On Fitness

I've started riding my bike again lately, and I am trying so hard not to make it into a weight-loss thing. The fact that I am the heaviest I have been in my life (which isn't saying much when we're talking about me anyway so there's no reason to make a big deal out of it) should not influence whether I go biking or not. I just like bike riding, I do. I get to see the city, be outside and surrounded by nature, and get some exercise. I am being very firm with myself that losing weight should not be a motivator in riding my bike. I am still at a healthy weight. I am not unhealthy. I'm not very active, and I can count on one hand the number of strong muscles I have in my body.

But sometimes I feel like though I may be biking also for those myriad other reasons (and it is something I really enjoy as it lets me see the city without using a bunch of gas in my car and having to drive super fast, but I'm still going somewhat fast and I don't get tired as quickly), I am also biking to lose weight. I hate this. I don't want to be obsessed with this. I haven't for most of my life, and I thought that was because I was above all of this, but really it's because I've been stick thin and weeny-tiny all my life until now and I don't know how to handle it.

While BMI may not be the best indicator of health, my mind still fixates on it. For most of my life I have been underweight, just slightly. I am now firmly in the middle of "healthy weight" and it's weird. Given, I was small for most of my life because I was dancing all the time, and because I guess some kids are just like that. I wasn't developed yet, I was very active, and my mom never bought dessert.

I think it was in my last two years of high school that that changed, because I wasn't doing gym class anymore and was spending a lot of time just sitting and studying. Which meant I became pretty smart (and insecurities about intelligence are a completely different topic-- let's just say when you're hanging out with the really, really smart and hardworking kids all the time, you start to feel bad about your own abilities when your grades don't measure up), but also meant that I gained weight. This wasn't a bad thing. I'm not going to say I was unhealthy before, when I was a twig of a girl, but it's not like I was unhealthy after. I just weighed more. That was all. And there wasn't anything wrong with that. I was still healthy.

In my last year of high school, as I'm sure you all know by now given how much IB still rules over my life, I had to find a way to do 50 hours of action activities. That meant like physical activity, not taking action on causes- something which was covered by the 50 service hours I had to complete as well. I ended up taking TRX classes at the gym- something I tried to go back to this summer, but the schedule at that gym has now changed (they used to do punch cards- as in you buy a card, when you show up for a class, they punch your card-- very handy-- but now they do 8 week "sessions" and while I would need something for june-july, there's only may-june and july-august so I meant really I'd be paying for two sessions and only going to half). I really liked TRX- I had actual mucles. In my arms, too, which was really something for me. I also gained about 10 pounds over the course of the year, which I attributed to muscle mass building. I don't actually know if that's accurate or not- I only went to the class for an hour a week, but it was pretty intense. Over the summer I wasn't able to go as often and so the muscles faded.

Over the past year at university I will admit I have been snacking. A lot. I was more concerned about the financial burden at the time, seeing how much money I probably wasted buying those damn hershey's drops, but I think it was a small act of rebellion. My parents- my mom especially- weren't around to police my eating anymore. I could buy snacks whenever I wanted to... and no one could judge me. Mom wasn't around to say "your thighs are so beautiful, you don't want them to get lumpy and ugly" when I was snacking on saturday nights while my roommate was out at the bar. Mom wasn't around to give me judgemental looks and tell me to "be careful with the chips, dear". Mom wasn't around to say "you're growing out now, and not up, so be careful with the chocolate." I get that my mom loves me and that she always will. I get that she will always be proud of me. I get that she will always be there for me. But it just dawned on me now that my desire to lose weight is probably obviously really, really, really tied to my mother.

Because while I realize that she will always love me and support me and be proud of me, I still feel like she would be more proud of me if I was back with my BMI firmly at underweight. Like she wouldn't make these comments. Those comments imply that she thinks I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm doing something wrong, that I'm forever on the cusp of being ugly and I had better be careful, because I'm just about there, and if I don't watch myself, I will be ugly. If I don't watch myself, all I will get are judgemental looks from my mom.

Much as I don't want it to be, my issues with my weight and health are all tied up with my relationship with my mom. I don't want her to comment about this at all. I don't want her to give me looks for eating doritos or chocolate or brownies or ice cream. I don't want her to tell me to "be careful" with food. I don't want her telling me how to eat or how to treat my body. I want that to be left to me.
I want to have a good relationship with my mom, too. I want to be close to her, I want to be able to talk to her about anything, and I want to feel like she loves me and is proud of me. Perhaps I am putting too much weight on these things she says, but they're still really poisonous to me. When she says something like those things, I feel my heart rate increase, my stomach twist into knots, which is exactly the same response I have before writing a hard exam, or the response I had in middle school when I had to interact with those idiot boys who treated me like shit: I get anxious. I get nervous. And being home is hard because of that. I'm always waiting for her to say something.

I just want to feel like my mom isn't judging me for how I eat. I want to feel like she isn't judging me based on how my stomach sticks out now, because I've gained about 10-15 more pounds in the last semester alone (the freshman fifteen is apparently real... although I think it was just me snacking before dinner and then being full and then making myself eat dinner anyway because it was good for me and being way too full like if I just snacked after dinner then that wouldn't have been a problem). Yesterday I wore a purple shirt to my sister's piano recital, a sort of stretchy one that I've had for a few years that hung on my stomach awkwardly. And I was worried that my mom would say something about it. I contemplated not wearing that shirt because I was worried of what my mom would think, of whether she would say "I don't think that shirt is the most flattering shirt on you, dear." But I did wear it, and thankfully, nothing happened (beyond getting insecure at the recital again because a) I can't play piano well anymore and I hate that, b) because now my sister just loves her new piano teacher and everything we ever had to do with the old piano teacher is poisoned, and c) because there were two girls there who just won like all the awards in the universe for piano that the teacher had to tell everyone about and it's like yes that is good for them and obviously they worked hard for it but you're still a little jelly). Mom and I both ate two cupcakes at the recital (albeit, they were tiny ones), and nobody made a big fuss over it. All was well.

I'm just... I'm actually questioning my own motives for wanting to start biking regularly. Is this about weight loss? Should it not be? Does this even matter? Can't I just say I'm doing it for health? But what does that even mean? Doesn't 'doing it for health' imply that weight loss is part of it? What happens if I don't lose any weight despite biking lots over the summer? What if I don't gain a lot of muscle, either? Was it all for nothing? And part of me is starting to think that maybe I should just fucking bike and if anyone tries to say that I'm doing it to lose weight I can tell them to go fuck themselves because my weight is nobody else's business, and I am slowly trying to reclaim it from my mom.

I get it. She's my mom. She worries about me. But seriously, if she wanted to help me out here, she'd stop with the comments.

As for why I can't comment on this to her and ask her to change, one time I said it really sucked being late all the time for school and I mentioned that I blamed mom for it (because seriously, she would say "be in the car by 7:30" and then casually not be in the car until 7:45, making me embarrassed and late all the fucking time) and I was a little rude about it and my mom's response was to act like I was being totally mean and ridiculous and deliberately hurtful and the next morning my dad drove me to school because my mom wouldn't (or at least, that's the impression I got from asking why he was driving me). I felt horrible, tore myself up about it, cried a lot, and then apologized to my mom. She was completely cool about it when I came in, teary eyed and hating myself. She said she wasn't mad about it, and kept a neutral face the whole time. That unsettled me. She was like the popular girl, acting like I was the one making a scene and getting emotional over nothing when she refused to drive me to school. My point is, if I try and confront her about this, she will get defensive, I will get blamed, and my dad will be no help at all because he tends to agree with her. Like a lot. I will feel horrible, apologize, and be made to feel like it wasn't a big deal at all, and nothing will change. It's just not worth it.


I love my mom. I do. We have our moments, there are times when I love spending time with her and feel that she is a source of wisdom and strength. But as I get older I find those moments becoming more and more rare. I hate it. I'm probably exaggerating the story above. Of course my mom is supposed to be perfect and hardworking and admirable, and she is hardworking and admirable and I just want to feel close to her. Maybe this is some kind of delayed teenage rebellion thing. I don't know. It just makes me sick, and I want it to end.

yer pal,
swegan