Welcome Back to the Hamster Wheel

A little over three years ago, I made a fairly random decision to train for a half marathon.  There were reasons and thoughts and rationales.  But, I decided to do it.  And, after making the decision, one of the first things I did was to create a blog to chronicle my journey towards the half marathon.  (This was really a way of keeping myself accountable to anyone who cared to read it.)  

Looking for a binder in my house last night, I came across two binders that gave me pause.  The first was my old running binder.  When I started running, that thing never left my sight!!  Flipping through it, I read through my first running plans, saw my first calendars of run days, and smiled to myself.  The second binder was filled with my old blog entries.  As I read, I was shocked at the positivity that exuded from the print.  I read through entries describing my first injuries, my first run in the rain, my first 5k.  I watched my "team" grow from a few close friends to a "team" that included neighbors and people I had never met.  I saw myself meet the two people who would go on to have the biggest impacts on my fitness life.  And then, I realized something important:  I didn't mention weight loss.  Or fat loss.  Or any numbers on a scale.

NOT ONCE.

And I was happy.  I was learning.  I was meeting new people.  I was inspiring others.  And as revealing as this was, it wasn't nearly as revealing as the next thought.

WHAT HAPPENED?

At what point did I go from being excited about running a half marathon to being obsessed about the number on the scale?  What decision did I make that led to excessive scrutiny of my body? 

The answer is this: I don't know.  Somewhere along my journey, that ever present number on the scale became more and more important.  And as it became more important, my happiness dwindled.  What started out as a fun way to get PTO morphed into an obsession with the perfect diet and exercise plan to help me reach an arbitrary goal.  So, last night as I went to bed, I made a decision.  I'm done with numbers and arbitrary.  I'm done with someone else's vision of perfection.  In fact, I'm done with my own vision of perfection.  I'm not perfect.  I never will be.  I have no desire to be that perfect fitness model.  Perfect abs and definition are not in my future.  I will never be the fastest, lift the most weight, or be on the cover of a magazine.  By setting these unreasonable expectations, I have been setting myself up for failure for over two years.  And I have achieved every minute of that failure.

And now I'm done with it.  Here's to chronicling the next part of my journey, where I learn to have a mindset that is positive and grateful.  Happy with myself and forgiving of my imperfections, because they are what help me to learn and grow.  

Welcome back to the Hamster Wheel.  It's been too long.