I took the night off last night from going to the gym, because my arms were extremely tired. I did, however, stretch and do stomach exercises in my room. It was nice to relax last night, seeing as I was on my feet for six hours at work as well.

I worked out today with Sarah, my girlfriend, and it was great!

But enough of all this workout talk. Let me get real here for a minute.

I'm scared shitless. About this whole project. I have all these doubts that I've ingrained in myself since my eating disorder began. Like, I can't lose weight without starving myself. I'll never feel good about myself, no matter how skinny I am. I'll never be good enough to deserve X, Y, and Z. And I know intellectually that these things are completely untrue and ridiculous and just in my head and irrational. But there is that part of me that always asks, in the back of my mind, What if they're true? And if I were to ever quit this project, these would be the reasons why.

But the reason I began this project is because I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling bad about myself and crying when I see an unflattering picture or when I go try on clothes in the mall. I'm tired of feeling unmotivated and lazy. I'm tired of making excuses. I'm tired of ignoring myself. And that's why I won't quit now. I can't quit now.

Workout: Day 2

Allie and I worked out again last night. It was both harder and easier than the first night. My arms are KILLING ME today, but I know it's because I've been working my muscles, so it's great.

What's also great is the conversations I've been having with Allie. One of the things she told me that I really like is "Think of your body as a machine." So, your body is a machine, and you are trying to get that machine to function at its highest capability. It's your job to take care of this machine, but, something that I have to remember, is that you are not defined by this machine. It is you, but it is not representative of your worth.

Allie and I have also been talking about our goals for working out. I want to focus on health. Absolutely. Feeling better in my skin, being able to climb stairs without being winded. Being able to lift more with my arms. Feeling alive, healthy, energetic. And I want any changes in weight to be an effect of my health, not a motivation for it. Because, of course, I want to lose weight. But if I focus on that, back down the rabbit hole I will fall. And I'm frankly too far in my recovery for that. Too... old, is how I feel, for things like that. Because it was a crutch for me for so long, and I've grown so much since I was sick, that to go back would be to completely ignore my entire arsenal of psychological tools that I have gained over the years. And I don't want to do that.

Another comment about the weight thing: I haven't weighed myself in four years, and I am definitely not going to start now. I will monitor my progress in terms of how long I'm able to work out and what kinds of things I am able to do, and how my clothes fit, and most importantly, how I feel.

I'm really jazzed about all this! 

Workout: Day 1

So I've started on another one of my goals! Last night I went to the gym for the first time since I began this little blog, with Allie, who just started a blog as well, one shoe on, one shoe off. Here is a synopsis from her page, in her own words, because I have a feeling that I could not do the premise of her blog any justice:

"This is my intro, I suppose. I'm Allison, I ID as a genderfree lesbian, and if that doesn't make sense to you, feel free to email me about it. I'm a college sophomore, and I'm writing this blog to talk about my progress towards the future.

I plan to talk about a lot of varying things on this blog, so I apologize in advance for the probable nonsensical-ness of my writing. Possible topics include my sense of gender confusion, how my body relates to my brain in terms of what I feel like I should look like, my history of depression and attempted suicide, and how I'm doing now with the fun and exciting cocktail of psychiatric drugs to treat my bipolar-esque mentality."

Allie is a fucking amazing person. I've known her for almost a full two years now, which officially makes her my oldest college friend. She's hilarious and wonderfully straight-forward. She will tell you like it is, which is a hard quality to find in a person, and not one I always appreciate at the time, but one I always cherish in the end. She has the most awesome and interesting insights on a lot of things, especially pertaining to gender and LGBT politics, tobacco knowledge, and juggling skills She just started her blog, too, like I mentioned before, so you should check it out!

So anyway. Allie and I went up to my school's little workout room, on the third floor of the student center, and started stretching. It was just basic stuff, the kind of stretches I used to do back in the day in dance class. Then we did weights, push ups, planks, and crunches. She showed me how to use the urg, otherwise known as the rowing machine to us without crew members for mothers, which was super fun. All in all, we were up there for about 45 minutes to an hour, and I had a blast! It actually didn't seem like that long. When I attempted going to the gym in the fall, I did the treadmill and the bike, and it just felt endless. I guess when I can see a timer the minutes seem to tick by so slowly.

I felt kind of awkward, there in the gym, like everyone was looking at me, etc, but then I realized that everyone looked just as ridiculous as I did and then I just slowly forgot about it as I focused more on my workout and what wisdom Allie was imparting upon me. She's such an awesome workout buddy. "Just two more. Come on! Two more. You can do two more, no problem." "Try it like this, to get your balance." She's so encouraging. It was pretty awesome!

So, my arms are killing me and we're going back tonight! Woo hoo!