The long deep thought kind of one

Warning: This is a long deep thought kind of one

I am completely exhausted today. I guess hard work at the gym will do that to someone. After having a most killer workout Monday night that resulted in a little soreness what does this genius girl do? Yup, of course I went to the gym last night. I honestly get to the gym about 5:15 PM, they usually have 5:30 classes that I want to take so it leaves me about 10 minutes to “warm up”. Last night I hoped on the stair climber and blasted thru 10 solid minutes burning my first 100 calories. Then I hit the class, butts and guts. I enjoy the classes a lot actually because certainly they make me do exercise that I otherwise would not do. However you notice that guts was included in that class title and my Monday night exercise was a lot of core work which is a lot of gut work. Somehow by the end of the 30 minutes my “gut” was feeling it. However, 30 minutes will never be enough workout for me so I really wanted to run last night. I only ran 2 miles yesterday and other than that my last good run was last Thursday. Legs wanted to run.

I headed up to the treadmill area and low and behold it was a busy night at the gym all of the I’m guessing 30 treadmills were in use. I waited a minute and one opened up right in the middle of a sea of exercisers. I am for the most part over my fear of public exercise so I guess this didn’t really bother me. I headed to it, hit a 6 speed on the treadmill, of course jacked my “workout mix” playlist on the iphone and went for it. Immediately I realized that my sore “core” was going to be of some issue while running but I pushed thru. Nice to know that running really does use your core so much. 20 minutes and I felt good but suddenly the treadmill came to a jarring stop. Yup, it’s preset to only go for 20 minutes. I have to actively tell it not to and I only remember to do that at the beginning of a run like 20% of the time. Oops. But after 20 minutes I was NOT done. I immediately restarted the thing and bumped the speed once again, this time challenging myself a little more at a higher speed. I wanted to run 3.1 miles but somewhere around 30 minutes after hitting my desired distance I just wanted to run a little more. I decided to push on for another 10 minutes to hit the whole 40 minute mark before the machine shut itself off again. I’m not going to lie given my overall exhaustion those last couple minutes were entirely about mind over matter. I had to will my strength to keep going. I told myself, just 5 minutes, you can do this, run. Then it was 3 ½ minutes, you can so do this Emily; keep going. Then it was 2 minutes and I’m like yes, you are almost done. Don’t quit now and of course 1 minute. You can do ANYTHING for 60 seconds.

When all was said and done I had knocked out 40 minutes about 4.2 miles of awesome make me feel strong, alive and high kind of running. Of course I am always slightly disappointed in myself that I couldn’t run another 20 minutes for a solid hour, of course I am sure I could have “made” myself but given I had already completed a class and other stuff and I did want to get home to my husband and dog I gave myself permission to be done at 40 minutes and a little over 4 miles. Basically I need to continually prove to myself that in doing all these other classes and exercises that I am still able to keep up with my running. I may not be running an hour 5 days a week right now but I need to mentally know that I “can” run an hour at a given moment’s notice if I want. For some reason that is important to me. I want to be strong and healthy but I don’t want to sacrifice my love and the clarity and freedom I get with running. I need to be able to still do it when I want.

I of course made some observations on the treadmill as well. Cause I had a solid 40 minutes to just get lost in thought which is part of what I love about running as well. This was the first time at the gym I had seen all the treadmills in use at once so it gave me prime opportunity to observe the behaviors of others. I am not making any judgments upon anyone else. Running and exercise in general is all an individual thing and you cannot compare yourself to anyone else. It’s a mental game against yourself only; however that doesn’t mean that crazy girls won’t try and find their place in all of this.

Like most overweight people or women probably in general who suffer from self-esteem issues I can only really embrace the whole public exercise running on a treadmill next to two strangers and of course with tons of people if I feel I am holding my own. I need to know that I am as good as anyone there. Again, I don’t necessarily mean that I can faster than anyone but simply that I seem like I belong. I have this insane notion that someone is going to look at me and think I don’t really belong at a gym. This is the sad little insecure girl talking for sure. Of course I belong at the gym. First, there is no one who doesn’t belong at a gym. Period. If you want to be there, you belong! Second, it goes back to a fucked up perception of myself and reality. It doesn’t matter what I look like or what the number on a scale may say I have issues. I do not see myself clearly; to this day. Somehow I still think that when someone looks at me they are going to see this fat girl who can’t run. I have gotten so much better at pushing the insecurities to the side but they live inside of me on some unavoidable level.

Case in point, I am running along at my solid 6-6.2 pace on the treadmill. Just running enjoying myself. About 5 minutes into my run the person next to me leaves the treadmill and about a minute later an attractive young fit girl walks up in a totally cute matching outfit and I am intimidated. Immediately my mind starts to wander to a place of, “Oh, she looks like a runner, I bet she goes hard and I feel insecure about what I’m doing.” Hello, Emily, really? I have to mentally bitch slap myself because so what if she does run faster, would that matter at all? Secondly, you are not comparing yourself, and thirdly, have you noticed that you are consistently running at a decent speed. It’s not like you aren’t working at it.

So she gets on the treadmill and I’m waiting for the big spurt. Instead she starts walking. I’m thinking it’s warm up time, okay. And she just walks, eventually she does start sprinting. Wait, she’s running. And I’m like, there it is. There’s the run my mind has feared. As discretely as possible I look over to check out her speed, trying not to make it look like I am looking you know. And she was going 5.8. Phew. This gets a Phew not because I think any less of her. She is great. But because I feel like if she looked over at me she wouldn’t think I was a slacker then. Insecurities much. Anyhow, she runs for a couple minutes and then walks again. She continues down this path of run 2 walk 5 or thereabouts a few times. Meanwhile here I am just running away at a 6 to 6.2 pace. I am not bragging; I am not judging. Just observing as I try and find my own self-confidence. As I try to believe in myself more I guess. This doesn’t even touch the person on the other side of me. She just walked the whole time at a 3.5 pace. I think that is great. I truly do. Walking is better than sitting on your couch watching TV. I completely feel that way. I just hold myself to these ridiculous standards that I would never in a million years reflect upon anyone else.

Meanwhile I really do notice that in the 40 minutes I am on the treadmill people have come and gone. A LOT of people have come and gone and maybe gave it a sprint for a few minutes but few people actually run. I’m not going to lie and sugar coat it because this is my blog, but the truth is, this made me feel proud of myself. It did not make me feel any less towards anyone else; we are all at different places in our own personal journey. I cannot judge anyone cause I have no idea what obstacles they have faced in their lives just as no one can really understand me without knowing my life long struggles with these issues. But nonetheless my stamina and ability to just run made me feel proud and maybe like I do belong up there on those treadmills. Like someone could not look at me and say I am slacking. As if those things matter at all but honestly in the mind of a completely messed up girl with body image issues it does matter.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t this way. But I guess that is like asking grass to not be green or the sky to be anything but blue. I can’t really turn off that part of my brain that is so insecure. A lifetime of weight issues will leave their emotional toll no matter what. It’s like to this day I still cannot see myself clearly. I see a girl walk up the stairs to the treadmill and she is tiny and thin and cute and I’m like… Ugh… I wish I looked like that. And I get mad at myself and my body and I have no business doing that. It’s just hard sometimes. I have come a long way and I am much stronger than I give myself credit for and I am probably not nearly as fat as I think I am in my head. That is the strangest part of weight loss.

I say perception is one of the hardest things to truly alter. I’m not new to this rodeo; I have spent approximately 1/3 of my life fighting with my weight so I’ve been all over the place with perception. I had times that I could not see myself as anything less than hideously fat and then after time I had a problem where I thought I was active and healthy and in reality I had gained weight back and refused to let myself see the problem either.

I have a hard time because the scale is hovering between that 140-144 pound mark pretty consistently for me and while I have declared to be happy with such things I’m afraid I’m not actually happy with it. Somehow I feel like being as short as I am I should be able to weigh 130 pounds. Why do I do that? Like 10 pounds will really make that big of a difference? You know what will make much more of a difference? Muscle! Some days it’s hard to not get wrapped up or discouraged about things. I fear that all the extra muscle and weight training is keeping my weight consistent or stalling it out and in some of my weaker moments I get pissed because I don’t think 143 pounds is a desirable weight. I wish I didn’t have to admit that, but I still struggle with the notion that at 5 foot 3 inches I “should” be more like 130 pounds. Should is such a relative word because who says that I should be that? Really? Who gets to decide that this is what I “should” weigh? Society?

Please know that these are just my ramblings of thoughts in my head and at the end of the day I am comfortable on the path I am on. I have to trust in the process. I know everything I am doing for my body is the most healthy decision and the best choices I quite honestly have probably EVER made for my body. Every time I’ve lost weight before has been thru the vein of must lose weight, must love weight and not care about anything else. Meaning that it wasn’t about quality. It wasn’t about making myself strong and healthy; it was about getting to some magical number. And yes, perhaps I have reached some of those magical 130 numbers in the past but what did my body really have to show for it? I am building muscle and getting “fit” now and I am happy with that. What if I never lose another pound? Shouldn’t I be grateful with the body I have already earned? And of course that whole muscle vs. fat debate looms in my head. Muscle takes up less space so I could get smaller but not lose weight. I have seen this in people. (Secretly I wonder if this is just an excuse I tell myself to justify the lack of focus I am having in trying to lose weight)

I guess some days I still think I am fat… I still want to be smaller and more toned. I have a hard time when I can plainly see tiny cute little girls at the gym and I know my giant thighs will never be that. I need to love myself more. I do try to work at it. I really do. I have to tell myself that anyone who wears size 4 jeans and small and extra small tops cannot be fat. That there is no way that even society could deem that girl fat. But I still have my moments.

This is the seedy underbelly of weight loss that people don’t want to talk about. It’s not like suddenly you lose weight and your issues are gone. It’s not as if suddenly you are perfect and all better. Once a nut job, always a nut job! I obviously say that jokingly but that is a really condescending thing to say about oneself which probably further proves my theory that I’ve got more mental work to do. Most days I am fine and it doesn’t bother me. In fact more days than not I love myself and the girl I see in the mirror so I guess that is improvement.

The funny thing is I am 100% convinced cause I’ve pretty much lived it that it doesn’t matter what weight I am from 125 all the way up to 225 pounds I will have the same personal insecurities on the inside. I will always find something that isn’t right. I will always want more. I think that is just human nature. We are fundamentally way too hard on ourselves. We are only human with flaws and all.

Somehow I wish someone would take photos of just my body and photos of other similarly sized women’s bodies and put them together (no heads and clothed of course!) so that I wouldn’t know it was me… so I could truly see what I look like. Or at least see what I looked like thru other people’s eyes. Cause if I had to pick pictures of similarly sized woman that I think I look like I am sure they probably would be larger than I actually am cause don’t we mostly all see ourselves “larger” than we are. Unless you are in that state of denial which I have totally lived in where I still thought I could wear a size 8/10 when I was actually a 16/18. Ha!

Regardless I am clearly in a pretty deep let’s think about all this kind of mood today. It does help me to write it out and ponder some of these issues; even if it ends up being a ridiculously long post that nobody reads. It’s helped me nonetheless. So there you have it, to sum up, I am pretty much still an insecure nut who uses sarcasm and self deprecation to mask her insecurities. Yeah, that just about says it all.

When all else fails, exercise I guess. So even though my body is uncomfortably sore today. Moving is something I have to actually tell my brain to do, I will go ahead and push on thru and exercise tonight cause that is just what I do. Plus Wednesday nights are some of my favorite classes with an awesome motivational inspiring trainer teaching them. So yes, I will push thru the pain and I will kick some ass cause that is also just part of what I do. Despite it all, I never feel as happy or alive as I do when I am exercising so that is what I am going to keep doing, working thru my issues via exercise.