Thursday, August 2, 2012

Exposition


What an insane realization, that moment I realized that I didn’t feel as good as I thought I did.

I’ve heard from all angles—doctors, blogs, health gurus—that being heavy is hard on a person’s body. Weight effects energy levels, it bears down on joints, causes all sorts of health problems.

You know what? Even at 245 pounds, I felt fantastic. I had energy in spades, had never had a problem with moving around (though getting off the couch has always been a problem), my joints felt fine.

If I was so content, what changed?

I’d like to say I had a huge epiphany, that I realized that being content with my weight was going to send me to an early grave. Maybe so that I could feel more confident about the way I looked, get a boyfriend.

Nope.

The very simple, honest truth—the goals of the people around me changed. In some ways, I am very much a follower, and when, during my sophomore year of college, all of my friends joined a gym, I did too. I won’t tell you that it stuck and that I lost all my weight and have maintained it. Nope. As soon as their attention waned, so did mine.

But I’d learned that I loved the look of a calf muscle as it slid along with an elliptical, strained against the pressure of a 200-pound weight.

A year later, I started a new job. At a bakery. The only thing in my life that helped me maintain my weight was that I have no car, and I lived a mile away from the job. Around me, though, it seemed that all of my co-workers were getting healthy—running, dieting. As a store, we decided to all participate in a 5k sponsored by our franchise.

I finished my first 5k in a black t-shirt, rain goading me through the last quarter mile, in 43 minutes and some change. I did one more 5k after that, then I stopped.

But I’d learned that I didn’t hate running. That my body could actually move an entire 3.1 miles.

Last October, my boss opened her own restaurant, and I followed.

Here, I met our CrossFit Guru. Honestly, I didn’t particularly like her until I got to know her better. Hell, I didn’t like her until I saw pictures of her from a year previous, where she weighed only a little less than I did at the time. Something clicked.

My resolution in January was to focus on myself and to focus on small, acheivable goals. I’d never kept a resolution before; I don’t know why I thought this would work. But it did.

30 pounds, one pair of Kinvaras, over a hundred miles, a membership at Balance Fitness,  and minimal high fructose corn syrup later, I’ve started this blog to share my adventure.

Because I didn’t know I was feeling bad until I felt so, unbelievably good.