I have a love-hate, mostly hate, relationship with working out, and it could be described as a bi-polar one as well. Through some research, and talking to other women my age, I realize that I am not alone in this predicament. I go through diet to diet, fitness plan to fitness plan..probably 10+ routines or attempts at a routine throughout the year. I always have one goal in mind, to feel good in my skin.
I can't really think if the last time I felt super comfortable with my body and the way I look; maybe about 3 years ago, right when I met Matt. Please don't read into this the wrong way, there are many MANY things that I absolutely love about myself, but I know that I can be much healthier person and would like to think that being a much healthier person would lead to a healthier state of mind about my self image.
The problem is, I have such a hard time sticking to something (diet, workout plan, whatever) because my will-power is in the toilet. As far as workouts go, I'd like to chalk it up to the fact that I haven't really found anything that I enjoy doing. I did the running thing, ran two half marathons in a few months, then just got tired of running. I did the Zumba/aerobics thing, but quite frankly I couldn't shake the feeling that I looked like an idiot while shaking my hips to some club hip-hop. I did the yoga thing, and did enjoy the yoga thing until I tried to complete a 30 day challenge and had a complete mental breakdown on day 19 because of the pressure to get all my classes in (if you were following my posts about that..thanks for all the inspiration, sorry I let ya' down!).
So now I'm back at square one, which sometimes feels like a very sad, dark, and lonely square....where I am haunted with images of wedding dresses I have yet to go shopping for because I want to lose 5 pounds first. When I stop to think though, I'm really not alone on my square one. Although sometimes my overly-sensitive self misconstrues his support and motivation as nagging, I realize my wonderful partner in crime will be there with me every step of the way. He'll go to the gym with me even if it's not a workout day for him, he'll go grocery shopping for the healthy foods and then prepare them for meals, he'll be my spotter, he won't even get mad when I go buy new workout clothes that I don't really need (but don't let him see the new dress, sandals and makeup that I also found on that shopping excursion).
So this morning, Matt gave me reasons to go to the gym even though it's the last thing I wanted to do (...you'll feel good for the rest of the day, it'll take a lot of stress off you to get it done early so it's not looming over you, you've been doing so good all week, tough days like this set the tone for your workout routine...) I feel like I owe it to him (even though owing it to myself should be enough!) to lace up my Nikes and get going.
Just FYI, I am working with a personal trainer and also following LiveFit by Jamie Eason which can be found here.
