Wonderful Wednesday everyone! I hope you all are having a great week even with the Super Boring Super Bowl. I am still on the road in Maryland this week but will be traveling back on Friday – thank the Lordt. I haven’t done well with exercise this week because it’s been some longer days than expected. However, I have to brag on myself a little. Last week, I went to the gym on Thursday I think and did some cardio and then bicep/tricep workouts. At the end, I had a slight amount of energy left and thought, “Hey. I’m in this gym alone, I’m going to try to do some Up-Downs (Burpees as most people call them).”
Let’s set the stage: Me, an overweight male, having just done a decent 30-minute treadmill walk with incline and a 20-minute free weight and machine bicep and tricep workout. The room is empty. A decent 70 degrees in the room. I’m sweating mainly because I’ve been active but also because I have my tummy sweat bands on – which are also not that flattering on me, I’ve decided. I go over to the open space of the room which has a full-length framed mirror in front of it with a yoga mat on the ground.
Ok that was fun. So I go to do my first up-down and I can’t bend down right because of my tummy bands. I take those off (lord). I start again, go down into the push-up position, push-up, kick my feet forward towards my chest to stand-up and jump for the up part. Not bad. I do it again, little tougher but not bad. I get through 5 and I’m like ok I can do 10. I barely finish 10 and I’m breathing so hard. It’s probably been a good….8 years since I’ve done an up-down. But I did 10!! *toot toot*
Since I’ve been traveling, I have had access to live TV and for some reason have been binging on reality TV like Botched, Family by the Ton, 600-lb Life, and Dr. Pimple Popper. And I love me some overweight TV (really miss Biggest Loser) because it makes me feel better about myself hahahaha. But I also feel a small sense of sympathy from some of those people because I’ve been there – not necessarily 600+ lbs or immobile, but to the point of being so large that if affects your every day life and you’re not sure what you can do about it. Some people comment on how they can’t believe people let themselves get that big. But that’s the one thing I understand. I know I’ve touched on this before, but I have literally woken up one day and been like, sh*t. After months of gaining weight, weighing myself daily, watching the scale climb higher and higher, buying a new scale because the weight doesn’t go high enough, buying larger clothes because you don’t fit in anything, having to stop going to your favorite stores because they no longer sell the size you wear, I “never saw it coming”. And then you are 100 lbs heavier and have no idea what to do. You are ashamed in yourself for letting yourself get this big and of course emotional eat (which adds on more weight).
I think the biggest change in my life once I gained all my weight (for the umpteenth time I might add), was accepting where I was at that moment. I accept the looks I get (or I imagine that I’m getting) from people seeing me on an airplane. I accept that I used to have to ask for an extender on the seat belt. I accept that when I see pictures of myself from a non-front facing angle, I look like a cow. (Side note – why is it that the neck seems to give everything away. I see pictures of myself and see my neck from the side and it’s like dear lord, put the fork down, sea cow!) I accept that I can’t use the same time-table for my half-marathon training than I did when I was 100lbs heavier. But I accept that I am big and overweight. And there is nothing that I do today that will make the 100lbs come off by tomorrow. But there is one thing that I can do today that will make the 100lbs come off by next year. Or the next 2 years. Or hell, the next 5 years. Shoot we are about to have non-reversable climate change so let’s just shoot for the end of the world 😊
Anyway, thanks for coming to my TEDTalk. Jk. But yes, it’s embarrassing and disappointing to be overweight especially when you know it’s something that you did to make it happen. But accept it and then change it.
“Accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
eat. run. southern. 