I have often written that losing weight
more difficult emotionally/mentally than it ever is physically. Overall weight loss is hard on every part of
your body. My legs are constantly
sore. My arms feel like rubber after
meeting with my trainer and constantly doing pull ups. I currently have a blister that has now
turned into an open wound on the back of my my foot that no matter how many
band aids I put on it is constantly irritated.
But thanks to ice bags, Neosporin, and my compression sleeves (I LUV my
compression sleeves more than any piece of running apparel I have purchased)
these things will all heal. I will
always have soreness in my legs, if not I am not training hard enough. If I want to be able to do unassisted pull
ups; then I need to face facts that some days I will not be able to reach my
arms above my shoulders. It comes with
the territory. I am willing to accept
this. And for some reason feeling sore
feels GOOD, maybe because you know you are working hard and results are coming
soon. (Feeling hurt does not….you need
to know the difference.)
On the other hand, there is all that
mental/emotional things that come with losing weight. Isn’t weight loss suppose to be a happy
time? People can say what they want, but
for the most part people look better the healthier they are (note the word
healthy, not skinnier. Bones are not
attractive). You also FEEL better. You have more energy. You have endorphins running through your
body, which keep you happy, or at least they are suppose to. Look at before and after pictures who have
massive weight loss, aren’t they generally all mopey looking in their before
picture and are beaming in their after?
That’s because in general, life is easier and happier when you aren’t
lugging around all those extra pounds.
Think about it, you can shop at normal stores, you can comfortably fit
on an airplane without that dreaded look from your neighbor that is a stranger
that is thinking oh no they are sitting next to me, you can walk up a flight of
stairs without being winded (ha this isn’t always true, sometimes I get winded
walking to my 3rd floor apartment), and you lose all the stigmas
that come along with being fat. Did you
know that a girl that is overweight is 10 times more likely to be viewed as
lazy by her peers? (On the flip side, girls who are skinny at 10
times more likely to be thought of as being vain.)
So what could possibly be so hard to get
over by losing weight? The simple answer
yourself. I call her my inner fat
girl. When I was bigger it was the
person inside me that didn’t judge me when I ate too much (way way way too
much) in the confines of my own apartment, where others would had I been in
public. She was with me when I would go
shopping with my friends and try to fit in something that I knew was too small,
just so I would never had to admit out loud that none of the clothes at their
stores fit me. She was the one that
rationalized with me that I didn’t work out, come on wasn’t my day job hard
enough? I have never been skinny, honestly I don’t
think it is in my genes, so since I was old enough to realize that I was bigger
than most of my friends, I came to terms with being the fat girl. I was the token one of my group of
friends. I never really liked that
stigma, and honestly I don’t know if anyone else ever identified me as that,
but that is how I felt on the inside.
And as weird of it sounds it is so hard to let go of.
Why?
Because it was my excuse. It was
the reason for not doing things. Why
couldn’t I run a 5k? I was too fat. Why didn’t I dress fashionably? I was too fat. Why didn’t that guy like me? I was too fat. Now, OMG if it is not being fat then what is
it? I can’t run a 5k because well I can, I just choose not to get out of bed to
ONLY run 3 miles…too much work. I am
probably not fashionable because well I just am not the next Rachel Zoe. And that guy who doesn’t like me….gasp maybe
he just doesn’t like ME. Not because I
am fat, but because he didn’t like the person I am. And that is an awful pill to swallow. So every time that I go to a store and I try
on something that doesn’t fit (damn you pants from Forever 21) I feel that
inner fat girl telling me that I will never be that small….why would you ever
think you could be that size? Or when a
guy that you are interested in blows you off, I can feel those inner demons
telling me “who do you think you are to think a guy like that would never be
interested in a girl like you”. My inner
fat girl might comfort me when I am sad and want to eat a burrito, but is
detrimental when things go wrong, way wrong (good thing I am hard headed or I
am pretty sure she would have convinced me not to finish the Chicago Marathon).
This is a constant battle. Little by little it gets easier, but it still
is difficult to do. No more excuses. If you don’t hit your goals it is because you
didn’t try hard enough. If that guy
isn’t into you it is because he didn’t like you, you as a person….not just your
body. And has hard as those things are
to accept, it is much better than making excuses. If I fail at something it is alllllll me.
Today I ran 2 miles in 14:50 today. HELL YES.
I am pretty sure when I started this journey I couldn’t run one mile in
15 minutes!! Take that fat girl....
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