Since I just wrapped up talking about my time at iO West (for now), this is the last related post I have about that.
I mentioned a few times that toward the end my food and exercising were kind of suffering. Obviously I have no one to blame but myself. No matter how busy you get, you make your decisions when it comes to what you put in your body and how you treat your body.
And as I got more tired, I made some of the wrong decisions. I got all bloated and cranky.
But then within a week or two, things pretty much got back to normal.
And it’s weird. Weight and body image, all of it is so weird. Because now in my life a fair amount of people call me small or tiny. I wear a lot of clothes that are size small. (I even wear one thing that’s an extra small!). So, objectively, I guess I’m small.
But I (even still) kind of have trouble thinking of myself as small. I mean, I dunno. I think part of it is because I’m still trying to lose weight. I don’t feel like I’m done losing weight and it’s hard to realize sometimes that there’s an in between. It might feel like “Oh, not at my goal weight? In that case, I must not be small.”
But I didn’t realize how small I am until I was less small. When I was all bloated from sugar and fat, I felt heavy. My clothes fit tighter. I had to worry (even more so than usual!) about angles in pictures.
And I realized how much of my power and confidence comes from being small, and comes from feeling like I’m in control of my body.
After the intensive was done, I spent the next week going to as many workout classes as I could and it felt awesome. It felt awesome to feel lighter when I moved. It felt awesome to reach back to scratch my shoulder and feel a muscle there.
And it feels crappy to feel big and bloated. I was in a crankier mood. And I don’t know if that’s because I was eating so much sugar, which I do think messes with your brain in a negative way; or if it’s because I was so super stressed about improv; or what. I just know that I feel less cranky when I workout more, and when I have better control of my body, and when my clothes fit better.
I already knew that to be true, but to feel this really stark difference in happiness/contentment levels, I guess I just wanted to state it again.
Though it is crazy how subjective it all can be. For instance, I felt so fat the weekend I went to the San Francisco half marathon this year. But then I felt great about my finish picture. But then I felt super fat in my selfie on the Golden Gate Bridge. It astonishes me how literally in the same day, I can look wildly different in a change of clothes and/or change of angle/lighting.
Pictures are weird. Bodies are weird. All I know is that it is shown to me all the time how important mine is to me. And even though I’m certainly not perfect all the time, and some days I’m stronger than others, and some days I eat better than others… my body is a big priority to me.
And I guess I just wanted to remind myself of that. When I treat my body well, it does wonderful things for me and keeps me feeling great. So, I want to continue working on treating it well.