A Healthy Ambition: Benchmarks and Goals

It's been a slow couple of days for me (the fact that I was home - in the land of heavy foods and little exercise - didn't help) and, in the hopes of keeping my motivation up, I began thinking about what the benchmarks are for my end goal of losing weight and becoming fit.  Much like my Debt Project, working-out has obviously taken on a very general purpose and I feel like in order to actually accomplish that goal, I need more tangible benchmarks to hit and some rewards to give myself along the way.

It's the rewards that were stumping me though.  With debt the rewards are easy, but with weight loss, what sort of rewards can you give yourself?  Eat more?  No one wants to do that in the middle of a work out frenzy.  Buy a bikini?  That prospect is so scary that I'm actually shuddering right now.  So I thought about it, and I thought about my debt rewards some more, and I came up with a few work-out goals/rewards after all.

Here they are (the goals that are crossed out have already been completed):

1. Join a gym
2. Establish initial work-out routine (working out 4-5 days a week)
3. Try out a class at the gym
4. Follow routine consistently for 2 months
5. Run 3 miles
6. Buy new work-out clothes - REWARD!
7. Re-evaluate and follow routine consistently for 2 more months
8. Run 6 miles
9. Buy new running shoes - REWARD!
10. Join a pilates class
11. Re-evaluate and follow routine consistently for 2 more months
12. Run a half marathon

A Healthy Ambition (with superficial results)

Something's come over me lately.  I can't say whether the root is a positive one, but the result definitely is.  Because I've been feeling energized lately, and motivated and restless and determined, and that's all given me a drive to tackle my weight issues in a way that I don't think I ever have before.

Let me start this way: I have a confession.  I've been unhappy with my body for as long as I can remember.  I've never, not once, honestly thought I looked good.  That whole "feel good naked" thing going around?  I don't have the faintest idea what that's like.  Since I was probably about five I've been hyper conscious of the fact that I'm overweight.  Sure, when you're a kid it's called "chubby," but it amounts to the same thing once you hit 13.  There have been times when I've been called fat to my face (probably because I called that person an equally hideous name, so I guess I had it coming), and times when I've been told quite clinically that I could stand to lose a few pounds.  Whether said in the heat of battle or with gentle concern, the words are never easy to swallow.

As a result, I've developed a relationship with my body that ill-prepared parents would develop with a child who likes to throw tantrums.  I've given in to my body's demands at times and brutally punished it at others.  I've starved, gorged, passed out from too much exercise and not enough energy, then thrown in the towel and let it go.  I've come up with a reward and deterrent system, I've tried to unsuccessfully convince myself that being healthy is more important than being skinny, and I'm fairly certain I've tried every fad diet and every semi-legit weight loss program you can think of.

I've failed at them all.

So I'm more than a little excited to be where I am right now.  As I said, something's come over me lately.  It began when I stepped on my bathroom scale a couple of weeks ago and nearly died.  I'd hit a weight I never imagined seeing under my feet.  In all honestly, I don't look like I'm that weight; I don't know how I get away with it, but the pounds distribute themselves fairly evenly across my frame.  I'm not saying I'm thin (obviously), because I definitely look like I've gained weight over the last year, but I don't look obese.  At least, I don't think I do.  (YouwouldtellmeifIdid,wouldn'tyou?)

Anyway, after stepping on that scale and seeing those magic numbers, I couldn't take it anymore.  I knew I needed to do something.  Like my finances and debt, my weight was something I needed to take control of or I would regret it for the rest of my life (very much like I'd been regretting it up until this point).  But the really surprising thing came next: rather than setting about on my more destructive tendencies -- like torture -- my mind automatically went on a very different path.

I became insanely motivated to exercise.  All of a sudden, the things I wanted to do included going to the gym, trying out that yoga class, doing pilates, running a mile (to start...I'm just beginning!), walking the mile home from work everyday, eating less and eating healthier, kicking my soda habit and drinking tons of water.  And so I've been doing them.  And I've been loving it.  It hasn't been easy, and it hasn't been all sunshine, roses and fun, but I have plans now that include a healthier lifestyle, things I want to do when I master that next step.  When I miss a day at the gym or a pilates work out, rather than begrudgingly saying that I'll just pick it back up tomorrow (and then not), I check out my calendar anxiously and make the time to fit it in. 

I'm not saying this is all about me being fit.  I'd like to pretend it is, but I'm a 26 year old woman with a healthy appreciation for consumerism and all that glitters.  I know that what I see in magazines, on tv, and in the movies is mostly airbrushed, but it doesn't stop the fact that I still envy it.  And while I may never achieve that level of tiny (those women are, after all, robots, right?), I'm still planning on looking damn good in my "thin jeans".

And I'm looking forward to the work it'll take for that to happen.