8 months

This week is flying by, which is probably what happens when you are gone on a Monday so your Tuesday is really your Monday and suddenly you find yourself upon Thursday. And almost half way thru Thursday. This is good. I like this. I have been trying hard the past couple days to catch up at work so that I don’t feel so bad about my lack of real performance on any level the past couple months. Sometimes that happens I guess.

Yesterday I didn’t have much to say as I was not really feeling life. Sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down. I feel great around 1 or 2 PM pretty much every day, super excited and motivated and ready to take on the world. This is typically what happens for me. Then about 4 or 4:30 hits and slump beyond slump, I have zero desire to do anything physical or move or go to the gym. And then I get slightly angry and depressed. Of course I make myself go to the gym and by the time I start moving I feel great. Exercise is my high, it’s my therapy, and it’s my everything really. I need that in my life so badly. It makes me feel great.

Of course, last night I had personal training and my trainer is on vacation this week so I had Amanda again for training. I adore the girl, I totally do, but she is just so tough. I guess that is a good thing. We did back yesterday and boy is my back on fire today. That is certainly a sign of a good workout I guess. My muscles are sore and tired because I worked them, tore them down and now they must rebuild themselves as better ever so slightly stronger versions of themselves. Or at least that’s how I like to try and visualize it in my mind. So even though my lower back hurts it’s because it is presently rebuilding itself into a stronger version of my lower back.

I have to try and find the positives where I can because it can get challenging to stay completely motivated when you don’t see the changes occurring any longer. I have to know that somehow, some way change is happening. I am getting stronger and things have to be progressing even if there is no measureable proof of this.

Last night I really struggled with the concept of loose skin. I like how some days I am so proud of my efforts and my body and then some days it is such a struggle. Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond grateful for the amazing body I have in terms of what I have tortured it thru its entire life and to have it still look as good as it does. I get that. But then I also really understand why people who lose lots of weight end up struggling and gaining again. It is SO hard to keep it up day in and day out when all you have all over your body is the physical signs, proof of the torture. I have tortured loose skin. Everywhere. I look great all things considered BUT, some days it feels pointless because I have so much permanent damage to my body.

Let me rephrase that, if I am being honest, which I generally am on this site, there is a secret part of me that is praying that in time it can and will all tighten up, but I just don’t think it’s that realistic to expect my body to bounce back from the true damage I’ve done. And then on occasion I see people who claim to have been like 250 pounds and are now these body builder fitness models and they look perfect. Is that even possible? I work so hard and I doubt and question it all the time.

I think this shit is hard. Both physically and mentally. I think the reason so many of us never really achieve our goals is because we lose faith and quit trying because it gets hard. I don’t honestly believe my skin can tighten up as much as I need it too in order to be satisfied but there is a part of me that is thinking that in another 8 months maybe, just maybe it’s possible. I don’t want to be crazy unrealistic and get my expectations up too high but I am praying that improvement can still be made. Now after four months there has been much improvement. The addition of muscles to my frame has helped tremendously in terms of how I look, so one can only rationalize that another 8 months of effort should produce better results. But I’m afraid. I’m going to admit it. I’m terrified that I have hit a standstill and this is the best my body can do. That this is all I can manage and for some reason it’s not good enough. I want it all now. I feel like I deserve my dreams. Sometimes that whole why not me is a double edged sword. They say to reach/wish for the impossible and then ask you to be realistic.

This is what I know and what I am sticking to…

1. I have lots of loose skin, too much to logically believe that it can ever all tighten up and go away. I can accept that on some level.
2. There is no way that I can spend another 8 months of going to the gym and doing what I’ve been doing and NOT see additional results. Something will have to budge
3. It will all be what it is supposed to be. Period.

Because of the excessive damage I have done to my body it is going to take a lot of effort to achieve results that someone else who started out small but not toned might achieve in 4 months. I have added lots of muscle but I have a lot of skin still because of the losing and gaining of 80 pounds over and over again in my life. My results will take longer to achieve period.

I also know that I am 100% committed now, and I’m not going back. Ever. Despite having days of frustration I am in no way shape or form thinking that I am giving up. It’s not even possible at this point. This is my lifestyle and I choose to do it not to achieve some body (although that is a great side effect of it) but mostly I do it because I love how it makes me feel. Without any results at all the majority of the time I feel amazing and great because of living a healthy lifestyle. That is far more important than any physical transformation that is or is not occurring.

Let’s not forget that I have had great physical results in 4 months as well. It is hard for me to get perspective from time to time because life just happens. I don’t have a clear mental picture of what I looked like 4 months ago, being 140 pounds but not having lifted any weights or having gone to the gym. I know I liked myself and how I looked but I don’t think I had any muscle at all. I have a hard time remembering that girl and some days just assume that this is what 140 pound me looks like and I don’t think that is the case. I think this is 140 pound me with more muscle than I’ve ever had in my whole life.

Some days we just need to be reminded that anything is possible and that you have already come a long way. I know this is true. I don’t say this enough and I wish I would have taken my own advice but please if you are trying to lose weight I promise you this, you will never have enough pictures of yourself along the way. Take lots of pictures. I wish I had 5 times as many as I do, from all angels so that I can really see. It’s so helpful as a visual reminder on days when you just for the life of you, can’t tell at all how far you’ve come. So I try and take pictures now because I guess in 8 months I will be able to compare the then to the now and hopefully see that progress that I am so anxious to get.

But even so, this really is forever so if it takes me years that is okay, just as long as I believe that it is really possible. I think that is all that I need, to know that it IS possible. That if I keep working at it, eventually, despite all of my best efforts previously in life to ruin it, my body can snap back. I don’t mind if it takes a long time but I just have to have some reassurance that it is possible. I am not looking for perfection. I’m not. My body is flawed and that is okay. I have a big scar down my stomach where I had to have emergency gall bladder surgery and that is okay with me. It’s part of who I am. I just want to know that someday it’s possible to truly erase my past mistakes with new fresh starts. Isn’t that what we all strive for anyway? A fresh start…

I want to be the girl I always dreamed of being but didn’t think was ever a possibility. Living this journey this time has given me the courage to admit what I want. It’s given me just enough strength to ask, why not me? And it’s made me dangerous enough to start to think that I am capable of achieving that long buried mental image of this fiercely strong and toned woman. Notice that nowhere in there did I say skinny. I don’t want skinny, I want healthy and strong. Skinny is weak. I have so learned that. Stick thin girls with no muscle are unappealing to me. I have learned to understand that beauty full radiates with strength, both physical and the kind that comes from within. That is what I value above all else.

Yesterday my friend Paige posted on Facebook a little quote that said Julia Child didn’t start cooking until she was 37. That is really sticking with me today. I am 34. Technically I have 3 years right :) I think it was less about actually being 37 and more about discovering your true self and calling. It’s quite possible that I haven’t even discovered who I’m supposed to be just yet but boy am I a lot closer than I ever was. I still have time; I guess that’s the point.

And one more thought that I am going to reflect upon, honest to God, is there any part of me that really believes that if I keep going the way I have been the past 4 months, for another 8 months, that things won’t change? Really, honestly. Fuck numbers and math and BMI’s and body fat percentages and scale numbers. And look in the God Damned mirror. Is there any way possible that 8 more months of this won’t produce something different in the mirror??? Really?