Awkward Compliments and Other Perks of My Fitness Journey

 I wouldn't say that I was a particularly active child.  In fact, I much preferred television to the out of doors.  I wasn't much in to sports, other than bowling, which doesn't require a whole lot of cardiovascular endurance, and I loved to read.  Let's face it: reading doesn't get the heart rate up all that often either, unless of course it is a rather riveting plot.  However, when my sister joined the volleyball team as a freshman in high school and I went to watch the varsity team play in the state playoffs, I fell in love with the sport.  So, the moderately-coordinated and decidedly less-than-instrinsicly motivated eleven-year-old girl suddenly had to learn how to control her muscles and push them beyond the need to walk through the neighborhood.

I was not a natural athlete, but my love of the game made it worth the work it required to learn the game and eventually master it.  I remember many days of passing against the wall of my house in the spring and summer and many evenings of my coach working with me after practice during the season.  There was a lot of time on the track as well.  It's interesting to think back to that time.  I can remember feeling challenged and it not being easy, but I also remember it being super fun because I loved it.

My fitness journey since my playing days has been something of a roller coaster, as I imagine it is for most people as time passes.  Once I began my teaching career, I also began coaching, so I have always been around the sport I love.  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, beginning my teaching career also introduced me to a previously undiscovered pastime: drinking beer.  (I know what you're thinking: how did I get through college without discovering that?  This chica was too paranoid about her scholarship to even touch the stuff.)  As pretty much everyone who has ever discovered the effects of ingesting lots of hops, the calories add up and the weight goes on.


It took about five years before I woke up.  At that point, I discovered the love of running.  Truthfully, it was awesome.  I loved the time on the pavement.  Not only did it shed the extra weight, but it shed so much of the frustration and stress I hadn't even realized I was feeling.  I entered races; I finished them.  It was great.  But you know how you can get to feeling super good about everything and you stop paying attention?  Suddenly, the red flags are going up but you are ignoring them?  Yeah, that's what happened to me.  Feeling good about myself, enjoying life, meet an intoxicating person and fall in love... pretty soon the intoxicating person became just plain toxic, and 8 years and 60 pounds have passed.

After finally letting go of that, and getting help for what I suspect has been a life-long struggle with depression, the next leg of my fitness journey began.  In the past several months as part of the process of not just learning to live but learning to thrive with depression, I have implemented some rather dramatic lifestyle changes.  It started with an aerobic step and a free metronome app; then came cleaner

eating; then resistance bands; then falling in love with the game I had thought I would never enjoy again; then running; then tennis... it's been amazing to go from literally lying on the couch all day to getting antsy if I sit for longer than twenty minutes.

The perks have been pretty awesome, too.  In addition to losing weight and changing sizes, I feel like I am ten years younger.  I have energy to spare and my depression feels more and more like a backpack rather than seven pieces of luggage bogging me down.  I am rediscovering old friends and making new.

Typically when people start getting fit, friends and acquaintances notice and comment.  Sometimes in a super-suave way, as in a colleague who said to me one day, "What's up, Slim?" and sometimes in peppy, encouraging ways, as in, "You look great!"  On the other hand, given how loaded of a compliment it can be, it has also given me some riotously awkward, grin-inducing, belly-laughing comments as well.
     A friend:  You look different.  Your teeth.  They look bigger.  Did you get them capped?
     A colleague:  (in a whisper) You have been losing a lot of weight.  Is everything okay?  Are you ill?
     An aunt:  So I'm waiting for the announcement.  You're getting married, right?  That's why you're losing all this weight?

Many people have asked what my goal weight is, and I just smile and shrug.  While I think having a goal is important, part of me is terrified that if I put a number on it, once I reach it I will stop.  Admittedly, being fit is a rather broad goal, so I try to look at different numbers: my resting heart rate, my mile, the number of forehands I make.  However, the number on the scale is a number that implies too many other things in our culture.

As I continue my journey, I hope I can keep things in that kind of perspective: that it is a journey with no specific destination but rather pitstops of benchmarks and achievements.  In the mean-time, I'm thinking about getting my teeth capped, a medical bracelet for my wrist, and a cubic zirconia for the left hand - they are great reminders of the importance of good people and good perspective.