Guest Post: Whatever your reason is, celebrate it

As you read this, I am sitting on a beach, completely unplugged except for an occasional text from my mom checking in. I have no Internet access, other than Wi-Fi at a Tim Horton’s coffee shop about 15 minutes into town, and I am out the country, so texting and calling is pretty pricey, and browsing the web or using any data on my iPhone would be extremely costly. So I am spending my week with plenty of books and sunshine (hopefully).

In the meantime, I really had no posts scheduled for this week in my absence (other than my Paleo Pen Pal), but unintentionally something came up and I wanted to share this piece from a fellow lifting lady, Dana. I met Dana through the New Rules of Lifting for Women Facebook Group and she has been following my blog for a little while, even letting me do a spotlight on her recently! Similar to what I wrote the other day about the evolution of my diet, Dana herself has gone through quite a journey in her own life, and even moreso in the past few months, experimenting with a primal lifestyle. We think a lot alike, and I tend to be in agreement with a lot of what she says below.. what do you think?

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When I was in middle school report card time was a season of dread for most people. My friends would fret for days. Worried about how long they would be grounded for bad grades. The conversations always started a least a week before report card time and then, the day after, everyone would return to share the severity of their punishments. They ranged anywhere from just the weekend, to a month, or worst of all, till midterm progress reports came out. I never got grounded for bad grades. My parents would always ask me if I did my best and if I did, they always responded with that was good enough. Sigh. Good enough didn’t make for a great sharing of tales when everyone else was talking about being grounded. I was never grounded a day in my life. Yet, I started to make up stories about how much trouble I got in to. It was the middle school way of fitting in. My parents were just as horrible as everyone else. I belonged to the crappy parents club!

Now here I am nearing fifty years old and the middle school phenomenon has started up again. Only this time it isn’t about grades, it’s about “body image.” If you happen to love CrossFit or Weight Lifting or Body Pump or Zumba classes then you must, have or had, a poor body image in order to fit in. There seems to be a couple of buzz phrases for women in the fitness world, one is poor body image and the other is disordered eating habits. You must have suffered, or still suffer, from one of the other in order to make your fitness journey mean something.

You can’t be like me, happily married, content with who I am, just interested in strength and mobility to keep me active as time marches on. I have to have a dark secret. A past of eating binges or self loathing. Otherwise, my story doesn’t count. It doesn’t mean anything. Well, I had a couple of horrific knee injuries and they happened doing cool things. One happened while I was working on my black belt in Tae Kwon Do and the other happened while skydiving. Still, that doesn’t bring out the necessary nurturing spirit of fellow lifters with sordid pasts. That just makes me even more annoying.

Not only have I never hated myself, but I’ve done a couple of cool things in my life. More distance between me and the rest of the crowd. Since I’m past middle school age, my desire to fit in with the crowd is long since over. I read blogs about disordered eating habits. I read posts from people who hate how they look. I listen to fellow gym enthusiasts talk about how they are criticized by other people for getting off the couch and getting back into fitness. Sigh Where does a person who never hated who they were, never hid Twinkies in her closet, or have friends tell her she is a freak because she likes to lift heavy things fit in?

Good question.

I still have no answer to that question. I can’t really cheer people on in their journey, because I lack credibility. Or so the fitness world seems to think. Nobody is perfect and I’ve had my share of hard times and loss in my life. I’ve always been very centered in who I am. I credit my mom with that. My mom always encouraged me to be who I was. Never who someone else thought I should be. I was a weird kid. I never looked at things the way other people did. My mother celebrated that and I grew stronger in the process.

I help Admin a page on FB dedicated to a series of weight lifting books. I found that my greatest asset on that page is keeping it real. I’m not a hand holder, but I can celebrate everyone’s success because I’m not threatened by it. I can encourage people to try cutting out garbage food, but if they don’t want to, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. I can give pointers on form and explanations of exercises in the book, but so can a lot of other people.

What I bring to that page is Me and I’m the only Me there is.

So I guess the point of this rant is you don’t have to come to enjoy fitness from a place of darkness to be a necessary voice. Some people do and they are of great value to other people in the same boat. Seeing how someone has overcome a lifetime of self-deprecation and finally come to a place where everything makes sense is inspiring. Not only to others who walk the same path, but to those of us who don’t. Makes me appreciate my blessings a little more and ease up on those who I feel just like to complain a lot!

But those of us with a softer story still have a story and it’s an important one. So don’t be afraid to share it. The weight room is a place of stasis. A place where all stories converge and all forces are equal and opposing, therefore they cancel out each other. It isn’t really about why you got there; it’s about why you stay. So whatever you reason is; celebrate it. And celebrate it in others.

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Your turn:
Do you ever feel out of place in the health and fitness community?
Have you not had a struggle that people could relate to?