the journey begins
Hi,
I'm bringing this back because I need a place to talk about a new journey in my life and keep accountable. If interested, see the break.
I got on a scale yesterday and weighted 174 pounds. Last time I climbed on a scale, at home over winter break, I weighted 166 pounds. My girlfriend told me I was worried about it for no reason. First, I was in different scales, and no two scales are the same. Moreover, the last time I weighted myself I was naked, as opposed to fully clothed in the gym on the second time, so clothes can be heavy. Also, we just came back from Spring Break, where we ate and drank and did not work out at all for a full week and might have gained some weight. Lastly, you've been going to the gym, somewhat sporadically but still enough to build more muscle, since that weighting over break, so you could have gained the 8 pounds from both. And I understand where she's coming from. But still, seeing that number in the scale was really painful. I've been trying to lose weight and trying to get healthy since February and I'm rewarded with 8 more pounds in the scale instead.
I might have sabotaged myself with it, as I did not start weighting myself and had not gotten on a scale for more than 2 months while trying to lose weight. I don't own a scale and the idea of getting up on one and measuring how much I weight is terrifying. Moreover, muscles are heavy, so gaining muscle means increasing weight in the scale, so how can I faithfully measure my journey? So I avoided it. And on a whim I gave up and got up on the scale and almost cried. And today I got paid and I bought a scale. I guess I broke, or maybe I'm just ready to take the next step on this journey: actual measurement and tracking of body measures, mainly weight, but also circumference, stomach, etc. (the scale comes with a tape measurer to help do so). Maybe it's a good thing; maybe it signifies progress in my fitness journey in a way I had never thought it would.
Before I keep on this train of thought and further confuse you, dear reader, I shall backtrack and briefly explain what I have been through regarding fitness and what was the nail in the coffin that lead to me somewhat starting on a new fitness journey since February. I don't remember a time when I didn't care about my weight. I know that my worrying really started in high school, during my junior year, prompted on by my mother, but this has been so pervasive it's tinted even my memories of earlier, less worrying times. I've always been a chubby kid and in junior year my mom started on a heavy diet because of health concerns--she was bearing obesity and she had fat in her liver, so on and so forth. And I went with her because I was chubby and thus with a full year of nutriotinist guidance and a personal trainer, I was weighting between 110 and 120 pounds and was in the best shape of my life. The year after I stop because senior year workload in Brazil is insane and I started eating irregularly and gaining weight. Following that the weight comments by parents and family members started. At one point my dad told me that I was the prettiest I'd ever been when I was 110 pounds and dieting a year ago and mourned my weight gain. I don't think I had a true bad view of myself and my body until I heard that from my father--if I did, it was not as bad as it became after that. Things went downhill from there: I moved to the United States for college, avoided the gym, ate unhealthy, and gained pound after pound. Every time I went home I heard about how much weight I'd gained and how I should go to the gym to lose it. Every time I had panic attacks before going home due to the overwhelming fear of these attacks and stress ate. Overall, I went from having a healthy relationship with food and willingly dieting and working out to an unhealthy binge-based relationship with food and a crazy fear of the gym and fear of going home because of the weight comments I knew I was going to get.
This winter break I was at my heaviest and before leaving home my mother told me to not gain anymore weight otherwise I would look awful at the airport. One of the very last things she told me before I got in to embark. And that sent me into a tailspin and I had an awful first couple of weeks back in school. What a start for college senior spring. So I decided to do something and to start by confronting my irrational fear of the gym. This fear was based on me being overweight and looking terrible and ridiculous not knowing what to do when I got there and just in general be laughed at and looked at by my peers who were fit and knew what they were doing. This was exemplified by the fact that I could not run for 3 minutes straight whereas people would take on the treadmill for over half an hour, run 5Ks in the morning like they eat breakfast--naturaly-- and so on. Basically, irrational. So I asked my partner's help in getting used to the gym--she's a frequent goer, tries to work out 5 to 6 times a week--and established a goal of having specific times to go to the gym and specific routines depending on the day of the week. I have been somewhat flaky at it and have definetly not worked out more than 4 times a week ever, but it helped me feel comfortable at the gym and now I feel like I can go there and do something, regardless of how much time I have, how tired I am, what day of the week it is, without feeling like I would have a heart attack. So I feel like that part of the experiment has worked.
The other part of the experiment has been more slow going. It's been reeducating myself about food and having a healthier relationship with food. I was cooking on my own for the first time last semester and I think I had a very hard time cooking well and cooking healthily, and my eating schedule was unhealthy, unregulated, and just overall super hectic. This made me feel unwell because I was eating very badly, as well as contributed to my weight gain in the past semester. I still have times when I feel like eating ramen; I still drink way too many calories off beer and wine; I still sometimes feel like eating a burger and order McDonalds; and I still feel guilty when I treat myself to things like burritos or desert; but I've been eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snacking in between and that is a win. With healthier eating comes feeling better. To be clear, I haven't been dieting. I'm not a fan of dieting and restricting foods and eating low amounts of carbs or whatever. I also don't think it's sustainable for me, personally, on my last year of college, with a hectic routine and a senior thesis to finish, to on top of the school stress and the adult stress of cooking and cleaning and maintaining an apartment, to add the stress of dieting to that. The diet, if necessary, will come in May for graduation. But regardless I believe I'm slowly reshaping my relationship with food and I think I have been successful in doing so and in slowly training myself to eat healthly.
But, now, for the whole point of this post: I am ready to start a new step in my fitness journey. My goal before with the gym was to get to know myself in it and feel comfortable there and get over my fear of working out in a big public gym. I've done it. Now I'm ready to start setting goals to myself and keeping myself accountable towards these goals in order to achieve better fitness and health as well as to look good for graduation. The first step was ordering a scale and measuring tape in order to increase my accountability in that department. I also think, specially measuring my body, will give me a vision of how I'm doing that is not asking my partner if she sees any difference. It's taking ownership of this process and taking it seriously. The second step is creating a plan for running for april. My goal for the month is to be able to do a 30 minute workout in the treadmill that is composed of 5 intervals of running for 3 minutes at 5 mph and 5 intervals of walking for 3 minutes. I will write the plan below. My weight training goal is to keep doing it and to be able to leg press 50 pounds and double pulley pulldown 30 pounds. I'm currently at 40 and 22.5 pounds respectively. I will add post with plans for each of these two goals as well as my measurements as the weekend progresses to kick off the journey officially. For now, I just wanted to vent and procrastinate working on my senior thesis.