Fighting the Fear

The last 10 months have been transformative for me. I began my blog around the time that I really decided to do some serious self reflection and make some life changes. I wish that I had blogged my way through the process (that was really my intention from the start), and though I did make some posts during that time, they were more about my thoughts about life in general, and not necessarily specific to my fitness goals.

I could try and tell you that I'm not sure why I didn't share my journey more openly, but that wouldn't be entirely true. I think I know why I kept it to myself. FEAR. I always feared taking risks when it came to fitness and weight loss because I knew I would fail. Why did I know I would fail? Well... because I allowed myself to fail. Itwas always in my hands.

I'm sure this time, somewhere in the back of my mind I feared that I would allow myself to give up again, and I didn't want to share that with all of you. Seriously, how crappy would that be? To blog about my journey to fitness... only to end up in the same place I started... or worse. I'm not really into that kind of humiliation.

The thing is... I didn't fail. I conquered the fear. It comes back every now and then... and sometimes it puts up a pretty good fight. But, so far, I've managed to come out on top. And you know what, I've discovered some things about myself that I never knew before. I always pigeonholed myself as un-athletic. It was easier to just say, "I can't" than to risk failure by trying. But I was wrong. I am athletic. I can run. And I like to run.

I used the 'Couch to 5K' training plan and I became a runner. One day at a time. One step at a time. It was hard, and some days I didn't feel like it. It was hard to drag my butt to the gym or talk myself in to getting out and doing it. But I just focused on small goals and celebrated the tiny victories. Running for three minutes without stopping was a victory at the beginning of my journey.

I slowly (very slowly) increased my distance and decreased my time. Eventually I was running three miles on a regular basis. Around that same time I found a running partner, and she told me she was training to do a 10K (6.2miles). I thought there was no way I could run 6 miles. But I did . Then some other friends who I was running with said that we should all do a half marathon. I thought there was really no way I could run 13 miles. But I did.

In 6 months I went from struggling to run half a mile without stopping to running 13 miles without stopping and in a time that I could really celebrate and be proud of. I am healthier than I have ever been . My weight is the lowest it's been since high school. I like the person I am becoming. It's not always easy, and I still make excuses sometimes. When I feel the excuses coming, I just try to think about where I was and how I never want to live in that body again.

I had to dig a little to find photos of myself. When you're not comfortable in your own skin, it's not like you're clamoring to have your picture taken. It's hard to look at these (so imagine how hard it is to post them for the world to see). I have been up and down some over the last 13 years. Five pregnancies will do that, but I always stayed in the range of 165- 185. These are both from when I was at my heaviest... around 185 or so.

This was taken about three weeks ago and I have been maintaining around 135-140. My journey toward change is not over. The focus now is on the inside, and sometimes it really sucks to look inside myself, cause there's a lot of junk in there! This could take awhile... hopefully the rest of my life, because isn't that what life is about?... trying to be the best person you can be.