sborton84’s BodyBlog

I’m finding it really hard to let go of someone that I should and truly need to let go of. I find myself giving out so much of my heart to people, sometimes without much thought, & end up getting hurt in the end. Story of my life.

And as I get older, my skin has grown thicker. This person has hurt me in a way that I cannot describe. Everytime I box, run, do my pushups, military situps, whatever - I picture him. Why is my body looking better? I have this person to thank. Anger fuels my workouts like nothing ever has before. 

I sit in my little dress in my membership office, smile at people, say "good day," etc. They think I am so nice, innocent, and humble. I wish I was some of those things - I could use more humility. But lately, my confidence is off the roof. I feel unstoppable. I do what it takes to get this body. What it takes is what some of you would probably consider verging on some sort of eating or compulsive exercise disorder. I have quite the slow metabolism and I eat next to nothing. Literally a couple cans of chicken a day, some celery, and hours of cardio. Box and sprint like a mad woman. Lift weights every day. I don’t care how hungry or how much pain I feel. I love every second of it and I’m completely addicted to doing whatever it takes to get to where I want to be. Pretty close, but this last little bit is going to be the hardest I’m sure!

I don’t believe in holding on to anger…it just makes us weak and say really stupid, sarcastic things. When we’re angry, we don’t think. So I’m using anger to fuel my workouts and it absolutely takes my body to the max. The adrenaline rush is insane. But afterwards, I feel calm. I beat some @ss(well…wish I could…when in actually it was just a punching bag) and feel damn good about it.

Who would have ever thought that this quiet, overweight, self-concious little girl would have turned into a sassy, angry, out-right center of attention, workout-crazed chica?? Life sure pushes us in odd directions sometimes.

I suppose the point to all of my rambling is that I am always thankful, no matter what I’m feeling, for the struggle. The struggle is what makes us strong. Letting go can be a struggle, but everytime I workout, I let go. I am simply myself. Crazy and strong. Pushing as hard as I possibly can. When I’m boxing, I love seeing my heartrate get up to 200 bpm and just stay there for as long as possible. This insanity is what sets me free. I love it. Every moment of the rush.

Yesterday’s workout kicked my butt. I can’t believe the progress I’m suddenly seeing. Odd how a year’s worth of training adds up and all of a sudden you realize what you’ve been working for. I’ve been dropping the pounds by the day it seems, and I’m lost to as why. Well not lost, I have cleaned up my diet, brought up the calories by a bit, and increased my cardio slightly. I think I can probably link the changes to the full-body workouts I’ve been performing about 3x per week. I superset tons of different exercises with sprints in between. What I like? It’s helping me shed body fat. What I don’t? It’s a little bit unorganized. I need to find a way to organize my plyo/full-body oriented workouts and still work each muscle group to exhaustion.

I’m starting to believe less and less in "overtraining." As long as you give your body nourishment and rest, can you honestly "overtrain???" I guess I’m perhaps a little masochistic (kidding), but I do love the feeling of pain during my workouts. It lets me know I’m working my body hard. If it hurts, I want to train harder. As hard as I can until my body is completely depleted. Why? I’m no longer doing this to impress anyone. I’m doing this to challenge myself and test my so-called "limits."

Anyway, I need to find better resources for plyo workouts. I want something that keeps my heart rate up the entire time. I’m not a big fan of skipping around within a 2 ft radius hopscotch pattern. I’m thinking clapping pushups (which I suck at), broad and bilateral jumps, mountain climbers, jumping over a bench (side to side), and squat jumps. I also need more combo workouts (i.e. squat w/ shoulder press, or lunge with oblique twist, etc).

 Any ideas?

“Confront the dark parts of yourself and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with you demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” August Wilson, American Writer, 1945-2005

If there is anything that describes the feelings I’m wrestling with, this quote nails it. There are aspects about me that most do not realize even exist, complexities that no one could imagine, entangled in an array of messy thoughts and heavy burdens. Nightmares so vivid and intense that I wake up flight-or-fight; ready to defend, heart pounding, sweat pouring off my forehead, my senses so on edge that I feel my feet hit the floor before they actually do. Can’t sleep. Down a few pain relievers and wake up exhausted. Drink 3 cups of black coffee in the morning to wake up. Of course, this isn’t close to who I am - not even I know the answer to that.

I remember that this anxiety is temporary. That all pain is temporary, even if it lasts a lifetime. Wrestling with complete exhaustion, I make my way to gym and force out a good 30 minutes of 12 mph sprints and slower jogging intervals. Funny thing is, I want more. My legs feel like they are on fire and I hit squats as hard as I can. Moving on to deadlifts and lunges. Body wants to fall over, but I won’t ever let it. I’m in love with and addicted to pain (sounds like a cheesey 80s love song??).

Working out in an exhausted, sleep-deprived, food-deprived state is quite interesting. Suddenly, my concerns regarding people fade and I could care less what anyone thinks of me. I’m tuned in to my feelings alone, my heart rate, my pain, and the glory felt following. Selfish? Maybe a little. But I feel very little pride regarding myself, knowing that even the most fit individual has room to improve (I am FAR from where I’d like to be). After all, we’re just people. Motivated my simple things like social reinforcers. Money. Compliments. Power. I try to think of my pain as my motivator, my fuel. I want to box it all up and disregard the other reinforcers of this world. Sick and tired of looking in the mirror (and seeing other people do the same thing). I just want to see sweat pouring off my forehead, a look of relentless pursuit and focus in my eyes, and feel my muscles ache with lactic acid buildup. Everytime I step on the track or take my morning run, I want to be unstoppable. Not to anyone else, but myself.

I came across a quote the other day that struck me, much like the old “witness” feeling you get when you know that you, and only you are being spoken to directly.
 
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson quotes (American Author and Lecturer, spiritual leader of the Church of Today, b.1952)

"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere" Frank A Clark

"I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other." Rainer Maria Rilke

"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky." Rainer Maria Rilke
My husband and I had an amazing day together yesterday. It is so odd…when you have the one you love and see them every day…sometimes that young, excited, always accepting, inquisitive love is lost in the hustle and bustle of life and you forget how ungodly LUCKY you are to have that person. And, when you’re away, you kick yourself for not looking at that person deeper, without judgement or predisposition.

When you grow up with someone you love, it is sometimes hard to see clearly. You often feel like you’re looking right back at yourself. The other becomes so familiar. Sometimes this connectivity is not so beneficial. When your ideas, thinking patterns, wants, dislikes, and etc. become a little too similar…it is probably time to seek some solitude. You want to spend every day with this person, yet you begin to lose yourself. The "you" that was there when you first met begins to fade. Everything becomes familiar, monotonous, expected. But then, something forces you apart. For Ben and I, that is definately school and work. We’re pretty young (23 & 24), married, and have about 1 day a week where we actually get to spend some quality time together. For being such a young couple, we have lived far distances apart, we’ve seen eachother break, and we’ve seen eachother conquer. Ben was there when I was in and out of hospitals due to an eating disorder. He saw me at my absolute worst - depressed, numb, and committing slow suicide. He held me when I hit the floor (literally). I felt my spirit leave. But I could NOT go. As much as my body wanted to let go…I realized that maybe GOD does have a purpose for me. I prayed for life as time slipped, and God returned life to me. He watched that. We were 16 & 17.

I decided I needed some independence. I took off for college as far as I possibly could go - 600 miles away. (I guess that’s not that far, but for a girl from a small northern Michigan town - it is!) I learned the pain of solitude. I give so much credit to those who live thousands of miles away, across continents, across the sea from those that they love. I can’t even imagine it. There is one thing for certain, every new day is a day closer to the ones back home. There is hope in that a glorious day is coming, very soon, to return home. Another thing is for certain. When you’re alone, you start to think - A LOT. Your brain races with so many thoughts, emotions, pictures that you feel like you’re being taken through a time machine with really bad wiring. At a young age, I learned a lot about distance. What it feels like to truly have an aching heart. But I also learned a LOT about myself and what I wanted in life. The solitude gave me some freedom to dream. Being alone allowed me to sit, contemplatively, in the dark and come to most amazing realizations. That I had been extremely selfish (as a teenager??? Nawwww). That my mother LOVED me and that was why she was so over-protective. That Ben was the one for me. I called him one night in tears because I felt so alone. He traveled those 600 miles after a late night shift just to hold me, just to get up 6 hours later and travel those same 600 miles for a day shift. That my sister wasn’t a pest and was a little smarter than what I mader her out to be! That little brother was much more than annoying, he was (and is ) intelligent, extremely observant, and loving of all things that are good. That I should have appreciated my brother Paul more, as I remembered all that he had taught me. That I was loved and that I was much more than a face in a crowd.

I read an article awhile back about Sarah McLachlan and what motivated her before writing her award winning album "Surfacing." She said that Maria Rainier Rilke was a huge influence on her work. She suggested reading "Letters to a Young Poet," for anyone interested in becoming a writer, songwriter, or musician. These letters, if you can bare through the older style of writing, absolutely changed my way of thinking.

http://www.sfgoth.com/~immanis/rilke/letter1.html (check them out!)

If you go to my blog site, you’ll find my favorite quote of all time.

"Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating." R.M. Rilke

Something forms within ourselves when we are placed in or we actually choose moments of solitude. There is a purpose for solitude. There is a purpose for time together. Without this balance, of finding ourselves and then binding together with the one we love, we either become lost or so entrenched in the other that we forget our reason for being alive.

There is something so beautiful inside each one of you. It does not take anyone else to create it. YOU create beauty. YOU create strength. YOU create your legacy, your story that will live on. These remnants of our solitude lend to the ones we love and make our relationships stronger, interesting, and forever flowing.

—–

I wrote this today because I have been thinking more and more about my husband going to medical school. I’ve been worrying about being alone - but I have to remember - that any loneliness that I feel will be an opportunity to grow in solitude. He is following his purpose, I must follow mine, and together we’ll continue to support and love eachother. When we are far apart, I’ll just have to remember the Eskimo proverb,

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” C.S. Lewis

I’ve noticed lately, that people are growing more and more distant…not in terms of "friendships" or "relationships." In terms of love. The kind of love that risks to be broken. We’ve all had our fair share of heartbreak. If it wasn’t a love lost, it was the death of a grandmother or grandfather, parent, or friend. We made the decision to love that person knowing full well, that there was a chance of loss.

Now I’m not trying to go all Shakespere here or anything. My concern and observation is that people are losing a sense of urgency to help others in need. We live in fear that we might be hurt, that person might take advantage of us, we might be broken! Recently, a man approached my husband and I, asking for some change. We’ve become so accustomed to this, that we often just turn around and continue walking.

Everyone has their opinions about giving money away. In a previous post, I wrote about how I come from a family that is very generous and often "gives" to the point that they are taken advantage of. Their love causing them to be hurt over and over again.

When we first moved to the city, I was extremely compassionate and willing to give a few dollars to anyone. After awhile, I realized, ya know what? I’m really poor too! I’m a full-time college-student, full-time employee, and barely have enough change to contribue to my own health and well-being. Since then, I’ve grown much colder. I don’t listen as closely. I see the surface and assume everyone is the same, has the same problems, money is the answer (sarcasm).

As this gentleman approached us while we were unlocking our front door, my husband and I started get nervous and do our regular "I’m sorry" routine. He says, "Listen, I really DO need help right now. My car ran out of gas and I need to get to hospital. My wife is having our first!" I think cold, impenetrable thougts, "I’ve heard lots of stories…some better than this." He continues on and tells us how he needs to see his baby boy being born, he has to be there for his wife. He’ll pay us back, but he needs gas to get to the hospital. "Please, can you help me?" He pulls out a laminated picture of himself and his beautiful wife, his hand rested proudly on her pregnant belly.

Ouch. That hurt. God could you lay that down a little harder?

My husband took the young man to the gas station, filled up a tank’s worth of gas for him, and told him to get going! Don’t worry about ever paying us back. Not even two weeks later, a plain white letter sat on our front porch. Inside, $40 and a picture of this young man, his wife, and their new baby and a card that said, "Thank you." Obviously, I learned a lesson from that experience. Not everyone is out to take advantage of you. I learned to keep my heart a bit more open, to open my eyes and see the greater picture, and to LISTEN.

It is very hard to choose to love when there is that chance that someone will not appreciate your act of graciousness. However, if you stay cold and keep your heart guarded, you quickly become like my husband and I had … our ears impenetrable, our hearts guarded, our eyes closed. Love comes with a price, but avoiding love causes that numb feeling that C.S. Lewis described so well, "But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable."

Man - last night before I went to bed I felt hunger pains that were the worst I’ve felt in a long time. I was so hungry, but had already hit my days limit on calories…I drank a ton of water, had a little tea, drank some diet pop to try and satiate my sweet tooth…nothing did the trick. Really weird, my dinner was a nice big salad with salmon and gorgonzola…filled me up at the time! Damn Ben’s parents for bringing icecream into the house…it is my favorite cheat food - but I never get near the stuff because I could devour an entire carton before realizing it. I think that is what sent my hormones all off whack actually. After that, I just wanted to eat. Has anyone else had that happen before? Someone brings in a big pizza or some cheat food that you LOVE, and it just sets your hunger cravings wild? Damn that hormone ghrelin! About right now, I’m looking forward to the results of some studies regarding the hormone obestatin and the protein molecule nesfatin-1!

Anyway, I guess it was worth it, as I dropped a few more pounds. I know that this nutrition plan is way lower in carbs that what any dietician or health professional would recommened, but it is really working for me! My weight is dropping quite rapidly, which is suprising to me - I’ve done low carb / high protein diets before…but this one seems to be working better. Perhaps due to the increase in healthy fats? (Lots of natural peanut butter, olive oil, almonds, and etc.) Calories are about the same as what I was eating before, but the body for life split was not working for me (40/40/20).

 This morning, I got in another amazing workout. I was feeling very weak, but pushed myself through it.

HIIT training, 20 minutes! Again lots of sprints Would like to get in a 4 mile run tonight.

Dumbbell Rows

• 12 x 40 lbs. (each arm)
• 10 x 35
• 10 x 30
• 10 x 40

Front Pull downs

• 10 x 70 lbs
• 10 x 70
• 10 x 70
• 10 x 70

Lower back extensions

• 12 x 25 lbs
• 12 x 25
• 12 x 25
• 12 x 25

Incline Bench Press

• 10 x 70
• 10 x 50
• 10 x 50
• 10 x 50
• (weak…I know)

Dumbbel Fly

• 10 x 20 lb (each arm)
• 10 x 20
• 10 x 15
• 15 x 15

Push ups

• 4 sets of 12

Today’s nutrition thus far:

Meal 1: 1 egg, 1/4 cup egg whites, 30 grams almonds

Meal 2: Jennie-o turkey burger, sharp cheddar (1 ounce)

Though I walk through valleys low, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Psalm 23

It seems as though most of my life has been propelled by fear. The reason I strive for perfection is because I’m constantly afraid of failure. The things that scare me the most are: following a creative path, coming to peace with my body (if I come to peace with myself, what if I just keep growing FATTER!!?), and living life according to what I was designed for.

Why is it that the things we know we are capable of, the things that we would feel most rewarded for - are the things we’re most scared of? Am I full of crap or is this the truth? As a little girl I could have told you my dream was to be a musician. At 22, my only dream is to have a nice body. Isn’t that sad? Seriously. A great body is an awesome, amazing accomplishment. But, achieving that has been my life long obsession. It is something that torments my mind. Getting into amazing physical condition is one thing, but placing it above all other things in life is another. No wonder I am so disappointed. My fear of failure is constantly reinforced by failing. I don’t think I will ever get past this until I accept the fact that getting the body I want is going to be filled with ups and downs.

Sometimes I feel like letting go completely. I am so sick and tired of being obsessed, eating completely lean, working out constantly, and not having any results. It’s like I’m a genetic abnormality, ironically destined to be fat. I might as well be eating shit food, watching reality TV, and be satisfied being 10 lbs heavier. Seriously, working out and eating healthy does not help me lose weight. It never has. My lowest weight was around 120 lbs. about 5 years ago. 120 lbs. and can you guess what I was eating? An fricken apple a day. About 100 calories a day for nearly 6 months. Never lost weight after 120 lbs. So. Yeah. I was absolutely out of my mind and doing all the things an anorexic does - but I never sought counseling since I was in a normal BF range. To be diagnosed with anorexia, you have to have a BMI under 17. I was to proud to admit to being EDNOS.
My thinking is so ****ing negative. It’s this damn depression - I hate it so much. "I’m sick of tired of being sick and tired." so to speak. Please, take me to Key West, hand me a salted lime margarita, some hot wings with blue cheese, and let’s go listen to Jimmy Buffet at the Margarita Cafe. THAT would be heaven right about now.

Now just because I am speaking this way, does not mean I let my depression control my life. I LOVE people, I LOVE my job, I LOVE my husband, and I LOVE working out. I love art and music, socializing, and great drinks. It’s really amazing that I have this condition when I am not characteristic of someone who is depressed.

Anyway, this is such random thinking. I apologize for those of you thinking, "psycho." I have to admit, being neurotic makes life really interesting. And way exaggerated.

Anyway, I need to give my mind some rest today. At least I know that this is just a valley, and that I will come out stronger once I’ve struggled through it.