed shortly thereafter. It is worth it for the time off but makes it difficult to do anything with too much real consistency (including writing blog entries, but that's not an excuse...).

Winter Blahs

I have a confession to make.

My mojo is gone.

I think it might be coming back, but for the last two weeks, I have been really, really unmotivated for riding, or even going to the barn in the first place - or, if we're honest, anything beyond laying on the couch and watching TV.

I kind of alluded to this on the Facebook fanpage and I was told to get out there and ride for those who don't have access or can't. This kind of gave me the niggle in the back of the brain, but last night, after being away from the barn for a whole week, as I prepared to go to the barn because I had no choice anymore because I had to go pay my board, I thought "boy, Bronwyn must miss me and think I abandoned her".

It's funny how that seemed to be the motivation that I needed. My silly, sweet girl had done nothing wrong. It literally was not her, it was me. She shouldn't be punished for my inadequacies.

I spent quite a long time out of the saddle, brushing, and then standing near her talking to Nat (which was also an immense help to my mood), just hanging out with her. Then I rode - I didn't ask for much, and we only puttered for about 25 minutes, but she did everything I asked, nothing complicated. We did a lot of bending and stretching, circles - she was surprisingly supple after a couple of weeks with no REAL work.

It all helped to lift my spirits - but I think what lifted them the most was this:

It's the MOST WONDERFUL TIIIIIIME OF THE YEEEEEEEEEEAR!!!!

Mailbag... sort of!

I know that I promised a resolutions entry by the end of the month, but this comment was made on one of my videos on Youtube (I don't know why, but this particular one seems to get a lot of frequent views, and a lot of commentary, some of it is truly evidence that slugs and worms can type on computers and post on Youtube). Anyways... I wanted to address this publicly:

Hi as u can see im not a thin rider, I have a couple of weight carriers but what i'm asking of u is this... Could u perhaps dissuade very fat riders i have found u being quoted and well I dont believe they should be riding. I once had a potential loanee turn up to ride my 17.2 percheron and well she must have been 20 stone easily 280lb. So please promote sensible rider weights and suitable weight carriers

I want to make clear that with my blog, I do encourage appropriately paired horses with riders. What I do not do is draw a finite line and say "Xlbs is absolutely too heavy to ride. Period." First of all, it would be hypocritical of me, since I rode when I was 325lbs and secondly, because I don't know what horse you are going to get on, how fit they are, how tall you are, whether you are going to plod along on an easy, flat trail, or run a cross country course. What I do know is that when I weighed 325lbs, the amount of riding that I could do on my appropriately matched horse was minuscule and simple compared to what I can do now. There seems to be this big fear that we are going to get on horses and ride them for hours, up hill both ways, in a blizzard, in their grandfather's pajamas... whoops, got carried away there.

I cannot control how I am quoted and in what context it is done. I am pleased that heavy riders find my words encouraging in the face of adversity. I have never claimed to be a scientific expert or to have done a study on heavy riders. But what I do know is this: when people start talking about how "unfair" it is to ask a horse to carry a load like mine, I want to ask how "fair" it is to the horse to ask it to jump a cross country course, make sharp, tight turns and other unnatural movements, live with metal shoes on their feet, be fed but never allowed to move (wild horses graze for a reason), stalled excessively, started under saddle before they are two years old, sored and restrained and whipped to make their performance more desirable to the eye... If you asked most horses, what we do with them these days is not, any of it, "fair".

What I do know is this - I have an obligation to my horse to care for her in the best way that I know how. She gets a free ride, basically. All I ask in return for housing her, clothing her, feeding her, having her feet trimmed, calling the vet, working an exhausting work week in order to keep her "in the way she has become accustomed" is to cart my butt around a few times per week. I take complete responsibility for any end of life care that she may require, I take responsibility for any maintenance she may require. She nods exuberantly in the crossties when I get my helmet, and drives her head eagerly into the bridle. At the end of the day, it is her I have to answer to. Maybe that's self indulgent. Maybe it's selfish, but isn't everything we do with a horse? My kind of selfish means that my mare gets to live a relatively carefree life, gets spoiled silly, gets all of the health care she requires (I have never seen a chiropractor but my horse has!), and will be taken care of appropriately when her life is drawing to an end, in many thanks for her faithful years of "service".  And that is a million times more than many other horses get. So... if her biggest strife in this life is that she had to carry some extra weight over a few miles, a couple of times per week, I think she is doing well.

Fat Girl But Not Fat Horse Related (Health At Every Size)

First, I want to apologize to those who prefer not to read weight-loss type entries - this is a vent, I had to get it off my brain, and it has been cooking for a while. I am not going to be very eloquent here, either, because I am still putting together the thought process.

Second - I want to promise that there IS going to be a goals and resolutions post BEFORE THE END OF JANUARY (I'm writing it down to make it so - one of my new goals, follow through!), but again - this is on my brain and I have to talk about it.

Lately, I have been feeling conflicted, and it kind of came to a head tonight, while reading an article about a woman who weighed 303lbs and lost 130lbs. In the article, she talks about eating "two or three pizzas", and big bags of chips in one sitting, and that's "a normal day". You see it all the time - articles about phenomenal weight loss from people who started well over 250lbs - they eat whole tubs of ice cream, they eat McDonalds EVERY. DAY., they like their chicken triple fried with extra gravy and biscuits. You hear about these crazy unhealthy eating habits which got them to the place they reached.

A lot of you know (since I've posted it on the blog many times) that at one point in my journey, I weighed 324lbs. Never did I eat "two or three" pizzas (or even ONE whole one!) in one day, or a whole bag of chips by myself, or a whole tub of ice cream. I have never liked sugared sodas. Did I overindulge by times? Of course, like any normal person. Here is the kicker - I was born 10lbs 11oz. I am now 6' tall with size 12 ladies feet. When I was an early teen,  my mother was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and so she formatted the way that we ate - she lost some weight, I never did. I grew up on whole wheat, lots of veggies, real fruit juice, lean, homegrown meats. It was not uncommon to take a second helping of those things, however.

I am what I would call reasonably active (I walk my dog usually about 5K a day and when I am walking to and from work in good weather, I am walking closer to 6 or 8K a day - I ride twice a week), I eat moderately well MOST of the time - during the summer, my regular lunch is salad! My body has settled around the 250lb mark. I am sure I can go lower with more salad and more walking, but the point is that this is where my body sits when I live a "normal" life (not too much, not too little), and that, to many, is not "normal". I firmly believe in the value of fueling and moving your body the appropriate way, and maintaining it (you wouldn't put watered down gas or drive on flat tires on your car would you?), but I also don't believe that in order to be "normal", you should have to restrict yourself to 1200 calories and exercise 4-6 hours a day.

Ever since watching Joy Nash's "Fat Rant", there has been this niggling in the back of my mind. I mean... I want to be able to live a life that is enjoyable, without having to consider every SINGLE calorie that enters my mouth and spend any time I am not at paid employment working out. WHAT IF I treat my body the right way, but I am still not "normal" by society's standards? What then?

The Health At Every Size movement is incredible. It is based on the idea of loving your body and treating it right and being kind to yourself if your "normal" body size is not what everybody else considers to be "normal".

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that every person that is overweight is "supposed" to be, and I do believe that it is possible to lose weight and find your body at its ideal weight, not the weight that society has arbitrarily told you is "ideal" or "looks the best". I do believe there are some of us hanging onto weight out of laziness or emotional challenges or medical issues. But I also believe that some of us look exactly how we are supposed to. I am saying that if you are treating your body the right way and enjoying life and you still don't look like someone that is regularly featured on the cover of Cosmopolitan, that's probably just fine, too.

The biggest enemy, however, of the self love and acceptance movement of HAES, I believe, is articles like the one I mentioned above. I am very happy that the woman featured found enough self love to stop treating her body like a dumpster - I am thrilled that she seems to have found a weight where her body is happy... but an article like this, detailing the way that she abused her body prior to treating it right perpetuates the idea that ALL fat people are this way because of gross neglect of our body, when that may not always be true. An actual comment on my blog told me to "get off the couch and stop stuffing [my] face with Doritos and ice cream"... the truth is - I love Doritos but I can't remember the last time I had them, and while I do try to include a small amount of frozen yogurt (masquerading as ice cream, my favourite is chocolate chip cookie dough!) in my day, if my hunger and calorie budget allows it, I am not much of a full fat ice cream eater. I do take a couple of hours to myself, a few evenings a week, to sit on the couch, yes - who doesn't? And why do I deserve to do it less than anyone else? And when I tell people what I am doing, and am not losing crazy amounts of weight doing it, I'm "lying" about how I am living. It is a vicious cycle.

If you haven't already checked out the HAES movement, I strongly encourage you to. It makes a lot of sense, if you are somebody like me - active, eating moderately, and not dropping weight hand over fist (anymore). It also really goes hand in hand with the idea I have been trying to promote with this blog - the most important first step to being happy is loving yourself, and caring about yourself - this is how you will accomplish your goals, this is how you will live the most fulfilled life possible. There is also a page full of resources - blogs and websites, books and communities that follow the HAES movement. Do yourself a favor and check it out!

My horse reminds me to be a better person.

Earlier this week, I attempted to ride Bronwyn. Even though I did saddle her up, put a leg over her and put her through work, I wouldn't call it a ride. I was PMSing and she was clearly in heat (as evidenced by her atrocious flirting with the stallion while we were in the crossties, I mean COME ON, have some decency!) - we had not had any consistent riding since before the holidays - I have been lucky to be able to ride once a week during the last couple weeks. But I was ready to do some work, and I thought she ought to be as ready to work for me as I was to work her. It is, after all, one of my new year's resolutions to get serious about schooling (more about my resolutions in another entry, sometime soon, I PROMISE!). She must have missed that memo.

I demanded that she work well. She insisted she would not. Blowing through my leg, Rushing, rushing, rushing, counter bending when I was not asking for it. I got frustrated. I got a bit hot under the collar. And the more frustrated and demanding I was, the less she gave me. It was a train wreck. I eventually gave up, made her do something simple to succeed, and put her away. I was embarrassed that I had gotten so uptight, I was frustrated that she wouldn't work for me.

Tonight, I went out to try again. I was by myself, I had lots of time, I was determined to go out there and enjoy spending quality time with her - after all, we have been lacking in it lately due to the craziness of the holidays, you know. Tonight, our ride was what I would call harmonious. She did everything that I asked. She was attentive to what I asked, being ultra agreeable about it. I felt like we got good work done. Unlike Tuesday's ride, I walked away with a sense of pride. I was proud of how I had handled myself, proud of how she worked, and eager to push forward. We finished with cooling her out bareback, which was a nice change (note: she is getting WITHERS).

Every once in a while, she reminds me that I need to be a better person. That I need to be more patient. That I will only get exactly what I deserve, no more, and no less. When I am too prideful, she makes me humble. When I am impatient, she makes me wait longer. When I am demanding, she is rebellious.

But when I am honest, she is honest. When I am patient, she acquiesces. When I ask, she gives. When I ask, she gives. I ask. She gives.

And so... it is easy, isn't it? The relationship with a horse. It's just like our parents raised us. When you ask politely, doors open for you. When you demand something petulantly because you "deserve" it or because the giver "knows better" than to not give it to you, you rarely get what you are seeking.

And doesn't it make sense? This beast, that can outpower, outfight, outrun, outweigh and outsmart us will respect us only if we respect it. It's a good philosophy to apply to our lives outside of horses, too.

I love the time that I spend with Bronwyn. I love good rides, but most of all, I love when I can walk away and have learned a lesson that can be applied outside of the saddle, to my life, to my interactions with others. I love when my horse can teach me how to treat people.

2012 In Review

I think we can say with certainty that 2012 was a big year for Bronwyn and I. A year full of changes and growth and, I believe, a strengthening of our bond. I know that I, myself, have felt pushed and challenged for the better, and Bronwyn's body and skill attests to the same for her. I thought we could look back at the entries of 2012 and some of the highlights!

January -  Taking The Big Leap - I made the decision to persue riding lessons for the first time in a very long time. I put myself out there and hoped to be well recieved. I found a barn family that I would not trade.

February - The Things Worth Having - A discussion of the work involved with horse ownership - the work that it takes to have the things that are worth having, and realized that even though we might be tired at the end of the day, we are happy and fulfilled.

March - Negativity Breeds Negativity - I talked a bit about motivation in the face of a campaign aimed at shaming children for their bodies.

April - You shouldn't believe everything that you read on the internet... - A brief review of my feelings toward some of the commentary I recieve on my Youtube videos, etc, on a regular basis.

May - Guest Blog: “My Horse Isn’t Fat, He’s Just Big Boned” by Dr. Joan Norton, VDM DACVIM - A featured guest blog by Dr. Joan Norton, VDM DACVIM about our "fat horses", Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) and Insulin Resistance (IR).

June - Moving Day! - We moved!

July - Setting Goals - I got to share the lovely video of two girls from our forum who met, decided on a goal, and made it happen - very fashionably, I might add!

August - Things to Worry About- A brief look at my fanatical worrywart-ism.

September  - Product Review: Fuller Fillies Show Boot - a thorough review of the Fuller Fillies show boots (I get asked about this one often) - which I still love and wear, and which have not let me down.

October - Full Disclosure - a blog entry in direct response to a very unfriendly forum conversation that popped up on Horse & Hound.

November - Don't Wait - "You might not have forever to wait for that perfect moment to do the things that will make you happy or that you want to do. Don't wait "until tomorrow". Tomorrow might never come."

December - Your Christmas Gifts to Yourself - READ IT. I want you to.

Overall, a round and full year of growth and discovery for myself - I hope that in some of my writings, it has been the same for you as well. Keep your eyes open for tomorrow, when we're going to talk about goal setting once again.