Enter screeching of needle on record here.
That first paragraph, well, not one of those things happened today. Well, they may have happened but it certainly did not happen to me.
This is the truth.
The sun is shining. The trail is about ten feet in front of me. I bend over to tie my shoe and realize I am already out of breath. I have only walked from the car to the trail, how can I be out of breath. I stop to use the bathroom. I have to pee about once every 10 minutes. I brush a piece of a potato chip from the car ride over here off my calf. My right hand clasps my left as I lean over into a side stretch. It hurts. I make a weird noise and secretly hope that is the extent of my workout. Reaching down, I adjust the waistband of my running shorts and hike them up so that my stomach is hidden. My shoulders are hunched over and sweat is pouring down my back. Keep in mind, I have not started working out yet. A runner zips past me and almost does not see me. He smells like a mixture between a boys locker room and the bathroom at a night club. I pull my hair into a pony tail and then turn on my iPod. I will set the music to the 3 mile loop and have the paramedics on speed dial. I feel tired already, my legs feel like they have been hollowed out and filled with wet sand. My breath sounds like I may be going into labor and coming out in puffs like I am trying to blow out birthday candles. A hill comes and I stop and tell myself I am allowed to walk, my hands immediately go to my hips and I pray to find a nice couch so I can take a nap. I feel like a hippopotomus, I am struggling, but I am here!!
I am trying to maintain my girlish figure, but it is hard!! My body has basically stopped working due to a faulty thyroid. My metabolism has waived it's little white flag and gone "I give up, I can't do it anymore." Like losing weight isn't hard enough after having a kid, turning 40, and having a desk job where I sit on my ASS all day.
When I was a restaurant manager, I could eat whatever I wanted. I could eat a hearty breakfast of cookie dough, an amazing lunch of a footlong meatball sandwich and then go home and drink MULTIPLE beers while I laid on the couch. I never had to work out. I would go to the pool in my two piece suit and I looked fine. Now I pick up shorts that I wore back in those days and I cannot even get them over my legs. Where did I go wrong? Where did I drop the ball?
I don't think I really did, I think my body just....changed.
I have many friends that are in great shape. One that is able to fit into her shorts from high school, another that is a bikini model, and a third that does the kick boxing. When I am with any of these women, I try not to eat.....at all for the week. I stand behind large objects like barstools and I also carry big purses. You would be amazed at how much a big purse can hide. TV shows do it all the time to hide pregnancies from their actresses, I have now perfected it.
Yes I want to be in great shape. Yes I want to turn heads on the trail and be the gazelle that I dreamed about, but more than anything I want to be HAPPY and HEALTHY. I don't have to look like a stick or be able to fit into my clothes from years ago. I want to be able to put on a pair of shorts straight out of the dryer and not do the "put them on and crouch down so they stretch out" nonsense. Oh wait, you don't do that? Yeah, me neither, they fit just fine.
Sometimes I buy clothes that are too big, just so I can put them on and be like "oh, this shirt is just way too big haahahahahahh" If you ever need a good pick me up, try it, just don't do like I did and realize a few months later that the big stuff you bought was now becoming too tight.
We all have our issues with our self esteem. We all have our barstools that we hide behind and our big purses that we carry. Even the most fit people on this earth look at themselves in the mirror and say "I wish I could change THIS"
When I am dating and out there meeting new people. I of course want to impress them, be in great shape. We all do this, and it starts with the moment we are either let down by someone or get tired of someone or move on from someone. We join gyms, we run races, we buy spandex, we drink gatorade, we eat salads, we post our runs, we eat protein bars and put spinach and kale in EVERYTHING. We shop at Whole Foods and buy things with ingredients like hemp, seaweed and wheat grass. We dress better we feel better we smell better!! Well, at least AFTER the shower we do. But more than anything, our shoulders are stronger, we hold our heads up higher and we feel prettier.
Today, as I was running the trail, I stopped for a moment to take a breath. I looked at my feet and thought to myself, "man I am tired, I am slow, but I am here!!" That is all that matters, the fact that you are out doing something, anything, whether it be running, walking, swimming, biking...something.
I then took a picture of my feet because I wanted to remember what it felt to be so inspired at that moment. I may not be in the best shape, but I am doing what I can to keep myself going, and I think that is just fine.
