Day 2, Week 12: A weight-loss learning: Skinny doesn't mean pretty.

What I wanted to start out with was the fact that I did Cathe's Ramped Up Upper Body for the third Monday in a row but instead I'm going to start with this:

Holy cow it's week 12 already!

I know it's day 2 of week 12 and most normal sane people would have noticed that 12 yesterday, but I was so tired last night that I didn't even notice.  But I'm noticing now.  And my noticing means that I am starting my gentle slide into "what do you mean my marathon is only 3 weeks away WHAAAAA" mode, where I start doubting myself all over the place and really kicking myself if I miss a run.

But I'll get over it.  I usually do, and it's usually right before the gun goes off at the start line.  What was harder for me to get over during my seemingly never-ending weight loss journey to all of my start lined was that the equation below just isn't true:

Skinny = pretty

If you've been reading this blog at all, you already know that I used to be more voluminous than skinny.  It definitely wasn't healthy.

When I first started losing weight back then, my goal was just to get to a size 14 from a 22.  I really, really, REALLY wanted to wear clothes and not be marked by them all day.  And I really really wanted to not wear holes in brand new pairs of pantyhose just from my thighs rubbing together while walking.  Well, I got to a size 14, and then kept right on going down to a size 2.  I thought a size 2 was awesome.  It was magical.  To me it meant I was soooo skinny.  And, in my mind, skinny meant pretty.  And, by default, happy.

Well, let me show you some of those size 2 pictures.

Just look at my twiggy little arms.  Now that I look back on these pictures, I may have been healthy because I was running and no longer smoking, but I certainly wouldn't call that exactly pretty.  I mean, I look normal enough; I don't think anyone would be going around diagnosing me with some weird digestive disorder that was preventing me from absorbing nutrients from food or anything.

But I wouldn't say that level of skinny on me was exactly pretty or flattering.  I was just trying to lose weight to be skinny, not to be healthy.  I was a slave to the number on the scale.  I was working out for the skinny I would get from it.  I was just going for all skinny, not fitness.  I was doing it for the wrong reason.



Now I know that while skinny may look ok, "skinny" is not the goal of weight loss.  Fitness is.  Healthy is.  Confidence is.  Knowing that you can do things in your 40s that you never, ever could do in your 20s is a goal.  And, of course, the rightest reason of all to lose weight and get fit is the simple ability to lift heavy weights and look like you could take someone down if they even looked at you the wrong way.

And an even righter reason to go for fitness and health over skinny is to look like you're kicking the marathon's sweet patootie rather than the other way around, especially when it's your second marathon two weekends in a row.

21st mile ain't got nothing on me.

Time to hop on the learning train and end this post:

• I write way better posts when I'm not passing out on the keyboard from exhaustion.  Well, I think so, anyway.
• I think I hammered the point home that achieving "skinny" isn't necessarily the point of weight loss.  Think about why you're doing it.
• Now before people freak out, I'm not saying skinny is ugly.  For me, skinny was the wrong goal in terms of weight loss.  I feel better being fit than I did being skinny.
• While I would love to be a size 2 again, I love these guns of mine.  A lot.  You should get some, too.

Tomorrow's workout: SPEED, BABY.  A delicious 8 x 800m repeat session is on tap.