Measuring success

When I started on this journey 3 years ago, all I wanted was to be healthier.

I wasn’t treating my body well, and it was revolting against me.

Pain. Inflammation. Fatigue. Depression. I could barely function. I thought that if I just started treating myself better, it would all magically go away.

As if. My immune system still tries to destroy every little particle of pollen it comes across. But somehow I am better now. It’s not a miracle, but I am no longer damaging my body with stuff my body doesn’t need (read: beer and fast food and bad sleep).

Back then, I decided that I would be successful if I could stop drinking and exercise a few days a week.

Success!

But goals change, don’t they? Then we tack on some more goals, like I want to swim 50 meters in under a minute and I want to lose 5 pounds and I want to get rid of this belly and I want to have biceps..

And then the dreaded I want to have a six pack comes in and it’s game over.

Just kidding, but I have been chasing that one for a while. I never did make it to 5 pull-ups, either. So does that mean I was a failure? Definitely not. I think changing goals the way you measure progress is important.

I used to think that the way my body looked was the measurement of success. It’s not uncommon for men or women to do. We see photos everyday of beauty/masculinity standards and that’s what we think success looks like. It’s one way to measure it. Back when I was lifting weights, that seemed to be the main way people measured their success. So I became obsessed with how my muscles looked, and I thought I had to be a certain body fat and have muscles that show here or there when I flexed a certain way.

To be honest, it was tiring. I became self-obsessed. It was strange, honestly, but I am not surprised. Muscles are very showy, and they are hard to earn, no doubt. Yeah, strength is cool too, but you can’t really show off a 600 lb. deadlift to your friends at the bar. So my success just centered around my body, and it wasn’t good for me.

When I bought my bike, I started a transition over to more endurance-type sports. I wanted to do the sprint triathlon, and I found myself back in the pool, back on the road running, and in the spinning studio. I needed to shed some extra pounds and get my body in shape for a whole new kind of exercise.

I was always into running when I was younger and in college. I would run 3 miles every day around the college track (as long as I wasn’t hungover), so this kind of exercise felt more natural to me. But even still then, I was more worried about how many calories I was burning per exercise than I was about how far or how well I was performing.

It seems silly, right? Isn’t it more about doing the actual sport than what I looked like in the mirror or what the scale told me?

Over time, that “calorie” number has slowly become a measurement of how much I need to eat, and what I need to eat to recover or prepare for something. As I’ve leaned out, I’m more concerned about losing too much weight rather than restricting my calories to prevent gains. In a way I still do, but physically some days it’s just hard to eat that much, especially healthy food, so it’s kind of self-regulating. And, well, I just feel better. I’m not constantly worried about my body image. I’m not constantly comparing my arms to someone else’s or trying to get someone to check them out because, you know, that’s what you do.

I am a lot happier now. I think I’ve found my balance. I am eating well. I am exercising regularly. Sure, I still long for the abs, but I’ve become content with my body for now, and I think that’s way better. (Oh, and also my quads are kickin’ :) )