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Re: Conquering my exercise fears, or why I took my shirt off in public
From: angie (anonymous@obgyn.net)
Mon, 28 May 2001 15:03:20 -0500 (CDT)
I am so proud of you. I understand what you are talking about. I
always felt to fat to exercise. I finally started going to the YMCA.
More families there than singles. I started out with shorts and tshirt
walking, but have even starting running a lap or two between my walking
laps. My children love it. They say "run again mommy". I have even
started wearing tank tops out in the yard with the boys. I haven't worn
a tank top (with thin straps since grade school). My breasts are really
too big, but I decided I could wear what I wanted in my own yard. My
fiend and neighbor rode by one day and called to ask me what I was doing
with a tank top on. I told her I was doing just what I wanted, I was
playing with my children. She hasn't asked anymore. We need to stop
being so self concious of our bodies and do what we can to keep
ourselves healthy. I want to loose weight, but I mostly want to be
alive when my 2 and 4 year-old boys grow up. Good luck and keep on
running with that sports top on!!! Angie
At Mon, 28 May 2001, jodi wrote:
>
>I would like to share what I feel is my biggest victory yet in the long
>road of wrestling with PCOS
>to the best of my ability. :)
>
>I have always had this fear of being seen exercising. I think it's
>linked with my fear of anyone knowing
>I am on a diet. It's weird in a way, but I have always felt that I am
>too fat to exercise or to be on a diet.
>Like, if anyone knew I was on a diet, they would laugh and think, "Ha,
>yeah,
>right, the fat girl's on a diet" or "I'm sure that's going to last" or
>"You sure better be on a diet!" (I think
>this las stems from my traumatic first diet experience... being put on
>a diet as a 75 pound 8-year-old and
>having my mother tell my friend's mothers not to feed me if I was over
>theyir house was rather mortifying.
>I remember one day, in the late afternoon, my mother and I were in our
>front yard, and my best friend's mom,
>Cathy, came out into her year for some reason... They lived 4 houses
>down from us... And my mother yelled down
>at her, "Jodi didn't eat anything while she was down there, did she?"
>and Cathy yelled "Oh, yes, she had two
>milkshakes, a peanut butter sandwich, and a candy bar!" which was NOT
>true - she was just joking, but I did
>not think it was funny. I was mortified. Anyway... I have never
>wanted anyone to know I was on a diet since
>that time...)
>
>As for exercise, I just feel like people will laugh at me, and think
>similar things about the diet. Things like,
>"Good luck losing weight, fatso," or "Why is she even bothering?" or
>else just snicker at how jiggly and out
>of breath I am.
>
>SO... I have always avoided gyms. One thing I really hated when they
>built new workout facilities at our school
>is they made them with glass walls right next to the food court. So
>people can sit and eat and watch you work out.
>Some of the fitness machines overlook one of the walkways outside the
>university center, so passersby can look up and
>see you sweating as you stairstep to nowhere in particular. And the
>swimming pool is right besides the french fry
>& hamburger place, so people eating that can watch you swim. Or anyone
>can watch you swim, for that matter...
>And I prefer to exercise unobserved, or at least observed only by other
>people working out. Needless to say, I
>have never used my school's workout facilities, except to use the pool a
>few times when a friend of mine and I
>would go every Tuesday and Thursday because he wanted to get back into
>swimming. I am a lousy swimmer.
>I don't sink or anything, I can stay afloat and save myself from
>drowning quite well... but I don't like to swim
>with my face in the water because I can't lift it out again without
>stopping to wipe the water out of my eyes. I
>won't open my eyes without wiping first, and so when I try to swim, I
>always either swim off course or
>just shoot to do the whole length of the pool while holding my breath...
>so i would spend those sessions
>breast stroking and frog kicking with my head up, feeling like a fool,
>but oh well.
>
>ANYWAY. I have used the track here at school, but only after dark. I
>have made attempt after attempt to get into
>running, but I get pooped out so easily... And I won't walk at the
>track, because I feel like walking is
>so... oh, I feel like people will see me walking and think its a fat
>person activity, that I am walking because I
>can't run. So every now and then, I would make an attempt to get into
>running, make no progress from a fitness
>standpoint or weight loss standpoint, and give up after a few weeks. I
>have been walking a lot over the last few months...
>but I do it on the street, so no one can tell if I am walking for
>fitness or transportation. Isn't this silly??? I know...
>
>SO... last week, I decided I am going to try again to get into running.
>On Friday, after work, it was raining...
>but I went to the track anyway. There were two other people there. The
>rain kept most people indoors, which
>was fine with me! So I did a warm up mile of walking, then did 2 miles
>(8 laps) alternating running and walking
>laps, and then I did a cool down mile of walking. I was amazed that I
>was able to run a lap (1/4 mile) as easily
>as I did! Perhaps the walking 5 miles a day has gotten me in better
>shape. Perhaps the weight loss has made it
>easier since I have a lot less weight to haul around. Who knows? I did
>it! I ran a mile, and walked three, and
>I did it in broad daylight!!! (OK, so it was overcast and rainy... baby
>steps...)
>
>On Saturday, I went back for more. It was a sunny day this time, and
>there were tons of people there. We had
>the Indian cricket brigade and the Asian soccer brigade on the field.
>Then there were a few guys running. I
>was hoping there would be no one there because I wanted to run in just
>shorts and a sports bra. I'm getting
>kind of funny tan lines from the tank top I've been wearing, and I want
>my stomach to get some sun since
>I'm going to visit my bf in California in July, and we're going to the
>beach, and I am going to wear a bathing
>suit, and I think I might even brave a bikini. :) Provided I can find
>one cut modestly enough in the leg to hide
>my insane pubic-area-hair problems... (I've always wondered what it
>must be like to dread bathing suits just because
>you're overweight... overweight can be fixed! hating them because of
>hair problems is so much worse, since
>THAT won't go away unless you can afford laser and I can't...)
>
>SO... I did my warm up mile with my tank top on, worrying that the sun
>was doing even more to make me have a
>funny tan. But how could I take my shirt of with all those guys around?
>Especially Indian and Asian guys? Not
>only would I be the only girl there, I would be the only jiggly girl...
>and I would be the whitest person in
>sight. I would feel so... glaringly conspicuous!
>
>But, on my last lap, I finally made myself realise... 1. This is a
>designated exercise facility. I am here
>to exercise, not look good. If I can't run in a sports bra here, what's
>the point of an exercise track? It's not
>like I am walking down a public street in a sports bra, inviting the
>ridicule of every passing car and exposing
>innocent children to my turkey white stomach. 2. Given that the over
>all male:female ratio at my school is
>something like 7:5, and the specific ratios are even worse since the
>departments tend to be heavily male or
>female depending on what you're in (ie, computer science almost
>exclusively male, psychology very largely
>female...)... well, these guys will probably be thrilled to see ANY
>girl, no matter how white and how slightly
>jiggly, running around half naked. So, before I began my first jogging
>lap... off with the shirt!
>
>And the caper was repeated yesterday... and will be today, barring
>heavy rains, which we've been having more
>than our fair share of for some reason.
>
>So... I have started exercising openly, in public, in the daytime...
>and I have started exercising without a shirt
>on. (And you know... there's a lot of plump, jiggly men running around
>out there... I don't know why women
>have to feel more self conscious about this sort of thing, but it seems
>we do. If you don't have the body to show off,
>you have no right to show off your body.)
>
>And maybe the best part is, exercise is really starting to feel like a
>routine... I no longer feel resentful
>because I HAVE to work out to keep my ovaries in order... well, maybe I
>still feel a little resentful
>but not nearly so much. I can see myself keeping this up. And my bf
>says maybe we can run together when
>he comes back in the fall, because he's always wanted to start running.
>:) That would be great, from a
>motivational standpoint. But it also means I better hurry up and get
>more fit, because he's one of those naturally
>really thin people who can exercise hard with no effort... as I know
>from hiking with him... Every summer, I swear
>I'll be able to run a mile by the end. Maybe this summer, I'll finally
>do it!
>
>- jodi
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