Where's that Lovely Feeling?
There is nothing like catching up with a friend who radiates health to get you motivated. Especially when she describes her 30 minute morning ritual on the elliptical trainer as just like brushing her teeth. The words TIME TO EXERCISE stare you in the face.
It was all coming back to me: the feeling of being strong, vibrant and capable. I could almost smell it. I was opening the door in my mind that I closed so long ago. After injuring my hip in yoga three years ago and having surgery, I have only exercised five times. It's been the start, hurt, stop, frustration of my life. I have been living a new identity which is so strange when I think about it. How can fitness become so foreign to someone who walked, talked and dreamt it? I'm on the other side for the first time in my life. And I'm getting out of here. I have been unmotivated, unhealthy and lacking in drive to do something about it for long enough.
The funny part is you'd never know this. I'm thin. People automatically associate thin with fit and healthy. Or even worse they think you have an eating disorder or you over exercise and count every calorie. What a misconception. They don't get the frustration. It's all about scale to them. I often get people saying to me that I'm so lucky that I don't need to exercise. Shouldn't everyone exercise to be fit regardless of weight?
A few months back I had a shocking experience when a friend asked me to join her for a high intensity fitness test at a sports testing academy. I usually blow those things out of the water. Instead, the fitness facade that I seem to exude came to a crashing halt when I couldn't do ONE ab crunch for the test. Not even one. I failed.
What a wake up call. It was pure shell shock. I know in my mind I can pull through any fitness task no matter what but this confirmed I've never been further from it. Obviously I need to start at the ground up after I pull myself out of this rut. I think originally the anger I had over my injury made it easy to close fitness off from my life completely. I went into denial. I didn't want to see a health magazine, a gym or anything fitness. I wasn't inspired. I couldn't feel it or see it.
During my so called fitness hiatus, I learned the true meaning of "stuck in the mud". It is so much harder to exercise when you don't have the rhythm and lifestyle ingrained. To get it back you need a bigger reason than you had before. And I mean BIG! A rocket needs to blast me out this place. I think I finally get this de-motivation thing. It's because you're so far from being where you want to be that it doesn't even seem possible - or you know how hard it's going to be - so you don't bother.
As of now, I'm going to stick with my Oprah ah-ha moment from lunch and let the flood gate open. There is no turning back. My gym clothes are ready for dawn patrols to the gym and my husband is fully trained up on making school lunches to buy me some time. Yes, that's right. There is a god!
There is nothing like catching up with a friend who radiates health to get you motivated. Especially when she describes her 30 minute morning ritual on the elliptical trainer as just like brushing her teeth. The words TIME TO EXERCISE stare you in the face.
It was all coming back to me: the feeling of being strong, vibrant and capable. I could almost smell it. I was opening the door in my mind that I closed so long ago. After injuring my hip in yoga three years ago and having surgery, I have only exercised five times. It's been the start, hurt, stop, frustration of my life. I have been living a new identity which is so strange when I think about it. How can fitness become so foreign to someone who walked, talked and dreamt it? I'm on the other side for the first time in my life. And I'm getting out of here. I have been unmotivated, unhealthy and lacking in drive to do something about it for long enough.
The funny part is you'd never know this. I'm thin. People automatically associate thin with fit and healthy. Or even worse they think you have an eating disorder or you over exercise and count every calorie. What a misconception. They don't get the frustration. It's all about scale to them. I often get people saying to me that I'm so lucky that I don't need to exercise. Shouldn't everyone exercise to be fit regardless of weight?
A few months back I had a shocking experience when a friend asked me to join her for a high intensity fitness test at a sports testing academy. I usually blow those things out of the water. Instead, the fitness facade that I seem to exude came to a crashing halt when I couldn't do ONE ab crunch for the test. Not even one. I failed.
What a wake up call. It was pure shell shock. I know in my mind I can pull through any fitness task no matter what but this confirmed I've never been further from it. Obviously I need to start at the ground up after I pull myself out of this rut. I think originally the anger I had over my injury made it easy to close fitness off from my life completely. I went into denial. I didn't want to see a health magazine, a gym or anything fitness. I wasn't inspired. I couldn't feel it or see it.
During my so called fitness hiatus, I learned the true meaning of "stuck in the mud". It is so much harder to exercise when you don't have the rhythm and lifestyle ingrained. To get it back you need a bigger reason than you had before. And I mean BIG! A rocket needs to blast me out this place. I think I finally get this de-motivation thing. It's because you're so far from being where you want to be that it doesn't even seem possible - or you know how hard it's going to be - so you don't bother.
As of now, I'm going to stick with my Oprah ah-ha moment from lunch and let the flood gate open. There is no turning back. My gym clothes are ready for dawn patrols to the gym and my husband is fully trained up on making school lunches to buy me some time. Yes, that's right. There is a god!
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