This is the moment

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
I am not superwoman.
Rock Bottom.
The Break Up.
The dirty shameful secret.
Disappointment and Resentment.
Why Can’t I just be Normal?

These are all titles I have been running thru my head for the past two days on how to write this very not fun post. In all fairness I don’t want to write this non fun post. Who likes to write non-fun posts? The dirty shameful secret I have been carrying around for months is that my effort and desire and thus motivation have all but disappeared. The more I run, the more I become immersed in this happy magical land of running, the less desire I have to go to the gym or focus on appearance driven endeavors. What this ultimately does is cause a big rift between not only myself but my trainer.

The break up I am referring to is the ultimately horrific conversation I had last night with my trainer Amanda. We didn’t really “break-up” but it was the discussion that I have somehow managed to avoid for months but it finally came to fruition last night. It was that talk where I openly and frankly pretty much rejected her world and told her in no uncertain terms that running was more important to me. In all fairness I do truly think it left us both feeling yucky. She pretended like we were normal and it wasn’t a disappointment to her, but I know it was.

The dirty shameful secret is that I have been struggling ridiculously hardcore with my eating. I suspect this is normal, but I don’t like where it is headed. The Rock Bottom comes in the terms of a horrible incident, otherwise known as my own personal rock bottom that occurred Tuesday night. For some unknown reason to me, in a weird uncharacteristic moment for me instead of going to the gym after work I drove home and in the worst moment I found my car driving thru the McDonalds drive thru. I have not had McDonald’s in a year and a half and suddenly I was ordering chicken nuggets and French fries. And I loved it. God help me, but I loved it. I am a fat girl at heart. I have never denied my existence of personal demons. I have them, plenty of them. Just because you find yourself at a place of self-love and happiness doesn’t mean that you suddenly kill the inner demon that causes much of your havoc. You have to fight her consistently. I lost the battle Tuesday night. And it scared the shit out of me.

In all fairness as my weekend running life has been getting better and better, none of that is a lie. I feel so happy and amazing in that world, other aspects of my life are struggling to find their “new place”. I am not going to say balance because that isn’t exactly what I’m talking about. What I am referring to is the place/the role in my life that other things are going to play.

I have done a lot of soul searching the past couple months trying to determine what makes me happy, how much time and effort I want to give to anything, etc. In the end what I know in my heart is right is running. It goes against every law of nature. While my brain is a runner, my body type does not lend itself to running. I am fighting against myself a little. I easily put on muscle and my body wants to. It has no ability to slim out and be a tiny runner. I have come to terms with the fact that I am not a natural born runner. I have come to terms with never being the fastest girl on the course. I have come to terms with my body honestly, but it’s still a fight against nature I feel at points.

There is the guilt. The guilt is this. My trainer and friend Amanda keeps telling me I have a body meant for building muscle. I know it’s true. She is heavily into strength training and at points over the last year obviously I was to. She is sad and I feel disappointed in me that I have backed off heavy strength training and instead am gearing myself towards running. According to her, it really isn’t possible to have it all. Thus, I am not superwoman. As much as it pains me to admit it, I am not of super human strength or ability and eventually all of this takes its toll on my body both physically and mentally.

As much as I’ve tried to not let my excessive weekend running schedule affect my gym time, it has. I do just sometime find myself tired and not wanting to put out the effort I have in the past. Like skipping the gym on Tuesday night. In the grand scheme of things, is that so freaking awful? No, it’s not. But guess what happened Tuesday night. I got a text message from Amanda that said “Why didn’t you lift tonight lady?” Thus my absence at the gym was noticed. Why can’t I just be normal? I mean, many many people at the gym don’t go every single day and their absence goes completely unnoticed. I know I have not set myself up that way. I know I for some reason am judged at a higher standard and for good or bad it is noticed. But it’s a lot of pressure. Mostly self-inflicted, which leads me to the other reality of this entire situation.

I have gained weight. Thus the whole denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. I have been teetering on denial land. I jump thru moments of who really cares to holy shit I have got to stop this trend right now. I am happy, active and healthy. Does it really matter that I am 155 pounds? Not really necessarily. But what does this say that the trend keeps progressing upwards? My size 4 jeans do not fit. This bothers me. I am wearing my size 6 jeans. Now before anyone freaks out, I honestly know who the fuck cares that I am wearing a size 6. I think a size 6 is pretty damned okay. I totally understand this. I’m not mad to be wearing a size 6. But it scares me that 155 is my new norm and it seems to be creeping and clearly is going to continue to move its way upward if I have rock bottom McDonalds moments. I am scared and I need to pull it all back together somehow.

I am not going to lie, I have felt myself on a downward spiral for the past 6 weeks in an epic fashion and I am scared. That is what frightens me the most, my inability to reign myself in. Why is losing 10-15 pounds so much harder than losing 70? When I am 200 plus pounds it is infinitely easier for me to buckle down and be serious. 10-15 pounds is HARD. Don’t ever underestimate the struggle of a woman trying to lose 10-15 pounds. It is ridiculous.

What happened last night with Amanda made me want to cry. When I got to the gym, we went into one of the little rooms, and immediately she told me she wanted to take my measurements. Basically, I felt like I was being punished or picked on and I knew what was coming. I instantly internally freaked because I was not prepared for measurements. What this meant was she wanted me to weigh myself. I had a panic moment. It’s like facing the horrific truth. Stand on the scale at 5:30 PM, after a full day of food and literally buckets of water drank pre workout, fully clothed in tennis shoes. For someone with borderline scale/weight mental problems this is a huge freak out. I have freed myself of scale addiction and this felt like mental torture. I was not wrong, it was TORTURE. Then she took that number and used it to do my body fat and then she took actual measurements, something she hasn’t done in forever. I suspect it was done to prove some wacked point that I have been slacking and my numbers are up.

My numbers are all up. The trend is upward in a bad way. My motivation is gone. She told me she has noticed that I have been off and not lifting like I should. She told me that she can tell that something has been off and that I don’t care the way I once did. Meaning I am no longer spending countless hours at the gym lifting. This is all true. None of what she said was untrue at all. It just felt like a lecture and a big old, I am disappointed in you. It broke my heart. I am utterly sensitive at my core. Who isn’t really? I love Amanda and felt like I had let her down. Why I care so much is beyond me because while I have been disappointing her the last 2 months I have found myself happier than I have ever been. I have found my life fuller, richer and happier than I have ever experienced.

My love for my life is beyond anything I have lived almost 35 years thus and yet I sat in that little room feeling less than, feeling defeated, disappointed and frustrated. In a nut shell, like somehow I wasn’t good enough because my weight said 155, my body fat is up and I am not giving heavy lifting my full attention.

Do you want to talk about stress? I knew all of these feelings were occurring. I knew I’ve been struggling with some inner demons. I knew that I was disappointing Amanda all along the way and this causes me stress. Which is not good for my body at all. No one wants to feel like they are disappointing someone. It’s a very yucky feeling. I have disappointed myself as well. I guess that’s what it boils down to the most. I am disappointed in myself basically because of my horrible eating I think. And because I find myself struggling so much to make good food choices. I wish it were easier. I think this would all be a different story if I were still wearing those size 4 jeans. How stupid is that? I am not going to lie, I notice the extra 15 pounds on my body. I hate it. I want them gone. But apparently not enough to really commit to it.

I feel like my talk with Amanda last night was kind of like both of us acknowledging that we are heading in different directions. She is getting more and more into the heavy lifting fitness body building show world, which in all honestly I find really repulsive. And I am obviously veering VERY off into the running world. Where I find like-minded people who just “get it”. Who understand the reasons why running is good for the soul. I basically told her that I am the happiest I’ve ever been with my running on the weekends and that I have no desire to give that up. She basically told me that I can’t have it all. I can’t really lift heavy and run like that, that these were contrary ideas. I hate that people see them as so contrary. I have never understood why I can’t “have it all”.

I mean, I can’t lift as crazy as I once did. I can’t spend 2 plus hours a night at the gym lifting heavy but I can still go to the gym and lift during the week and have my running on the weekends. I might not ever be perfect at any of it this way, diving my time among the worlds, but I am not honestly looking for perfection. I don’t aspire to win the race, I don’t aspire to do a fitness body building show. Good God, I just want to be happy, you know? I just want to live my life and enjoy the fuck out of it. That’s what I really want. If that means lifting weights at 80% of my capacity and running at 80% of my ability then who the fuck cares? Do what makes you happy, right?

Should I care a little bit more about my weight creeping up? Yeah, I probably need to monitor that much better than I have. I talked to my mom after the gym and my horrible meeting last night and with tears in my eyes I pretty much told mom that I don’t know what to do. Being my mom, you know, mom’s infinitely are full of good advice or perhaps it’s just because it is your mom and therefore anything they say directly to you carries so much more weight, even when you are freaking almost 35 years old, she kind of nailed it. She told me that clearly running is significant and important in my life. That my focus right now should be my running because that is my happiness. The benefits it has on my life, my relationship with my husband, on me is more important. Doesn’t mean that I need to walk away from the gym or other things but that I need to be happy. But moreover, in terms of my weight and my struggling with food she told me something that is utterly true and something that I’ve preached my whole life. We all struggle. So I am up 15 pounds. Right now this moment is what determines if I’ve learned anything the last year and a half. Right now this moment determines how strong I really am. This is where I get to prove that I have really changed. My true strength comes from what I do from this moment on.

I heart my mom. She is my rock. Always has been. I can’t imagine what any of my sisters and or I would do without her consistently by our sides. It’s only fitting that Mother’s Day is this weekend and I get to reflect on how much this woman means to me. But hearing my mom tell me that my strength and courage from today forward is what defines me, somehow made me smile. I know I am not a quitter. I know I am strong. I know this last year and a half has taught me how freaking strong I am. I know I have really changed fundamentally this time and therefore I am not going back. I will pull my shit together. I will forgive myself and I will move forward knowing that these are the defining moments in life.

Standing outside the gym, talking to my mom and having her say, that this moment right here determines my strength IS one of those defining moments of my life. I just had it. I remember sitting in the parking lot at Old Navy crying before I went into the store to try on new jeans because I outgrew them and had to buy size 18. That was a defining moment that I vividly remember. For some reason yesterday felt like one to. I have to pull this together. This is the moment where I realize that there has been yet again another fundamental shift in myself the past 2 months and it’s time to embrace it, accept it, grieve the passing of what has changed and move forward.

I think in a nutshell I am grieving. I am grieving the loss of my desire to lift heavy and focus my energies on that. I do love lifting. Don’t get me wrong, I do love strength training and have no intention of giving it up, but it’s just no longer the most important thing. I have returned back home to my true forever love of running. I have found a community that really gets and understands me. What’s even more amazing is that I am sharing this community with my husband. Can I even tell you how RIDICULOUSLY good this has been for my marriage. No joke, we are the happiest together we have EVER been. I think we are happier today than we were that first year, which we all know is the honeymoon phase.

The life I am building is the one I am most proud of. I am happy. I can’t express enough how fulfilled I feel by running on the weekends, bonding with my husband, traveling, having mini adventures. It doesn’t hurt that running frees my brain completely. Do you know that after I had my talk with Amanda and had to fight back tears in my eyes, my first thought was that I just wanted to go for a run to clear my head? That I wanted to run it out. I didn’t feel like picking up heavy weights, I felt like running it out. That might tell you something.

I am mad. I don’t want to overlook the reality that part of me is steaming mad today. Mad because I feel like I am head to some higher standard at the gym, not just by Amanda but by everyone else there. Granted I have created this image that people have of me, but I hate that I have gotten so much backlash from day 1 about running. I hate that I am made to feel inadequate because I no longer spend two hours each day on the weekends at the gym. That instead I am out living my life, making meaningful connections and relationships and experiences. I am mad that the gym makes me feel like I am wrong for choosing running. How many people choose running? TONS. They can’t all be wrong, right?

I am mad at my gym, because despite trying as they might, they will never give me the high or sense of fulfillment that running on the open road in a race with hundreds of strangers will give me. That is just me. That is my chemical makeup. That is really no one’s fault, it just is. As much as Amanda gets a high from lifting really heavy and prepping to compete in a body building show, I get that same exact rush from running. I don’t tell her she’s wrong for wanting to starve herself to get to 10% body fat to stand half naked in a ridiculous orange spray tan to show off and be judged solely by her body. It makes her happy, I accept that. Running does it for me.

I am not sure I am articulating how awkward and deflating my little meeting with Amanda was. She literally pulled up my stats in the computer and from the last year all of my numbers have increased. There was a 135 recorded in there for my weight and now it’s 155. She looked at the numbers and looked at me and was like, “what’s going on?” This isn’t good. I’ve noticed. It was embarrassing. I guess that’s what it boils down to. I was embarrassed. She made me feel inadequate and embarrassed like I have done things all wrong. It’s a complete weird feeling since I am so fundamentally full and satisfied otherwise. I can’t help it, but it made me feel like the gym was my enemy. Like how can I be this fulfilled in my life and then feel shame coming to the gym?

I am mad at the gym today. But I know in a few days it will wear off and I will be okay. But for today I want to be mad and pissed off. I am going to the gym tonight for class because God forbid I don’t show up for a class. I am going to go tonight, do my class, and vent some of my rage into a workout. Friday night is rest night. Day off. And then Saturday morning I am making a different choice.

Right now I did not have anything planned for Saturday morning. I was going to go to the gym and take Turbokick for an hour with Amanda and then probably her class after, but I am so pissed right now it just makes me mad. I think instead I am going to sign up for a 10k. I think what I need most right now is a good race. I head clearing run. Something that makes me smile and feel good about myself. I think I’d rather run outside with other people who get it, than spend my hour at the gym feeling judged and inadequate. I am mad. I am really mad. I am probably mostly mad at myself, but can’t think of any way to clear it better than just running it out. So I think I am going to wake my ass up early to drive for an hour to go to Portland to run a race. Because that sounds like happiness to me.

This is what I am certain of; I can lose 10-15 pounds. If I decide to commit to it, I can do that. That’s not really the issue. My weight is going to ebb and flow in life. Pretty sure this is what I will deal with my whole life. That is not the issue. Sure it’s a little issue right now that I need to stop in its track before my body tells me more McDonald’s is in order. But that’s not really the issue here I don’t think.

I am burnt out on the gym. That is the issue. My desire to push myself has ebbed and flowed and for whatever reason I’m not allowed to have that normal ebb and flow. I am also certain that at some point it will become really important to me again. I am sure, just as I am, that I will burn out on excessive running at some point, I will return to heavy lifting. This is what keeps life interesting and in balance. Right now it’s time for me to run. I am loving every second of it and I am not going to apologize for being happy. I refuse to settle for things that don’t bring me happiness.

If that means a sort of self-imposed break from heavy gym time then so be it. At the end of the day, what really matters anyway? Who am I trying to impress or make happy? The single most important person is always going to be myself. I need to ease up a little and accept that I cannot be everything to everyone, it’s far more important to make myself happy. So I once again choose me. Now it’s time to take off these 10-15 pounds just as a fuck you to everyone who seems to be doubting me. I am strong. I am stronger than this.

This moment, right here is where I am going to step up to the plate, show my true strength and shine!