“I’m short, have a wide frame, and a big ass.Not quite a Kardashian ass, but close enough.”
Admit it. You’ve said it before. “In [fill in year] I will exercise every day and eat right, and lose weight.” I challenge to find someone who hasn’t had this New Year’s Resolution at some point in their life.
I’ll take responsibility. I’ve said it plenty of times. A few years ago, I said it, and stuck with it. In 2012, I did Weight Watchers. I lost over twenty pounds, I worked out almost every single day. Last year, I participated in Bikini Body Mommy Challenge 1.0 and 2.0. I worked out for 180 days straight and watched what I ate. Then, in November, I finished 2.0 and didn’t keep up with exercise after the fact. I focused on participating in National Novel Writing Month and completing edits on my Chick Lit / Romantic Comedy novel, Caching In. Once December rolled around and NaNoWriMo was done (I won!) and Caching In was released (thanks for the support!), I just wanted to SLEEP. For all of November and December, I worked out maybe a maximum of 5 times, and by the last two weeks of December, I grabbed a chocolate (or two or three) every single night before bed.
I knew something had to change. I remembered how great I felt when I worked out. Yeah, I know, many people think that’s baloney when people say that and hate it when they hear it. But, it’s true. When I exercise, I finish my workout and am just amazed. Tony Horton said in P90X Yoga (and yes, in 2009 I completed P90X – I’m a grad!), “Take in the fact that you just did that.” It’s so true. In 2014 I also did Couch to 5K. I didn’t run a 5K, but the fact I could run even two miles was amazing to me. I never thought that possible.
Now, when I walk up the stairs, I’m winded again. By the time I finish a trip grocery shopping, I could go for a nap. This all is a result of my lack of exercise and all the junk I eat. I’m not obese, even though the BMI scale tells me different. I’m short, have a wide frame, and a big ass. Not quite a Kardashian ass, but close enough. The scale, though, that doesn’t matter much to me. Sure, I look at it. I have a magic number in my head. You know what, though? I’ll never reach it, and that’s okay. I’m in my thirties (almost late thirties!), and my body isn’t the same when I was eighteen. I accept that. However, in my own, very unimportant opinion, that doesn’t mean I should give up and just “let myself go.”
I hate it when people (not just women, people in general), reach a point that they just want to say screw it. “I’ve put on ten pounds, who cares.” Why don’t they care? I am sure there are much deeper issues there, but for the sake of this post, we’ll take it at face value.
I CARE. I care about my body and my health. My mom survived lung cancer, and she was damn lucky. When she told me she had to have a part of her lung removed and this was the diagnosis, I cried. A lot. Thankfully, my mom knew her body well enough that they caught her cancer at a very early stage. She’s fine. And no longer smoking. And she exercises. Taking care of your body is more than just being an ideal weight. An ideal weight is the one you are comfortable with. If you see me exercising, or eating fruit instead of three scoops of ice cream, it’s because I’m making a conscious effort to care about ME. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy ice cream and sweets. Just not ALL the time.
Maybe I’m selfish. So what? It’s my body and I’ll do what I want with it. I want to be fit. I want to build muscle and have arms like Jennifer Aniston or Jessica Biel. I want to be able to help my husband move a piece of furniture because I have the upper – and lower – body strength to do so!
I think a lot of people don’t work out because they don’t think they can do it. You start small. My first day of Bikini Body Mommy 3.0 was today and it was an EIGHT MINUTE workout. That’s IT. Today was the fit test, which I will take again later, and then every workout will be 12 minutes every other day with a cardio workout for 20 minutes in between (unless that has changed this round. I’ll know soon). There is NO REASON I can’t fit 12-20 minutes in every single day to improve my health. Would I love to have a nice set of abs and legs that don’t qualify me as thunder thighs? Yes. I’d love it. But I’m not holding my breath it will happen. My goal is to be FIT and HEALTHY. And when I say this, take my words with a grain of salt. I eat some things that people probably would tell me are not healthy. I drink diet soda. I use my cell phone. My dog has bad breath that makes me want to pass out. I’m doing what I feel makes ME healthy. You do what YOU think is healthy for YOU.
What’s the point of this post? Is there one? Maybe, maybe not. Take from it what you will. Love that fact that I am taking control of my health and moving forward with the same lifestyle change I made years ago. Hate me for loving to exercise – because I really do – and wanting to get off the couch every once and a while. This isn’t a resolution. I don’t make those. I planned on doing this well before the New Year, and I plan on it continuing. I want to do another round of P90X at some point, maybe P90X2 and 3. (I tried PiYo, but I am not even close to ready to handle that). But, if I do it, I’m doing it for ME, not to fit into some image I think people want.
I know that if I want to be fit and healthy, I NEED TO PUT IN THE WORK. Jillian Michaels says in one of her workouts, “If you want results, you’re not getting them for free.” Truer words never spoken.