Finally Getting to Those Psychological Issues

I don't know if it's because I am basically neurotic, but even something good and healthy like exercise brings up psychological issues and anxieties for me!

The first one I needed to deal with was just the exercise manifestation of something that permeates my whole life - perfectionism and an all-or-nothing mentality. I mentioned in an earlier post that this tendency did not derail my commitment to exercise, but it did keep cropping up in my psyche up until recently. I would worry that I was not doing the exercise thing "right", that I wouldn't get good "results" if I wasn't doing it "right" - which for a few months led to working out too much, trying to "fit it all in". I was really helped through this by reading someone's signature at Video Fitness, which reads "The Best Workout Is the One You Will Do". This really is true - unless the only workout you will do is opening the refrigerator (although that probably does work your bicep and the back of your shoulder). I was also able to leave this one behind when I saw that "results" come from exercise consistency in general, rather than from finding the perfect program or rotation.

The other one is more serious, and I don't know if I will ever get over it completely - I have realized that getting in shape does not get rid of all the emotional baggage that I carry around regarding my appearance. The reasons I have this baggage are many and varied, and while it seems a bit lighter now that I am older, I am still schlepping it around. I have to accept that even if I were able to transform my figure into the likeness of some alluring young celebrity (which is highly unlikely), I would still have to deal with the nagging feeling that in the beauty and desirability department, I fall short. Now, this is not something I deal with excessively like I did when I was a teenager and young adult. I am actually pretty content with my appearance most of the time, as long as I don't think about it too much. We are not supposed to be overly concerned with outward appearances anyway - I know that. But this issue still does crop up for me, especially as I see my youth passing away - even though my beauty has never been staggering, losing that blush of youth is very sobering. People call me ma'am and mean it.

It's not helped by the strange fact that as I lose weight and gain muscle, sometimes my figure looks worse before it looks better. This seems to be a very real phenomenon for a lot of people on the Fitness Journey; I've seen it discussed on my fitness forums - you look better, and better, until one day you look at yourself and YOU LOOK TERRIBLE. Definitely more flabby and even though you might be thinner, your figure just does not look good. This lasts for a few weeks and then you look better again. It's really weird. So I have had to learn not to look at myself too often, because day by day is not a good indicator of what progress is actually being made. Every week or even two weeks is better.

That was a tangent, I guess. The truth is that I thought that actually looking better would wash away all insecurities, but it doesn't. That's just a drag.

But while I do know that I can't be more beautiful or younger than I actually am, being as fit as I can be and looking as good as it is possible for ME to look is not something determined by my DNA, but just depends on how much I put into it. It was really empowering to realize, also, that the fitness INDUSTRY is not synonymous with the beauty INDUSTRY - so while I could never be a supermodel, I could be a personal trainer. Not all, in fact not even most of the instructors on my fitness DVDs are beauties.










I guess you can tell I'm a glass-half-full kind of person since this is ending on a positive note, even though the post started with negative thought processes. It is also ending abruptly, since even somewhat fit people get tired.