I thought I'd share with you a positive step for my body image that took me by surprise.
After 6 months of working out 5-6 times a week, my tummy is the one area that will not budge. I think I've lost inches in other places but I've long suspected my tummy will take a while because the women in my family also have stubborn tums especially as they grow older.
A week or so ago, I shocked myself by looking down at it holding it and laughing. Unbeknown to my more conscious self, I seem to have been developing great affection for it, like a sparing partner or cartoon nemesis. I have a very vivid memory of looking down at my tummy when I had gained a fair bit of weight and avoiding the scales for that reason. It was the body part that announced to me, with no subtlety and without any possibility of evasion, that I weighed more than I ever had. That night I hopped on the scales, found that that number was actually 5kg over my previous highest weight, and over the next few months lost that 5kg again.
I'm actually around 2kg above what I like to be now after months of trying to get back, but I'm taking the advice from the community and looking at inches instead. I never used to do weight training so it may well be muscle weight.
As I say though, my tummy means the slightly-too-tight fit of my jeans doesn't change much and my eyes will gravitate there when I wear a fitting dress. I won't pretend I feel positive about it every day, or that I don't care about it more when I'm trying too look good in a fitted dress, but at some points I don't mind it being there, all bloated and stubborn. I could not have anticipated saying that 6 months ago. I feel like saying to it 'fair play.' It's the part that has resisted all fat reducing exercise, when the rest of my body tones or slims, my tummy is still there. That's some staying power!
Even if I stop pretending it has a personality, I think I still see why I feel this way - it's nature. My body is something I can only change or control to a certain extent. It makes me feel great to make some changes to my body, but it's good to be reminded I can't control everything.
Sometimes I feel like I did when the tamagotchi craze was on (that will age me). To those too young, or if that particular craze didn't reach your part of the world, it was a key-ring sized device with a 'pet' on it that you had to feed etc. to keep alive. Some variations of the original started you off with an egg and that egg could hatch and develop into a couple of varieties of creature. Working out is like that for me. I put the effort in, but I don't know what's going to change next or how my body will look, I find it exciting.
Anyway. That was quite long, but I hope it's useful/interesting to someone out there. Also, I'm curious now, does anyone late twenties + remember tamagotchis? I was in the UK at the time, was it a craze elsewhere?
An unexpected positive step
Hi folks,
I thought I'd share with you a positive step for my body image that took me by surprise.
After 6 months of working out 5-6 times a week, my tummy is the one area that will not budge. I think I've lost inches in other places but I've long suspected my tummy will take a while because the women in my family also have stubborn tums especially as they grow older.
A week or so ago, I shocked myself by looking down at it holding it and laughing. Unbeknown to my more conscious self, I seem to have been developing great affection for it, like a sparing partner or cartoon nemesis. I have a very vivid memory of looking down at my tummy when I had gained a fair bit of weight and avoiding the scales for that reason. It was the body part that announced to me, with no subtlety and without any possibility of evasion, that I weighed more than I ever had. That night I hopped on the scales, found that that number was actually 5kg over my previous highest weight, and over the next few months lost that 5kg again.
I'm actually around 2kg above what I like to be now after months of trying to get back, but I'm taking the advice from the community and looking at inches instead. I never used to do weight training so it may well be muscle weight.
As I say though, my tummy means the slightly-too-tight fit of my jeans doesn't change much and my eyes will gravitate there when I wear a fitting dress. I won't pretend I feel positive about it every day, or that I don't care about it more when I'm trying too look good in a fitted dress, but at some points I don't mind it being there, all bloated and stubborn. I could not have anticipated saying that 6 months ago. I feel like saying to it 'fair play.' It's the part that has resisted all fat reducing exercise, when the rest of my body tones or slims, my tummy is still there. That's some staying power!
Even if I stop pretending it has a personality, I think I still see why I feel this way - it's nature. My body is something I can only change or control to a certain extent. It makes me feel great to make some changes to my body, but it's good to be reminded I can't control everything.
Sometimes I feel like I did when the tamagotchi craze was on (that will age me). To those too young, or if that particular craze didn't reach your part of the world, it was a key-ring sized device with a 'pet' on it that you had to feed etc. to keep alive. Some variations of the original started you off with an egg and that egg could hatch and develop into a couple of varieties of creature. Working out is like that for me. I put the effort in, but I don't know what's going to change next or how my body will look, I find it exciting.
Anyway. That was quite long, but I hope it's useful/interesting to someone out there. Also, I'm curious now, does anyone late twenties + remember tamagotchis? I was in the UK at the time, was it a craze elsewhere?