word up

This week I woke up early for spin class. Bar Method too, which is no small feat considering it also involves waking 40 minutes earlier than the already too early class, so I can feed and hydrate myself prior. 

Frankly, I sort of don't recognize myself, this girl who breaks out her calendar regularly, to see my workout schedule; talking myself into three consecutive days of rest, (because my body is tired), and worrying that three days are going to pass without exercising and I might lose my edge...

Six weeks ago, I was the girl who made a lot of excuses and was happy if I made it to the gym more than once a week; never regretting those times when life got busy and I'd have to skip working out. 

When my trainer, (who I wanted to break up with but was having a hard time doing so), left the gym suddenly, I took it as a sign that it was time to change my relationship to working out. I realized that as much as I mix up my workouts, (never doing the same weights or cardio machines, etc.), I had been doing the same damn thing in the gym for the past two years with mediocre results. 

That first day in July found me looking at my strong body with dismay. Naked, I saw muscles layered in flab, and my clothes were fitting poorly in all the wrong places; a combination of a lot of stress, (moving does that to you), combined with too much food going in and not enough exercise to filter it out.

Around this time, I was noodling around on this favorite blog, and I stumbled upon an old post and this sentence,

"if I gained weight, it was my body telling me it was tired of absorbing my excess..."

was my light bulb moment.

Certainly cleaning up my diet is important, although being gluten and dairy free, my diet is pretty damn clean, but the clincher for me was doing something different. I didn't know it at the time, but in a rut, I was going through the motions despite telling myself differently. 

Now, I'm going through the motions taught by someone else, someone whose very job it is to kick my ass and call me out on it, in front of everyone, should I need an ass-kicking encouragement.

And now six weeks into the experiment, I'm different. Certainly my commitment to myself is new; and the few pounds gone and looser fitting jeans a bonus. But it's also how I'm carrying myself in the world; maybe there's a lilt to my step or a glint in my eye, whatever it is, it's being noticed. Suddenly I find myself being flirted with, hollered at by stupid teenaged boys, (!!), and complimented. 

It's strange this sudden attention, especially since I'd resigned myself to the fact that I've gotten to an age where that is my past, this ogling and I'd be lying to you if I said that this new attention doesn't feel good, because it does. 

Lest you think there's a mid-life crisis on the horizon, or that I'm suddenly buying into the whole cougar theory, I can assure you that the mister is also appreciating my new shape, and there's truth in that old saying: 

just because you're on a diet, doesn't mean you can't look at the menu...I'm just sayin'.