My Fitness Dirty Word
It never goes unnoticed (by me) that the section of my website with the least amount of posts is Fitness Fortitude. In order to soothe myself about this, I reasoned that while I am actively participating in fitness, I am choosing to work out instead of writing. But that excuse doesn’t hold up when I consider my posts about refinishing hardwood or laying paper bag floors. When I’m completing house projects, it’s not like I’m writing during breaks, so I had to dig a little deeper as to why I allow less inspiration to flow through me on this topic. And, I think I found it.
Since body image is such a personal subject, I feel less convinced that my words will be well-received. People, myself included, are sensitive when it comes to advice about how they could be more fit. I admittedly find myself somewhat offended when people with 6-packs (like those a*holes in the pic) tell me how I could do a different exercise to target a certain muscle group or that I should possibly change my diet. In my opinion, I work out a lot-which gives me the right to eat what I enjoy. (I’m doing my best and I birthed 3 kids dammit!!) But, with that being said, I feel a calling to write about the one golden little nugget that allowed me to lose 40 pounds 10 years ago and maintain a weight below 120 lbs. ever since. (I’m 5’1″, so this is a normal size for the vertically-challenged).
Are you ready? It’s practically a swear word and I know full well even before I type it that I will lose nearly 90% of the people reading this as soon as they see it. Based on my popularity, that’s all of about 7 people, so I’m just going to go ahead and throw it out there: running. I know, I know, you hate running. It hurts your knees. It hurts your boobs. It makes you unable to breathe. Guess what? People that run hate running too.
I have never started out on a run and thought to myself, “This is going to feel fabulous the entire time. I can’t wait!” It’s not sex, which would be my preferred means of cardio, but that just doesn’t happen every day (or as of late, every year even). Time spent on the Elliptical or StairMaster is great for the a$$, but simply does not give me the endorphin rush that I receive from running.
After birthing my second child, I didn’t lose all of the weight before I found myself pregnant with #3. After #3, I was knee deep in a miserable marriage and weighed in at about 150 lbs. (proof= chipmunk cheeks in the pic above), which is considerably overweight for my height. The “divorce diet” helped spur my weight loss as I don’t stress eat but rather the opposite. This is when running became a thing for me.
As I said in 10 Day Smoothie Cleanse (my lone Fitness blog post until today), I felt like Ashley Judd in Double Jeopardy when I was running; I was running off the hate of many ugly arguments and the disappointment of the 8 years of building a family that was coming to an end. I’ve been told that I run to run away from my problems, but the person who said that was dumb. Or rather, he was ignorant on this topic because he wasn’t a runner and didn’t know what he didn’t know. Running allows me to run into my problems, through them, and then beyond them. It literally clears my mind and I feel amazing afterwards.
If someone despises running, but is able to walk, I suggest running for just a snippet of time during a walk, and every time thereafter, adding to either the total time OR the time spent running. For example, if you are going to walk for 5 minutes, try running for 30 seconds of those 5 minutes. The next time, increase the walk to 6 minutes and keep the running at 30 seconds OR keep the walk at 5 minutes and run for an entire minute. Increasing by baby steps like this made me feel successful. If I began a work out thinking I had to run an entire mile, I would feel overwhelmed and sometimes not even begin. By knowing my goal was simply to increase my walk or run time, it felt achievable.
To this day, every time I run, there are some moments of suckiness. Dang, I’m breathing hard, shoot-my shoe came untied, ugh-my leg hurts, but when I remember what I ate during the day, I am motivated to keep-on keeping on. I always, every single time, feel better after I get my run in. Natural endorphins are a blessing. I have ran a mini-marathon (which feels like a pretty bad-a$$ thing to say) yet I don’t feel compelled to put my knees through another 13.1 mile run again. I am content with 1-2 miles a day with an occasional road race to pump up my competitive spirit; I’m not content with my abs, or my triceps, or my lower butt and below, but that’s an entirely different blog post.
And so, this concludes my Ode to Running. I’m guessing if you have read this far, you probably are addicted to run-induced endorphins as well, so let me know if you’ve heard of any cool road races coming up soon.
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