Ready to go May 26, 2008
Let’s get this party started. Okay, so it isn’t really a cool party… the balloons are deflated, the punch isn’t spiked and there aren’t 7 minutes in heaven. But, it’s time to get it going.
Tomorrow begins the low-carbness. Please forgive me if I temporarily regress into a raving sugar deprived maniac. I’ve been eating pretty crappily lately, and it’s time to clean that up. Mainly because eating crappy makes me feel crappy. Funny how that works, huh?
So I’ve decided I need to uncover a buried part of my identity. Namely- athlete. My whole life I’ve been an athlete. I killed myself for soccer, I put in hours at the gym. I worked out until I poured out sweat and tears. And I loved every minute of it. I didn’t work out because I felt obligated, but because I felt like it was an essential part of me and I didn’t feel right without it. Somehow, while gaining weight, I lost that desire to push, to compete, and achieve. Even when I make it to the gym, I still feel chubby me instead of athlete me making the decisions. And so I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it’s time to wipe the slate clean and start over. I can’t go back to where I left off. Because every time I go back there I just go through the motions. I plod away on the bike to nowhere. I hop on an elliptical and mindlessly pedal away. I head over to the weight machines, and, while numbly lifting away, I feel like I’m slowly killing small pieces of my soul. Perhaps a little dramatic. But the point is the same. I go to the gym so that I can say I worked out but even I know that what I did was neither satisfying to my body or my mind. In the end, I know that while I’m burning calories, I’m not pushing myself, and thus, depriving myself of the thing I love most: an exhausted, sore, and shaky sense of accomplishment. And so, my goal is to wean myself off the gym. Crazy? You bet. It’s time to get myself outside, to something new, to something difficult, and to a place where I can’t rest on what I know or what I’ve always done. Obviously, I’m nowhere near where I was. Swimming for an hour straight isn’t going to happen. Neither is squatting my weight, or running UCLAs. But, I’m going to make sure to get back there. How? No easy workouts. Not because I’m desperate to lose weight NOW, or because I want to punish myself for being overweight, or because I’m crazy. Though, I suppose all of those things are true to some degree. But, because I know that I’m a masochist at heart, and that I’ll feel happier walking away from a workout sore and shaky than perfectly coiffed. And so, I’m determined to get back to my roots. As my little bit of motivation, my anti-kini. No bikini motivation for me, instead, I picture my sculpted arms sticking out of this cute top while I pull myself up a wall I never thought I’d climb. Granted, my girls will never be small enough to be allowed to roam free in a top like that, but still.
Let’s do this thing.
