Mental
My brain is against me lately.
Not just with regards to my body, with everything. It was an emotional week for me to say the least. I was headhunted again and this time for a company very close to where I am living now. But after a lot of thought and consideration, leaving the company I am at now is, in my opinion, worse than my commute of four hours a week. So once again I then had discussions with my husband about the possibilities of moving and rethinking about the reasons why we weren’t able to move before (which will probably be the reason why we still won’t be able to – and it’s purely financial). I had a lot of discussions about it, cried quite a few tears and felt generally down and confused about my life in general.
With regards to my body, it’s a constant battle. I’ve had to accept that I’m not going to lose weight and move on, eating and behaving like a person who actually cares about health and fitness, not weight. That’s the least difficult of all of this. I know how to eat. I know how to move. I even amazingly have learned how to say “no thanks” or even know when to stop.
But “feeling” my body – I don’t like it. I don’t like how it feels when I’m running for example. There’s a heaviness that holds me back, this proverbial spare tire (which mine is like one of those Monster Truck wheels it seems) that is always there, feeling heavy, jiggling about.
It’s the feeling when I put on my new jeans which are too big in the waist just so they fit the hips and bum
Last week I even started out Monday morning by declaring to my husband that I was just going to have liposuction/sculpture. Trust me, I’m the last person to go for a “quick fix” but this is how desperate I feel at times.
This is just it.
And I’ll never be better. I’ll never be faster. I’ll never be able to run without feeling the heaviness.
I mean, yes, this is a luxury problem. Some people can’t even walk, let alone run. I don’t need to be faster or better, it’s not a requirement to just get out there and do it. My brain wants me to do more, better, faster.
My brain is busy telling me over and over again “you’ll never be any better than this” “why even bother?” “you are going to fail” “you could never run a marathon” “that was stupid, signing up for a half-marathon”
I don’t know where this is coming from. Do I really believe so little in myself? I guess if I fail in the weight loss department, what makes me think that I could succeed in any other area.
Yesterday I knew I needed to go out and get around 16KM since I haven’t really trained according to schedule for the Half-Marathon taking place on April 25th, but the thought of getting out there was driving me completely insane. Like, to the point where I would have rather just curled up in a ball and cried. First I struggled with finding a route (because I didn’t want to get bored with the same routine), then I struggled getting dressed, then I struggled just leaving the house, then I arrived at my destination ready to face it only suddenly I had a full bladder. Then I had to get back in the car and find somewhere to use the facilities. Finally at 4pm I started.
About 8 kilometers in, my brain started to turn on me again. “You are never going to make 16KM today” “you should drop out of the half-marathon, you’ll never manage it” “that was stupid to even think you could accomplish this today”.
And I’m yelling at myself to shut up. That I CAN do it. I just have to keep going. I just have to make it to that next tree/ km marker/ bend in the path. There was a lot of arguing going on.
Ultimately I gave in to the voice. I stopped at nearly 13KM but I still had to walk the rest of the way back. Feeling defeated.
Sometimes I really wonder why I do this. I mean there are days I absolutely love it. Days I don’t care about the chubbiness. Days I don’t care about speed or distance. Days I’m inspired by others to get out there and just do it. I know it makes me feel good and like I accomplished something. But there are other days when I wish I never started this running thing. I was unhappy with myself before I started, but I don’t feel super happy right now either.
I just wish it were easier to fully accept myself the way I am, embrace it and run like it didn’t matter.
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I’m not going to begin to tell you what to do about the weight. The mental stuff … well.
Just because you feel this way now doesn’t mean that things will never change. For one thing, do you feel better physically now that you’re exercising and eat healthy? Even if you’re not super happy and blissful about your body, are you happier with it than you were, with what you’re capable of, with how far you’ve come?
The problem with the voice in your head is that it’s in your head, and you can’t escape from it. No matter how far you run, it will always be with you. There’s always going to be doubt, there’s always going to be the “NO YOU CAN”T!” But just because the voice is there doesn’t mean it’s right, and it certainly doesn’t mean you have to listen to it.
Your life and your body are yours to do with as you see fit. Tell that voice in your head to go get a life of its own, because it can’t have yours.
I know that feeling all too well. The mind is the most powerful force in our bodies. I completely understand your frustrations and self-defeatist attitude. I won’t even begin to pretend to advise you how to fix it, only to remind you that you’re not alone & are v. much supported by your virtual pals!
Glad you reached a decision about your job offer. Hopefully, the universe will work in your favor and you’ll get to move closer! xoxo
I know that what I think, or anyone thinks, doesn’t matter-because what others think about me doesn’t matter to me either. I was so surprised at how pretty you are and how small you are when I got to meet you.
Not obtaining your ideal can suck and feel like a betrayal, no? I know what you mean about the running. I know you love all the activities but sometimes the mind questions…to what end am I doing this? I think it’s going to take quite awhile to accept—truly accept the reality you’ve come to. Getting it and accepting? Two things miles apart and it Will take time. People want to help by pointing out the obvious benefits, but in the end, I think it just takes time to accept what is. What is going to be. It’s like the young teen who feels so cheated to have a “sturdy” body when all her friends have willowy bodies. It’s sometimes hard to accept that even if you’re in your 40’s. Sometimes age and wisdom doesn’t cut it when you feel cheated because your emotions are real and need to be dealt with.
It sounds like you’re frustrated all the way around so that makes it doubly hard. You’ll get to a happy place-it may take awhile though.
It’s amazing to me how much of this is such a Mind Thing. How some days we feel awesome and accepting, and other days it just feels terrible. Same with the running. I’ve had a lot of really rough runs in the past few months and some days I am absolutely incredulous that I actually ran a half marathon in December. Some days it is a struggle to go one mile. But this week I had a crazy awesome feeling run that seemed to come out of NOWHERE. Sometimes there is just no explanation.
I hope you can find peace wherever it is, and whenever and however it comes.
If you can do 10 miles, you can do 13.1. A lot of training programs stop you at 10 – the race endorphins and emotions will carry you the rest. I say go out, do it, and if you end up walking some, so be it. The awesome thing about your first half marathon is that it will undoubtedly be a PR.
The weight thing, I can’t really help you with. I’m a work in progress too – about 20 lbs over my healthy BMI weight – and trying to get back to that healthy weight without having to starve myself or go insane doing it. :P
I think you are still just reeling from the effects of the stressful career decisions. I know when I have that kind of stress I cannot limit it to just one domain, it affects all aspects of my life. It makes everything look bad. Perhaps when you start to recover from the stressful week you had you will gain a more positive perspective overall.
I know that feeling of desperation that prompted you to consider liposuction. I tried Atkins! And honestly I think there can be something to a “quick fix.” When I lost weight 10 years ago…a lot of weight, which I maintained for years…it started by doing Slimfast. I followed the Slimfast plan religiously for probably two weeks. I knew it wouldn’t be forever, I just wanted to start my diet with something easy that would yield results. That worked. Once I got sick enough of the shakes and bars, I was all too happy to eat reasonable portions of real food. So sometimes I think that kind of a boost can be great. It can make you see yourself differently and set you up for more success. And for you, you are already living a healthy lifestyle and have suffered so many plateaus, I think it is reasonable to consider lipo.
And I am still in awe of your running ability!
I’ve been MIA for a long time…and just looked at blogs today for the first time in months. I am in the same place training for my marathon next month…so if you figure out where to find some motivation, please let me know.
It’s ironic to me that perhaps the most important piece of this puzzle – learning to love yourself as you are – is also the hardest. And I don’t really have words to share to make it easier, except perhaps to say, you are not alone.