Passion

It has been an interesting emotional week. For good or bad I have chosen to block out most of everything that is going, most likely because my brain cannot handle all the pressure at once. I can only do what I’m going to do at my own pace. That is the best thing I can say about that. Instead, I am enjoying giving myself over to my health. This is something that I have not done in a couple weeks and it feels good. I sound good because I feel good. I feel happy and confident and healthy and that is the best possible thing for me right now. Physically I feel amazing and that is the surest thing in my world to make everything else seem more manageable. With strength comes peace and clarity.

I downloaded Katy Perry’s new song, Roar yesterday and am presently listening to it on repeat. Does anyone else do that? Like I put a song on repeat and since it’s in the background while I am doing other stuff it can play like literally 30-40 times before I even realize it and get sick of it. The funny thing is the first time I heard this song was at the infamous VMA’s the other night. I say infamous because who really needs to talk about Miley Cyrus anymore, certainly I do not. She’s a hoe. Period. Actually it’s just sad more than anything else. She’s certainly not the first artist to whore herself out for money or attention and she certainly won’t be the last. Regardless, I like Katy Perry who also uses her body a lot to sell her image. But it’s cool. I actually saw Katy Perry live in concert a few years back and she was pretty talented in real life so I accept her. Plus she was the tiniest girl I had ever seen. Seriously TINY. Anyway. I heard the song at the VMA’s and realized how much this applied to me and health and being a fighter and I had to download it. Of course I forgot about it until yesterday. So yup, repeat away, and it’s making me happy.

I am a fighter. I am a champion and you’re going to hear me roar. Love it. That is how I feel right now today. I make no promises for tomorrow. I never do. I was late for work this morning, but it didn’t matter because no one was here. I had to stop and get some energy drinks because I was completely out and apparently I can’t make it thru a day without my dirty habit. It’s bad but I mean, it’s not worse than shoveling down chocolate so I’ll take it. Someday I should kick that habit but baby steps.

In all of my quick haste this morning I made a cardinal error. Usually I pack my gym bag the night before, but for whatever reason I totally spaced it last night. I remembered this morning and packed quickly. Driving to work I realized I totally forgot shoes. Kind of important. Oops. So I will have to rectify that at some point. As much as I love my TOMS shoes, they are not workout approved :)

I told my mom this weekend, and it’s so completely true, that at this point in my life, I am just as if not more comfortable in workout attire as I am in anything else. Sure I love to get dressed up and be girly but I am constantly in search of a good workout and good clothes facilitate that. I’m becoming one of those obnoxious fitness girls that used to drive me crazy. How insane is that? If you ever think that you can’t, the truth is, you REALLY can. I don’t even know how else to articulate that anything is possible in terms of health and fitness if you really want it. I am complete living proof of that.

Approximately 11 months ago I was sitting on the couch crying about weighing 220 pounds and being so out of breathe I couldn’t even walk my dog. Today I freaking weigh 135 pounds, can run a half marathon randomly because I decide to, and can lift weights that I never fathomed possible. 11 months and a shit load of determination I suppose. But it’s possible. If you want it, it’s possible. I am not saying it’s easy or instant. I think it clearly takes a crazy level of intensity and determination. But if you had ½ the desire that I do, you could accomplish it as well. You don’t have to be the crazy girl I am. I realize that I am an extreme kind of girl. That’s just me. And you know what, I love that about me. It’s one of my favorite qualities in myself. I accomplish whatever I put my mind to. I do not fail at the decisions I make. Granted, I have to want it really bad, but when I do…. I WILL succeed.

I am channeling all of my energy into my workouts and it feels pretty good actually. Last night I took a 30 minute class and then I went and grabbed a kettle ball and did another 30 minutes or so of awesome stuff. Swings, arm lifts and then I did some bicep curls. I felt really strong. I feel like my upper body is getting so toned and I am just falling in love with it. I have a hard time admitting that whole self-love thing. I have a hard time with not wanting to come across as a gloaty self-involved bitch. That is not me. I have worked hard for my body so I am trying to embrace that it’s okay to like the results I am seeing. That does not make me self-involved or a bitch to say that I am proud of the work and can see the results.

It’s been about 2 ½ months now of training at the gym. I signed up for a year of personal training, which I do not regret for a second at this point. I know I was so super anxious and nervous when I signed the contract but I can honestly say I have regrets and love it to death. Anyway, we are about 2 ½ months in, meaning approximately 1/5 of the way. The results are so good already I can’t even phantom what I am going to be able to accomplish at the end of this year. It’s kind of exciting. I’m so interested in the picture of me next June, after a full year of doing this.

So now I am going to talk about one of those things that we women don’t discuss all that much but it’s a true reality for any overweight woman period, and especially for one who has lost weight and gained wait and stretched out their skin repeatedly. I have that horrible stomach skin issue. You’ve seen it online if you are lucky enough to not experience it firsthand. I have lost the weight and underneath the skin is a growingly tight core. The muscles are there, just buried under skin. It’s not as bad as a whole in person. Clothes do a lot. And honestly when I “tuck” the extra skin underneath underwear or a bathing suit bottom it really isn’t that bad. It’s just naked; I have an extra ring of skin. I hate it, duh. I mean, who loves that? I hate it because mostly it is the ultimate reminder of what trauma I have done to my body. If I could afford any part of it I would have a tummy tuck and have them cut it out. I don’t imagine it is ever going away on its own. For 2 months I have noticed no change or movement in the amount of excess skin, reaffirming that someday surgery is my only hope. While I still wholeheartedly believe it won’t go away on its own, there is just too much volume there, I have become shocked to realize that in the last two weeks or so I have started to feel an ever so slight difference. Things are feeling a little tighter down there and perhaps the skin is actually ever so slightly getting smaller. It has just happened quite recently.

This gives me so much hope. Not that I think the skin will ever go away, but after 2 ½ months of strength training I am finally starting to notice a slight difference. What would it look like after a year of doing this? This is what keeps me going and keeps me motivated on this journey. The scale is obviously not any part of a focus for me at all. It’s so ridiculously refreshing to not care about a number on a scale. My motivation and power comes from making myself healthy and strong and seeing what treating my body with complete love will do.

I can honestly say that in 10 years of being on this yo-yo journey of weight loss this is the first time ever that I have learned to love my body and treat it with the love and respect it deserves. This is the first time I have ever cared about the quality of the journey, not just the journey itself. This is the first time I have given it the things it needs to grow and change and holy shit, not too shocking to anyone but me, it’s working. I am actually getting the results that evaded me every other time.

So the question and the answer are as follows…

How long does it take for a bonified self-professed runner to become a ridiculous proponent of consistent strength training? Approximately 2 months my friends.

Do I love running any less today than I did 4 months ago? Not a chance. Do I love running any less than I have my entire life? Do I feel blessed and thankful every moment to be a runner? You betcha. I credit running with so much in my life. It is my savior really. It is the single most important thing I have ever done for myself. Not only did it allow me to lose weight, but it kept and continues to keep my mind in check. It gives me my freedom from myself. I will always, forever, be a runner first and foremost. The passion I feel for running is very real and forever.

But, today I stand before you a changed woman because of strength training. It’s like the epiphany of my life. It’s no epiphany that I love running. The epiphany and the complete game changer came the day I signed up for personal training and embarked down the strength training path. Sure the first session I had no idea it was really doing anything for me. But slowly by slowly, things just changed and one day I realized how different I really was because of it.

This has become the single biggest game changer of my life. It is the one thing that has made me realize that I CAN do this for the rest of my life. That treating my body with love and health is the best thing I have ever done. That I feel happy, and full and strong. No more starving. No more deprivation. No more self-inflicted scale hoping torture. No more fighting with an unimportant number for the rest of my life. The challenges I can set for myself in the overall world of health and fitness are limitless. Yes, limitless. And I can always improve and work toward something. Exactly what I needed. I spent so long focusing on a number on a scale, a goal. I am a goal oriented person after all. But with fitness, there is no end game. There is always something else I can set my mind too, to achieve.

I have such passion for it. I have such love for everything it has given me. I am one of those fanatical women who has finally found her true calling or church of some sort. It’s not even about how I look anymore, that is a nice byproduct of it, but its about how I feel. Its about how it makes me feel. There is not a better feeling in the whole world than to feel so strong and powerful and confident.

I feel so blessed to every single of you who are reading this right now. Mainly because what is crazy to me is that so many of you have stuck around with me on my crazy journey for years and years. Why you stuck around I have no idea, but it’s amazing to me that I feel so close and connected to this whole slew of amazing women from all over this country. It’s amazing to me that any part of me can impact any part of anyone. I really would love to be a fitness coach maybe. I am hesitant to say personal trainer because its about so much more than just standing with someone at a gym for 30-60 minutes telling them to lift or cooking up crazy workouts. I want to connect with people on a personal level. Share life experiences and their journeys and champion them on as they change their lives. I want to serve as proof that anything is possible. That just because you may fail at this once, twice, three times, it doesn’t matter. You get back up and do it all over again. You keep doing it as many times as it takes. I want to help people feel as amazing and alive as I feel when you finally figure it all out. Not to say I’ve got it all figured out, that’s the beauty of it, you will never have it all figured out.

I think this is why I love the online world so much, that for whatever reason I am able to fully open up and share a part of myself that doesn’t happen in real life. That I get to in some small way feel like I am putting good out into the world. I am a good person and I just want to leave the world a little better than I found it. This is the best way I know how to do that.

I can’t believe I spent so long thinking I was being healthy and doing the right things for myself. But I guess that is all part of the process. Making mistakes and learning and picking yourself back up again. I feel so incredibly blessed to be sitting here today realizing how much I have actually learned. How much I have truly changed to my core. I smile because I treat my body with the love and respect it has ALWAYS deserved. And when I started to do that, things started to finally click and finally change for me.

I am 34 years old. I am in the best shape of my life. I love myself today more than I ever have in my entire life. I have found my passion and now the ball is in my court to figure out where I go from here. I am not sure, but I am certain it is going to be good. I keep seeing that picture of myself in my head of Emily June 2014, after 1 year of personal training and strength training. I’ll be 35 years old and that girl is confident like I’ve never imagined and she is strong. She is so strong. I see her. I see who I want to be. I have that picture in my head of the best version of myself. I am so proud of that girl already. I’m going to be her. I promise you that. The picture I see in my head I AM going to make happen. I know it because I believe it that strongly.

I don’t really have June 2013 pictures. I have pictures from Maui which may work because those are pre gym, pre personal training. But I think today I am going to take some new pictures of me less clothed for some comparison shots. Hell, I may even take a photo of the infamous stomach skin for comparison purposes. I have no shame in sharing the truth of what this process has done to my body. I will share away. I promise that June 2014 I will have comparison pictures and I am going to be proud. I have unlocked my athlete and she is freaking amazing!