Earlier this week I just cooked the first meal for myself in I don’t know how long. Thankfully our hosts have offered us a full kitchen to use this month! This is a huge blessing, because t hasn’t always been that way the whole Race…
Fair warning: this is a longer blog. But I write this for the person who is also going through the same the same thing.
Writing out this blog feels more vulnerable than posting my singing blog from India. I wish this wasn’t something I have struggled with since Day 1. There have been days when I have felt so low and internally so disappointed in myself in this area. Other days I feel fine and act like I’ve got this all under control.
Below is a journal entry from a few weeks ago when I felt like I was at my worst. I felt powerless—stuck in an ugly disappointment living in my own skin and trapped in a deep dissatisfaction of myself, feeling like who I really was on the inside didn’t match who I looked like on outside.
June 15, 2016
I just let out a heavy sigh.
There are some things I need to talk about that I really want to ignore and pick back up after I get back to the States. But with now only 40 days left on the Race, I have this sense that I need to push through and dig into it. And that is: my health—more specifically, exercise and nutrition.
First off, EXERCISE:
I actually miss my old gym. I loved that 6am sunrise drive to go work out. I miss cooking healthy meals for myself and perfectly controlling what I eat and how much time I spend at LA Fitness. But those things are LUXURIES compared to life on the race. Almost every meal prepared for us has either white rice, and/or some form of noodles and/or something fried.
There is also quite a bit of required time spent with the same people, and to relax, the last thing I really want to do is go running or do some push-ups. And I don’t want to spend even more time with them by working out, especially when I feel like the least in-shape person on my team…
I know I am strong physically. But a lot of times, when I look in the mirror and see pictures of myself, I don’t like what I see. The edges of me have been rounded out a bit, and I feel more bloated—especially when weird digestive issues have been throwing off my senses of being either hungry or full.
It doesn’t help that perhaps two of the most athletic people on our squad are on my team this month and they both seem to really enjoy working out. I don’t! It feels actually a bit embarrassing to be fighting for something that came much easier for me less than a year ago.
Right now, working out is a vulnerable endeavor and personally a battle. I don’t just casually go about it like it’s fun. Quite honestly it’s not fun.
And every time, it feels like I am waging war against this huge flaming dragon of low self-esteem and poor body image—wielding only a squirt gun.
At this point, I just own the fact that I DON’T ENJOY working out on the race.
But I know my body needs it. So I have a choice to make.
I’ve got 40 days now until I can go home, control what I eat, safely go running by myself and then use a my own shower, when this is all over.
But until then, I also have 40 days to put in just 10 minutes of strength training a day, whether it’s push-ups or lunges or burpee’s (…uh, maybe not burpee’s right off the bat, let’s be honest here), something that I can do by myself that makes me feel strong and powerful.
This is where I was at about 2 weeks ago. Since then, I have been trying to fit in more time during the day for some strength training, and we do walk many different places here in our last month here in Indonesia.
At this point, I have come to terms with the fact that health and fitness does not look the way I want it to right now, but once I go home in about 3 weeks, I will have more of that control that I am used to. I wish it wasn’t such a challenge to control what I can—but so is life.
Conditions are not always going to be perfect.
For anyone out there trying to find their footing in creating healthy habits—and this is also something I have been preaching to myself:
You can do it! Don’t give up and allow yourself to improve gradually, instead of trying to be perfect all at once. You can’t. Nobody can. You are amazing and beautiful in every stage of the process. Never let yourself believe anything different!
This is part 1 of 2 blogs on what I have been learning about health on the race. Even though it feels extremely vulnerable posting about my experience with this, it is something I believe God wants me to share with someone going through a similar experience.
Thank you for reading.
