Since I've written about this lately, I thought I might elaborate further.

[Trigger Warning: Some discussion of eating disorders]

Some friends and I have different types and levels of challenges going on in our lives. In the virtual world, I enjoy using Fitocracy to "earn points" and "level up" for recording regular exercise. Several of my friends are on there too, and although you might use points for an arbitrary competition ("I want to earn more points than so-and-so!"), it still boils down to just a personal race that each of us is running on our own.

My sweetie and I (and his son) decided to do a weigh-in and measurements day, with the idea that we would check in four weeks later to see who could do what they could with those four weeks. Each of us lost weight and lost inches, and each at our own pace. Then we decided to add sit-ups and push-ups to our baseline measurements: We'll see how we were each able to improve over four weeks when we remeasure at the end of the month.

But I'm noticing some trends in the comments (on Facebook, on Twitter, on Google+, in person) that illustrate that not everyone has the same sense of body image and fitness that I have. Most notably, one phrase stuck out in my head all day. "I didn't know you had that much to lose." Now, I'm not sure what motivated this comment, but if you saw me on the street, you would likely think, "She's overweight." You might even think, "She's obese," or just, "She's fat."

Yup. I'm overweight. And according to the current medical charts, not only am I fat, I'm labeled obese.... EVEN if I were only 30 lbs heavier than the chart recommendation for my height, I would be considered "obese." Let's be honest here: I haven't come close to those chart descriptions since high school. And when I left high school and entered college, I was 5'4" and 130 lbs and wearing a size 13. I was only "technically" 10 lbs overweight, but a size 13. And I thought I was obese at the time, and I was dealing with bulimia. In that first year of college, I said, "You know what? This behavior is sick. I should stop it." And so I did. Now, that didn't fix everything (just because you stop purging, doesn't mean you've fixed your brain yet).

Skipping over the years since then, I'm VERY happy to say that I've managed to conquer most of the food demons in my brain. I'll never be fully free of the voices that try to tell me that I'm "not worth good food" or that I'm "not allowed" to eat something now because I "ate too much" earlier... all that nonsense will always ring around in my brain. But I ignore it more successfully every year.

What's different now PRIMARILY is that I deal with today's body more honestly than ever before. I *AM* this size, today, and that's the body I have to work with, TODAY. And what I want more than anything is the ability to *DO* whatever I want with this body.

Now I'm very fortunate: I found the exercise that I am passionate about--ATS, American Tribal Style bellydance. I'm passionate about dancing as often as possible, as many hours as possible. My long-term goal is to make this my "mid-life career change." I want to teach ATS. I'm pursuing pushing myself to the very best I can be, in dance. It's been two years so far, and I couldn't be more thrilled than where this passion has taken me so far. I've gone from one class for one hour, once per week [in June 2010] to now I'm typically in four nights per week, between 5.5-7 hours per week, and sometimes 2-3 hours 1x or 2x on the weekends. My stamina continues to increase, and my next goal is to learn to start running in my spare time.

But the thing I believe in the most: Challenge YOUR body where it is at TODAY. I'm not convinced that there is any point in *real* competition with other people--the kind of competition where we're *comparing* ourselves to our friends. We're all different ages, levels of fitness, hours of sleep, types/number of responsibilities, amount of free time, and even preferences for types of exercise. We have different body shapes and capabilities, types of injuries to heal and recover from, bad habits, good habits, skeletal shapes, muscular development. Finding out where YOU are currently at is half the battle, then learning which envelopes you want to push and stretch is the next challenge.

To quote Angela N. Hunt, on twitter today:
RT @quennessa: "Everyone is running their own race. Run your own."


Dancing with my troupe in San Luis Obispo, Dec 2011


My belly, decorated to perform on Venice Beach, Aug 2011