I made a New Year's resolution to exercise on 120 different days this year. I loosely defined exercising as some activity outside of my normal (cleaning, cooking, working) routine that lasts at least 30 minutes. So far I've walked around my neighborhood, hit up the gym at the neighborhood center, popped in a workout DVD and busted out my dusty WiiFit (which kicked my butt btw!).
I'm slightly behind on my pace, but not behind so much that I can't easily attain my goal by the end of the year. I think I'm at about 12 days of exercise.
Since I made this resolution, my health, fitness, self-image, and overall well-being have been on my mind alot.
As a woman, I am prone to be overly critical of myself, my body in particular. I have internal conversations with myself on a daily basis about how my body looks. I try to be realistic and objective while not putting myself down.
I've found it to be extremely difficult to find a balance between accepting the body I have right at this moment and striving to be better. One moment I think about how lucky I am to wear a size #, to still wear jeans I bought years ago, to look fit and thin to the average observer. The next moment I am thinking about how if I just worked out more I'd look even better in a bikini this summer, if I wasn't so lazy I could drop the 10ish pounds I've gained in the last year or so. I can never decide which side of the fence I want to be on. Do I want to embrace my fantastic 20-something year old body (this is probably the best it'll ever be, after all!) or do I want to strive for something "better" with no promise of ever actually attaining the something "better"?
I know for sure that I do not want to look back years from now at my early 20s and wish I had loved myself more and appreciated what I had. I want to love and appreciate it now.
I know I'm not the only one with body image issues - not that these are even really issues, but you know what I mean. How do you deal with this stuff? How do you feel about your body and exercising?
2 comments:
How do I feel about my body? Well... I'm NOT a size four.. add about 10 sizes and thats me... Not easy for sure! But I have come to understand that everyone's body is different and that's the way we're made! I love my curves just wish I could lose some of the padding on top of them.. I'm working on losing weight as well but I feel you that motivation isn't easy!
You and I sound like the same person. People are always telling me how thin I am, how great I look. I can wear smaller jeans than I could in highschool, and I definitely weigh less than I did in high school. Yet I always manage to find something I don't like.
Whether it's my A-boobs, by stretchmarks, cellulite, my tummy, the backs of my arms... I always find something to criticize. Why must women do this?
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