Keep Underestimating Me

I love it when people underestimate me.  I try not to be so sensitive about what other people think but it’s hard when these things happen over and over again.

Incident #1- I’m doing a half marathon out of town.  I’ve done 100+ races with more than 40 of them half’s.  Most of my travel gear is fitness or running apparel.  So inevitably at packet pickup people assume I’m running the 5k or 10k.  Even though there are clearly marked lines for each distance and I’m standing in line for the half marathon they assume I’m wrong.  Because I’m a curvy girl and don’t fit their image of what a runner looks like.  Forget the fact that there are runners of all ages, sizes and paces at every race.  Every once in a while I get a condescending “good for you”.  Eff them.  Don’t pat me on the head like I’ve achieved some great feat as a fat girl.  I trained for this.  I run/bike 20+ miles a week.  How dare you ruin a perfectly good day for me.  Worse than that is the person handing me my t-shirt was like “is this your first half?”  God I hate people.

Incident #2- I always take local fitness classes when I travel.  For people who travel a lot that haven’t discovered Class Pass it is awesome.  You can sign up for fitness classes at multiple gyms in the area for a monthly fee equal to your typical monthly gym fee.  Way cheaper than paying for a day pass and a lot more options. 

So I get to the studio early.  It’s just me and the instructor at first.  She was very nice to me.  We chat it up while we’re waiting for the rest of the class to arrive.  I tell her I’m in town for the race and she is clearly surprised.  She tells me to modify if I need to since my legs may be sore.  A couple songs into the class she says “wow, you’re really fit”.  I know she didn’t mean anything negative by it and that I should have taken it as a compliment.  But what sticks with me is that she decided I wasn’t fit when she looked at me.  That her first impression was that I wasn’t fit.  That no matter how many races I run or classes that I take people will always see me as unfit and I will constantly have to prove myself. 

The Lies I Tell

I exercise a lot.  On a busy week I will run 3 times, teach 6 hours of Zumba and 2 hours of water aerobics.  At least once a week one of my students says something like: "I'm surprised you're not skinny". Then I say something like: "I have a very slow metabolism" or "I eat whatever I want so I'll never be skinny but I've accepted that" or "Most of my relatives are diabetic and very obese".  I give the impression that I'm happy with my body and like being the fit fat girl.  But that's a lie.

A few years ago I went to see a doctor because I was sure she would tell me that I had a thyroid problem.  How else could I exercise so much and not lose any weight?  Well nothing was wrong with my thyroid.  A food journal showed that I was replacing every single calorie that I burned.  I was hoping there would be something wrong with me that could be solved with a pill or a procedure.  That I would magically go back down to my happy weight of 165-175 lbs without changing my life. 

For the past 6 years or so my weight has been steady at 193-198 lbs.  I had a brief rough patch where I ballooned to 212 lbs and an equally brief healthy patch where I got down to 185 lbs.  It is clear that if I want to lose weight, I'm going to have to make some changes.  For the past few weeks I have been keeping a food and exercise journal to try and better balance the calories burned vs. consumed.  There have been a couple days when I have been on track but most days, I'm way over. 

I don't know how to change my relationship with food.  I don't know how to tell my body that it's really not hungry.  I don't know how to change the way I've been eating for the past 37 years.  But I do know that my joints are becoming less forgiving as I get older.  With every half marathon or Zumbathon that I participate in I end up with a minor injury that hangs around for a while.  I am not recovering from these workouts like I used to.

It was recently recommended to me that I add strength training and biking to my workouts.  These are both activities that I participate in irregularly but that don't give me the same high as a good cardio workout.  I have been told that having more muscle tone will help me burn fat better.  That my body is so used to all the cardio that I do that I'm going to continue to maintain unless I mix it up.  That biking will improve my endurance without putting the stress that Zumba and running do on my joints.  

In the past few weeks I have met three people who have lost a significant amount of weight doing Zumba.  I have to admit that every time one of my fellow fit fatties looses weight that I get a little jealous.  It's getting to the point where I'm the only one.  My fellow instructors are always telling me how great I look and how awesome my energy is but that's not important.  If I actually liked myself at this weight and was happy with it that would be okay.  But I don't like myself.  I don't feel good physically or emotionally.  I don't want to be jealous of people who have more will power than I do.  I want to look like a fitness instructor.  I want the running store associates to stop assuming that I'm a walker when I come in to buy new shoes.  I don't want to have to tape my ankles and wear knee braces when I go on long runs because I'm not sure if my joints will hold up.  I don't want to settle for being less fat than my relatives.  

I have done Weight Watchers and NutriSystem.  I have followed diets from magazines, TV shows and websites.  All for short periods of time, all with varying amounts of success.  The bottom line is that I don't need a diet, I need a complete lifestyle overhaul.  And I don't know how to get there.