Making Lemonade

Life sometimes hands you a hell of a lot of lemons. And you know what they say. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. We’ll I’ve been making a lot of lemonade lately. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve also been depressed and feeling sorry for myself. All of which are not terribly helpful. Lemonade with a shot of victimhood. LOL Last week was a family birthday. A whole day full of cake, special goodies and meals at a restaurant. All things, I didn’t partake in. I love food. It has always been important to me. I appreciate different tastes and textures. When I was growing up, food was a way we celebrated with family. Having been in a flare for the past 4 months, I’ve been eating a very limited palate of foods. Between trouble digesting and not being sure what foods could be contributing to the flare there is only a handful of foods I’m taking in. As I watched my family all enjoy their delicious meals at the restaurant, I reminded myself that I love my new exercise regime and would treat myself to a workout when I got home. You see, a few weeks ago, I figured since I’m losing so much weight I might as well take advantage of it and gain myself some muscle. I’m thin enough to be buffed again. I always loved muscularity. I used to watch fitness shows and imagine it would be awesome to be one of those women. Back then I never believed I could ever be thin enough to be in one of those shows. So I dismissed the idea. When I was on vacation with my ex one year, I saw a couple at our resort heading to the gym together. They were both extremely muscular, might have even been body builders, but definitely some type of sports/fitness buffs. As I saw them head to the gym I thought to myself “How cool is that? I wish I could be like that couple. That I can be fit and have a fit partner that I could go to the gym with.” I considered going to school to become a physical therapist or personal trainer. I used to buy those fitness magazines and try out all the crazy exercises they had in there. I remember guys making fun of me when they saw those muscle magazines saying things like “Eww. Those women with all those muscles are so gross. I hope you don’t want to look like that.” Fast forward a few years and I met my current husband. A retired, lifetime natural professional bodybuilder. I remember sitting at his house one evening saying, “Okay, you obviously know how to get your body to do what you want it to do. Can you show me how to do it?” Thus began years of us two going to the gym together every morning to work out. Weight lifting was addicting to me. To be able to actually see progress, grow your muscles. See how much stronger you are getting as you are able to increase the heaviness of your weights. To be honest I wasn’t very kind about it at the time. I didn’t eat as much as I should have. I didn’t realize it at the time but looking back I do. Picture this, I was losing fat and gaining muscle all while having a binging problem. 

Seriously, I’d get stressed, head to a store and pick up bags of candy, cookies and snacks and gorge on them. Eat them all before I headed home or back to work. All this with body fat of less than 15% and losing fat all the time. I wasn’t eating enough!!! Being a person who leans towards being masculine and pushes myself way too hard, I also was feeling pain in my joints. I don’t listen when my body told me I was pushing too hard. I wanted to be stronger, bigger and thinner and that’s all I cared about. Then I had kids. Being pregnant didn’t stop me from working out almost every day, but having a newborn did. That was 10 years ago and though I’ve dabbled with going back to the gym several times, I mostly stopped exercising all together. It was good for me. I spent several years actively learning to accept myself no matter how I looked. This Christmas we got a virtual reality set up. I immediately fell in love with a boxing game. What an amazing workout and fun to boot. I’ve been working out almost everyday since Christmas. My dream of being fit and muscular again keeping me going. Heading on vacation soon and I’m planning on hitting the gym everyday that we are away. I may not be able to eat what other people are eating, I may not currently be able to eat much of a variety of tastes and flavors, but I can turn those metaphorical lemons into lemonade. I can allow myself to enjoy exercising and the beauty of watching my body transform. I can appreciate my confidence increasing and how much stronger I feel when I put fitness as a priority. I can make lots of yummy lemonade out of life’s lemons.