Assessing the situation
Today's adventure on the body-loving journey was completing a fitness assessment with three friends/co-workers for a four-week challenge at work. This was probably not as much of a success in the "make peace with your body" department as I might have hoped.
We had to complete a mile on the treadmill at a 1% incline, do as many pull ups and push ups as we could, reach forward to try to touch our toes, and do "suicide" runs back and forth on the basketball court. The treadmill was no big deal, the reaching forward exercise was sobering because I had the shortest reach of any of my colleagues, and I couldn't do a single pull or push up. Wow. OK. But that isn't the worst of it. The worst of it is that I felt judged by all of the other, "normal" folks working out in the on-campus gym at the time. Now I'm sure none of them even cared what we were doing, but even if they did, I shouldn't be letting others' thoughts lead me into judging myself, and that's just what happened. I started criticizing myself for being so heavy that I couldn't support myself with my upper body. Sending hatred to my stomach - for some reason, the body hatred always centers on my stomach, probably because it's where I carry almost all of my weight. And how is this going to help me on the journey to body love and self acceptance?
Here's the thing I'm learning while reading Savor
: being aware is the first step toward making a change. And I saw what was happening even as it was happening. I wasn't able to stop it completely, but I could observe it and I knew it was destructive, so that's progress.
Again, no pictures because I forgot my iPhone. Promise that I'm going to glue that thing to my pedometer so that I'm never without it!
We had to complete a mile on the treadmill at a 1% incline, do as many pull ups and push ups as we could, reach forward to try to touch our toes, and do "suicide" runs back and forth on the basketball court. The treadmill was no big deal, the reaching forward exercise was sobering because I had the shortest reach of any of my colleagues, and I couldn't do a single pull or push up. Wow. OK. But that isn't the worst of it. The worst of it is that I felt judged by all of the other, "normal" folks working out in the on-campus gym at the time. Now I'm sure none of them even cared what we were doing, but even if they did, I shouldn't be letting others' thoughts lead me into judging myself, and that's just what happened. I started criticizing myself for being so heavy that I couldn't support myself with my upper body. Sending hatred to my stomach - for some reason, the body hatred always centers on my stomach, probably because it's where I carry almost all of my weight. And how is this going to help me on the journey to body love and self acceptance?
Here's the thing I'm learning while reading Savor
: being aware is the first step toward making a change. And I saw what was happening even as it was happening. I wasn't able to stop it completely, but I could observe it and I knew it was destructive, so that's progress.Again, no pictures because I forgot my iPhone. Promise that I'm going to glue that thing to my pedometer so that I'm never without it!
Comments
Anyway, there is always a silver lining when our results are disappointing, which is - think how much progress you'll be able to achieve! It's hella more impressive to go from a C- to an A than from a B+ to an A. I'm serious, sometimes that's the best way to look at it.
And I'm so affected by what you wrote about being aware - in my own life I know that being able to recognize it, and observe it, is hugely important. Keep it up and you WILL be able to stop it or derail it.
Guess I need to think about getting that book...