Crap. It's happened again. It's May and suddenly it's beach weather.
I discovered this the hard way when I was invited to a pool party this weekend. Of course I was thinking "My body is not ready for a bathing suit."
We've all been here at some point but some of us had the light bulb turn on in March. For me, the lightbulb turned on yesterday as I was squeezing into my tankini and realizing that my butt wasn't toned, my arms were flabby, and dear God I need to reduce the size of my chest. Luckily my stomach was pretty covered so my non-existent abs were not on display.
I'm not one of those people that I'd consider out of shape. I can run a mile in ten, run for more than an hour at a time, and I'm not afraid of lifting heavy and hard at the gym. But... I can't do a non-girly push-up, I can't do an unassisted pull-up(which most women can't do anyway), and I suck at curl ups now.
So now I got another shock: my aunt wants to fly me to Destin, Florida in a few weeks for vacation. And in two months I'm going to Rehoboth, Delaware for a few days with my parents. And my boyfriend wants to take me to Maine for a week for vacation on their beaches.
Any way you look at it, that sounds like a lot of nice vacation time and I would be excited except for the fact that I have to bear a lot of skin this summer. Since I'm not in tip top shape, it's time to get real, stop playing around at the gym, and kick my butt before it sags to my knees. And hopefully do some real push-ups.
Okay, so lets be honest. Most of this is about my self esteem and not wanting to look lumpy. Some of it is not wanting my loved ones to look at me and think that I've put on a little weight since my break up in September. And a little of it is wanting to make other people think I'm healthy. I mean, I am healthy... relatively speaking. But I could be healthier. My boyfriend thinks I'm gorgeous and while I don't think I'm ugly, I think there's more that could be done.
So I'm scheduling in workouts. I'm gonna start figuring out where my food habits are bad and try to fix them. And I'm gonna try to cut out my bad habits like drinking (even if its summer and a cold beer is always a good idea) and smoking (yes, I know. Horrible habit. It's gonna be the hardest to stop too).
Even though I want to look good this summer, I also need to get things figured out before I'm 30. I'm not gonna get some trainer who tells me what to do because if I don't want to do it I simply won't even try. I'm not gonna go on some crazy diet like Paleo or Atkins just because I love my carbs (even if its mostly fruit). And I'm not adding in some weird supplement like raspberry ketones because I hate taking pills and I don't want to mess up my digestive system. Nope, I'm going old fashioned: watch what eat and workout. The only fancy thing I have is a Bodymedia Fit band which tracks my steps and heart rate and calories burned. It's about $100 but worth every penny. My younger and mother both have one and they have lost 75 pounds between the two of them.
Maybe I will succeed. Maybe I will fail miserably. But I have to try because anything will look better than my saggy buns on the beach. And maybe I'll have some insight and at least not look at myself like in crazy in the mirror each morning.
