Because I Want To Be Able To Kick Your Ass

Well folks, the time has come.

On June 28th, 2008 I delivered a healthy, beautiful baby girl. Cayce Joy weighed in at 8 pounds, 3 ounces and measured 21 and a half inches long. As miraculous as her birth was, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Given my weight gain during pregnancy, I'd been hoping for a 25 pound baby.

It's an old story. I've gone up and down the scale for years, worn everything from a size 4 to a size 14, and my motivation for weight loss has always been external. I wanted you to think I looked good, I wanted to fit in here in my appearance obsessed community, I wanted to wear designer clothes and look good in a bikini. I believed that your approval of my appearance gave me worth. But now I have a different motivation.

I want to be able to kick your ass.

Not that I actually want to kick your ass. But if you talk smart to me in a bar, I want to know that I have the option. I want to know that I am strong and I am fit. I want to be in better shape when I am thirty than I was when I was twenty. I want to find out just what I'm capable of when I stop making excuses and start really working.

At twenty years old I was skinny. Not thin; skinny. I shared pants with my best friend, a woman who stands a full five inches shorter than me and has always been petite- even after she gave birth to twins. (How I've managed to remain friends with this woman- why anyone is friends with such a woman- is another story) But fitness is a different subject entirely. At just under 5'10 inches tall, I weighed 134 pounds. I was thin, sure, but I couldn't run a mile (not that I tried) and I couldn't open my own jars or carry my own luggage. And worst of all, I thought I was fat. Even when I've maintained a healthy weight, I've had trouble feeling good about my body.

Back in those skinny days, I obsessively counted calories. I worked out, and I did some limited weight training, but the emphasis was always on getting thinner, wanting there to be less of me, always worried that there was too much of me for everyone else's liking. I don't know where the pressure came from, since it certainly didn't come from my boyfriend or my family. I suppose I'll blame part of it on my competitive nature. If you're thin, I want to be thinner. If you look good, I want to look better.

I'm sure you know what happened next. Eventually the need for perfection became too taxing and I went to the other extreme. Once I had a taste (no pun intended) of what it felt like to be free to eat anything I wanted- when I stopped counting calories and just ate and drank as I pleased-well, then I couldn't get enough. Thirty pounds in one year. Ouch. I went on that way for the next three years, dropping 15 pounds or so at a time, but always ballooning back up again. And then my mother died, and for the first time in my life I didn't have to make any effort whatsoever to lose weight. The pounds just fell off. But it wasn't long before bad habits (read: comfort food, and worse, comfort drinking) caught up with me, and the pounds came back on. In the year before I was married I tried to lose the weight, and I did alright- lost some of it, but didn't get back down to the healthy weight I'd reached and then maintained for nearly a year after my mom died. I remembered all too well the deprivation of the skinny days, and how much I hated feeling like I "couldn't" have this or "couldn't" have that, and despite my denial of this truth, I never really worked as hard as I could have.

And then in 2006 I reached my highest weight ever- 179 pounds. I felt terrible. On my 27th birthday I sat on the floor of my closet in tears, too depressed about my appearance to want to put on clothes and go out. Nothing looked good anymore, and I didn't like what I'd done to myself. It felt just awful- physically and emotionally. Unfortunately it still wasn't enough for me to make a change, until a month later when searing abdominal pain sent me to a doctor who diagnosed me with gallstones. The gallbladder came out and I vowed to return to a healthier lifestyle. I've always known what to do. It's the doing that gets me. I'm sure you can relate.

In between my 27th and 28th birthdays I lost 23 pounds, put on more muscle than I'd ever had in my life, and regained my self confidence. I was about ten pounds from my goal when I became pregnant in October of 2007, and despite careful eating and exercising all the way in to week 38 of the pregnancy, I still gained 54 pounds. It was in the last two months of my pregnancy that I decided that I owed it to myself to work harder than I'd ever worked before to get in shape after baby arrived. It was time to see what I could do when I really tried, when I really believed in myself. Pregnancy showed me that my body was miraculous and could do amazing things. I want to see what else it is capable of.

So here I am. And I'm telling the world about it because I refuse to let myself off the hook. I want to be strong. I want to be fit. Before I was pregnant I could do pushups- real pushups, not girl pushups- for the very first time in my life. And I know I wasn't working nearly as hard as I could have been. What might I be capable of if I finally do?

My body made a person, and then pushed that person out. I'm pretty sure I can do just about anything now.

So gather 'round folks, and follow the tale of the lazy girl who loved pizza but became strong and fit anyway. Or perhaps, the tale of an angry woman who took solace in beer and deleted her blog before too many of her friends and family could see it. Either way, it should be interesting for at least a few minutes.

Just to prove how serious I am, I'm posting the picture of the skinny white designer jeans I bought at Saks 5th Avenue when I was nine months pregnant. This is it. No more excuses. No more wondering what I could be or could do if I really gave myself a fair chance. We're going balls to the wall here kids, and it's skinny jeans or die trying.

Or maybe I'll just find a really good tailor.