During the past two months I've taken to jogging daily -- around my neighborhood and up its hills. As expected, I can now endure longer jogs and steeper hills. The route that once inspired me to utter the words "I'm going to die" is now the easy route, the one I take when I really don't feel like exercising. I no longer clench my left arm in an attempt to evoke sympathy from Ben by passively saying "If I have a heart attack, I'm blaming you!"
Although I love the post-run rush and the way that exercise acts as a natural anti-depressant, I have not reached the point where I can say that I actually enjoy exercising. Jogging, to me, is a chore. It's the sort of thing that "other" people do. You know, healthy and happy people who own rollerblades and streamlined strollers.
So why did I begin jogging?
I'd like to say that I began in an attempt to physically feel better and make myself healthier. Exercise for the sake of exercise. If I could say that, then I'd probably be on my way to being one of those "other" people.
My real reason has fairly little do to with health and all to do with vanity and preoccupation with modern cultural-imposed views of beauty. I'm striving to be a shallower kind of person who links appearance to worth. My motivation to losing weight? When I go out with friends, I don't want to have to sit in the Bebe "boyfriend chair" because I know nothing will fit me (Assuming that I even want to shop at Bebe).
I want to lose weight so I can fit into clothes that are fashionable. I want to be able to buy pants from the Gap and not have to hem them up 6 inches because their designers seem to believe that anyone who is a size 12 is also 5'10. I want to be able to say that I'm not 50 pounds heavier than my two closest friends.
It's all about numbers.
I find that the only thing that makes me feel overweight is my clothing size and my numerical weight. I like my body. Yeah, my butt and thighs are large, but I blame it on my genes. Puberty, not food, gave me my curves.
Of course, sitting at a desk for ten hours at a time and no exercise whatsoever didn't hurt either.
Place me in a different culture or another time period and I'd do just fine.
Do I want to be thin? I don't think so. I'm threatened by thin women, not because they're inherently evil but because I assume that their lives are a lot different than mine -- a whole lot easier. Even though I realize that this isn't necessarily true, it's hard to believe that anyone who actually meets societal-based ideals doesn't at least have one aspect in their life a bit easier.
But, I guess, saying that is sort of like saying that overweight people are lazy. It's not rooted in truth, but rather just lazy assumptions.
Because of exercise and a healthier diet* over the last two months, I've lost about 20 pounds. Most people don't seem to notice the difference because the bulk of the weight has been lost from my stomach and I have never been in the habit of wearing midriff-revealing shirts.
In terms of my long-term weightloss goals, I've lost half the weight I intend to lose. I set this goal before losing a pound and now have to wonder if I'm trying to become something that I shouldn't necessarily become. If I'm happy with how I feel now (after losing the initial weight), then why force myself to become a size 6?
A couple weeks ago, I bought a size 6 dress from J Crew Online. This was to be the big linen motivator in my life. I'd try it on every month as an attempt to chart my progress. When the dress finally fit, that would be the big indicator that I've lost enough weight.
When it arrived and I tried it on for the first time, I was horribly disappointed. For the most part, the dress fit. I blamed it on J Crew's practice of oversizing clothing. They try to get into my head. "If I'm really a size 12 and I fit into a size 6, then that must mean I need to buy more clothes!"
Or maybe, it was a subtle hint that I should be happy with my weight and that size is just an arbitrary number?
* Basically, I stopped drinking carbonated beverages and cut out most desserts from my diet. We've limited the times we eat out to once per week but still eat our favorites -- mostly Asian. At home, Ben cooks fairly low-fat dinners from an assortment of cookbooks. Surprisingly, these low-fat dinners are really good and I don't miss anything we used to eat. We actually have more variety in our diet and are eating a bit more meat. The only thing I really miss is sweets.
