Weight (wait) for living...
Okay, it is so much better to say (or hear) weight for living than to write it! But I will have to live with what I got.
This week I have heard a few comments about weight, which isn't too unusual. They went as followed: "I have lost 40 pounds so far this year..." and the response: " Well can you stop? I have found all of your lost weight!" 😂 Another comment: " I have been doing great at going to the gym, but the scale hasn't changed." Last comment was: "I have gained 30lbs since last year, that is more than I have ever gained before." All comments are true, and all too common. Conversations about weight are almost part our daily lifes. Weight is obviously something we think about, and everyone else out there does too.
The culture of how we view weight and it's relationship to our live, self worth and ability to live to full and happy life is a bit scary. I see so many put there weight as a reason to wait on living the life they want. There are things in our life that we can control, and should actively work on those to improve our quality of living. There are also things we cannot control, we should actively work around them and still make the best of our life. Weight is somewhere in the middle of our control. There are things we can do to stay at a healthy weight, and there things we cannot control about our weight. The key is we can still make our live worth living now--not later; not when we lose the 30lbs (or for those struggling the other way, gain 20lbs), or scale starting showing different numbers. We can be full of purpose and happy regardless of our weight, it is not something we should wait for.
I am human and my weight changes daily, weekly, and monthly. I know that because I have kept track of my weight, and still on occasion I will weigh myself at the gym. A annoying trend I have is when I take more than a week off of weight training, I lose weight (yay! right??). And the opposite is true, if I start weight training after a short (or long) break, I gain weight (booo!). So to avoid this roller coaster, I could just stop weight training all together and the problem would be solved. I could still do other exercises. Right? Of course that is wrong! Allowing the weight of my body to dictate whether I weight train, or not; exercise, or not exercise, is a horrible loss of self control, self worth, and reasoning. I am stronger when I work my muscles. I have more energy when I work my muscles. I can enjoy more activities when my muscles are stronger. I am happier when I am working my muscle. So I am actually happier, healthier, (hungrier) and stronger when I weigh more.
I hear often the motivation of exercising is to lose weight. While hopefully if you need to lose weight, that is eventually a side effect, it should not be your goal. Weight loss is one of those things in the middle of your control. We only have particle control over our weight. A healthy person is not a light person; bone density, muscle mass, and hydration are all factor of our bodies weight, they hopefully are a big part of why we are heavy (and healthy)! When you feel something "light" it is often fragile, when you feel something strong, it is often relatively heavy. When you start exercising, you will most likely gain weight or maintain your weight for a few months. That is a good sign, that means you are getting stronger and building stronger muscles! Over time those muscle will require more energy and start using those extra fat cells and you will start to see a change; if not to your weight, than to your size (weight is also strongly influenced by diet, so exercise alone won't necessary decrease your weight...but that's for another day). Exercise will 100% increase your health, energy, and happiness... REGARDLESS of your weight! So why let your weight dictate your choice to exercise? Don't. Take control and choose to exercise for you, you are so much more than the weight of your body.
Take home message: don't wait till you are the weight that you, or someone else, designated as normal or healthy to start living. Live is too short and there are so many things to do, so start today. There is always a begin. We can't make it to the end, or even the middle, if we don't start at the beginning.
