Tonight, I turned over my body and my last bit of pride to Tracy who has offered to use Jennifer and I as guinea pigs. She just received her personal trainer certification and I fully expect the next 6-8 weeks to be full of Tracy’s voice screaming behind the treadmill, “Run, you bitches, run!!!” Tracy reminded us that she was’t always Ms. Fitness Richmond 2007 and used to say the only reason you’d ever catch her running was if someone was behind her, trying to assault her. This is the same person who recently completed the Ukrops 10K in less than 44 minutes or something insane like that.
Still, I had to channel Dr. Phil all day just to make it through the evening’s measuring and analysis (I wonder if Mike knows that according to the BMI scale, he’s got an obese wife?). I kept chanting in a fake Texas drawl, “Ya’ll cain’t change what ya’ll cain’t acknowledge.” O-kay then. I acknowledge myself, my reality, to the verge of barfing. Well, 9 months of inactivity beginning in 2002 (forced by doctors for fear of miscarriage) plus no time between Lily and Arden to catch my breath equals a lot of weight gained and a lot of traction lost. So today is the worst that it gets. I faced those damned numbers, on the scale, on the measuring tape, and the dreaded body fat index thingy that has tormented me my whole life in the gym. On Tuesday Tracy can begin her rant and her whip cracking, and we have the honor and priviledge of working out at one of the swankiest fitness centers in Richmond gratis. I love Tracy, have I mentioned that?
The big trick for me is balancing healthy eating with healthy exercising. Did I mention my black and white, eating-disordered-for-centuries personality? It’s a fine, slippery line I walk whenever I make attempts to reshape myself. For the last few years, it’s been enough to simply be relatively healthy, in my barrel-shaped body, with my children and my business. Now it feels a bit like it did before I got married, where I wanted to reclaim those long-ago fleeting moments of actually liking - yes, liking - the space on earth I inhabit called my body.
I don’t think for a moment I’ll ever be like I was in college - anorexia has a way of giving you QUITE a shape! - but I would settle for some healthy curves. More than anything else, I need to feel like I have some control and power over what goes in and out of my body again. Translated, that means caring enough about myself to give a shit about it. This means making myself (my self) important enough to take time for and care for and love. The fact that when I look back over the past 4 years and there are only a handful of pictures of me with my children or my husband is just sad. Either I should accept the fact that I am what I am (fat) or take the reins and lose some weight.
Today, I choose to feel empowered instead of allowing myself to wallow in self-pity and cram it down with some delicious chocolate. Although Jennifer and I did devour half a leftover Easter Bunny with Troy after the measurements had commenced. It was sort of a Farewell to Ears.
