Less is More

So... one of my biggest insecurities is my body! From as far back as elementary school, I remember thinking that I was fat. I tried everything to loose the extra weight or at least try and hide it with the right clothes. I can not recall many times in my life that I remember being content with the way I look.

A few years ago, my brother's wedding was coming up in September and I knew that I needed to have a consistent workout routine to prepare for it! So I decided I needed to try something new. I had done the personal training thing, the group classes at the gym thing, I had done the cardio and weights on my own thing. I didn't really love any of those workouts, but I did them to lose weight. In February I decided I would run the marathon in October because I had never met a fat marathoner ( to be COMPLETELY honest... that IS why I signed up for my first marathon. I had never run a day in my life, but I figured that even if I didn't make it to the finish line it was better to try and fail than to not try at all!

So the marathon came and went and I didn't loose any weight (at least not enough to note). No one told me that you typically don't lose a lot of weight training for the marathon because of how much you eat to fuel your workouts. So... I was in the best shape of my life, but still not happy with my body! After running a few other marathons, I decided to give triathlons a whirl. I mean... while running, you really just use your legs. In triathlons, you use your arms so much in swimming and biking too! That would surely get me to shed some of the extra lbs! Nope... not for me! Finally, I decided to set my sights on the Ironman! If the Ironman didn't make me ripped, then it just wasn't in the cards for me! Well... guess what... finished the Ironman and STILL not happy with how I look.

Which got me thinking...


Could the problem maybe be in my head? Why am I so worried with how I look when I am able to accomplish some pretty bad-ass things? I can run bike and swim for 16 hours and I am still not happy with my body! Why am I concentrating on the things that I don't like about my body, instead of celebrating the bad-ass things I have trained it to do? Clearly, my ego has been working overdrive on this one! I keep looking to the future and comparing my body to what I want it to look like, instead of living in the moment and appreciating everything I am able to do!

Which leads me to the scary thing I did this weekend...

I started attending Bikram Yoga pretty regularly. In case you are not familiar, it is a 9o minute yoga class in a room that is heated to about 110 degrees. It is amazing! Most women wear a sports bra and booty shorts because, as you can imagine, in that kind of heat the less you wear the better! I could never even begin think about ever wearing just a sports bra in there no matter how hot it got! A tank top and crops were my uniform in that class! Well this weekend, in the spirit of this blog, I decided to do something that scared me and shed the t-shirt I was wearing. That's right... I rocked a sports bra (and crops of course) in Bikram. This was a huge moment for me! I had to get past my own ego issues about my body to get to a place where 1.) I didn't care what others thought about me and 2.) I stopped being so critical about myself!

I wish I could say that I instantly didn't care about anything and totally enjoyed the class but if you think one way for 29 years it is not going to change instantly. ... but I got the ball rolling...