I actually love to exercise-very weird for someone who grew up despising gym class! I am not coordinated, and am terrible at all sports except for swimming. I only like to exercise inside my home-nowhere else! Last summer I went for a walk, and an older gentleman called out to me "you need to walk faster than that!" It made me feel horrible, and reminded me why I hardly EVER go for walks outside..
I really like exercise dvds-all kinds-yoga, kickboxing, Leslie Sansone, etc.
I'm really coming to terms with the many personalities I have (and I talk to them all). I guess the only difference between me and a person with an actual multiple personality disorder is that all my personalities have the same name, know each other and share all the same memories.
It doesn't cause problems for me, but hubby gets very, very confused.
But seriously on the topic of change and how darned difficult it is. I really started to succeed only after I realized that there was a good reason for my behavior. I wasn't lazy or crazy, my body/mind was operating as it was designed to, it was the environment that had gone crazy. In the "natural" world and even most pre-industrialized societies, food isn't all that easy to come by and a person has to work pretty hard physically to obtain food (or money to pay for it). My metabolism and food-obsession would have served me very well in prehistoric times, but in the modern world I'm preparing for a famine that is never going to come (but hey if it did, the laugh sure would be on the size zeroes wouldn't it!)
I think our society's labels for fat people: lazy, stupid, crazy, selfish, greedy..... makes it very difficult for a person to feel confident enough to accomplish change. After all, if I'm so incompetent how can I be expected to succeed?
Knowing that I'm not "bad," "defective," or "deviant", just built for different circumstances really makes me feel that my struggles are no different than a person wanting to save money, quit smoking, get a better job, be a good parent....
And some of those changes are as just as life-altering, and just as difficult as losing weight. Overspending, sexual addiction, substance abuse... Sometimes there are "deep" underlying issues, and sometimes people just fall into (or are raised into) bad habits. I was raised in a family that never had a lot of money, mostly because of small income, but also because savings was not a priority. A little extra cash meant a restaurant meal or a road trip. My husband and I are working on making spending and budgeting changes too, and they're no picnic either.
Trazey34, I have the SAME feeling!! I think it is definitely fear of change. Of the unknown for me. I have never felt slim and hot, so I am nervous to know what that is like. But, you make a good point, years from now, when I am skinny and if I hate it, I can always just be fat again! LOL
For me, I am willing to happily try any exercise and see if I like it. Running for me is a different story.
I decided to try the Couch to 5 K to get rid of demons.
In high school (in the 80s), the very first week we would come back from summer break was track and field in gym. We would start the first day by running 3/4 of a mile (can you believe that??). Of course, the gym teacher would make everyone stay until the last person finished, which was alway me. All the jocks would cat call and yell "move it lardass", among other endearments at me. I couldn't run the whole way. I just remember being so humiliated.
Then the next class was doing 1.5 miles! I wonder if they still do that, it really isn't a very healthy phys ed thing. So I had to endure that once again. And you know kids, I couldn't live it down after gym class, either. And to top it off, one year I hyperventilated when I finished.
So - running to me is associated with all of those horrible feelings of shame, fear, anger and all that.
I have now decided that there is no physical reason for me to be unable to finish a 5K, so I started training. I even now go to the high school track near my home and go around. The first time I ran 1/2 mile - I actually jumped around Rocky style.
I found that doing the running is letting all those feelings come bubbling back up, but I am working through them.
