Jenn

When I was overweight, I always kinda thought that losing weight would fix a ton of stuff in my life. That my life would then be the way I wanted it to be.

I have to say, a lot of that happened.  I can wear the clothes I want. I can walk around naked and feel great about it. I can eat crap food sometimes without feeling like a loser and berating myself endlessly.

Amusingly though I have a new set of problems now. Namely injuries. I’m just heading to Physio, again.  My left shoulder is screwed, so is my right hip and knee.  My right shoulder isn’t far behind.  I’m faced with the reality that while I’m in pretty good shape fitness-wise, my body is a fairly unhappy camper and no longer appreciates my ‘Take No Prisoners’ workout style.

I don’t feel fat now. I feel my mortality.

I could circumvent the majority of my pain by adjusting my workouts, and being patient and not jumping so fast into ‘full-blast’ mode after injuries and illnesses (”Weekend Warrior”-ing  myself). Which I’m cool with. What sucks is that my body isn’t doing what I want, as fast as I want. I am realizing that the fast recovery isn’t coming back. Ever.  When I was overweight all I saw was my physical potential, and in my mind it was limitless.

Turns out it isn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, when I was fat I had loads of physical problems. Plantar Fasciitis from running (because I weighed a lot and ran, I hurt my feet), back problems from having a weak core, horrible cardio capacity and endurance…  But it takes so much longer now to recover from injuries, and so much less to injure me than when I was younger.  And I have to say, that freaks me out a bit.  In so many ways I’m physically so much better than I was when I was 20, half my life ago, that it feels unfair that now that I’m maximizing my potential, my body keeps breaking down.  I’m so glad I’m where I am now, and proud that I’ve done what I have. But right now I’m feeling twinges of regret that it took me so long, even though my biggest motivation to lose weight was not to feel any regret later.

Youth was wasted on young Jenn. Sigh.