1/11/2013: Phase II, Day 1: What is this going to look like?

The format changes today.  No more posting my weight and calories counts.  No more conversations about losing weight or obsessing about a number on the scale.  Now...what?

I figured out how to lose weight.  I knew how much I needed to eat and how much to exercise.  I counted calories, worked hard at the gym, drank my water, and took my vitamins.  I was committed to a goal and I achieved it.  I felt like doing victory laps all day yesterday.  During the few moments yesterday that I wasn't flying high as a kite and I was thinking about what comes next, I was grateful that I was prescient enough to come up with a plan for Phase II before Phase I ended.  If I had gotten to yesterday without a plan for what comes next I would have felt completely lost.  As it is, even with a plan, I feel a little lost.  This is a whole new ball game we're talking about here.  This is uncharted territory.  I'm talking about becoming serious about becoming an athlete.

Athlete and myself are not two images that I have ever held in my mind at the same time.  My sister is an athlete, not me.  I've envied her drive and determination to be an excellent athlete most of my life.  Growing up I was torn between two diametrically opposed desires.  I wanted to be just like my sister.   I wanted to be nothing like my sister.  I envied her and hated her.  I wanted to be her and I wanted to kill her.  I think of the word, "Athlete" and I think of Ruth.  In many, many ways, taking on this next challenge, to become an athlete - for real - is finishing what I started in therapy 20 years ago.  I will finally have to banish from my head, forever, the images that I have of myself as a little girl.  The chubby little uncoordinated girl with thick glasses that always got picked last for dodge ball, soft ball, or any other playground game.  The girl that was teased for being slow and not being able to hit a ball.  I have always been bad at ball sports and I have always been slow and those two things together have always convinced me that I will never be an athlete.  It's funny though, I love to play games.  I like playing softball and volleyball and racquetball.  I'm just not very good at them.  I have a hard time with the timing.  I have learned though, that if I work really hard at it, I can get better.

A great example is softball.  My last year of high school was spent in New Delhi, India.  The high school there was so small that you could play any sport you wanted to play.  So I signed up for basketball, softball and intramural soccer.  I have to admit that I stopped playing basketball half way through the season for the good of my teammates.  I was so uncoordinated and my peripheral vision was so bad (this was before I started wearing contact lenses) that I kept stepping on my teammates.  I just couldn't do it anymore.  But I loved softball.  We had a very long season, from October to May, or something like that.  It was split in two halves.  For the first half of the season I had a perfect batting average.  Perfectly awful that is.  0.00.  I did not get a single hit.  But I was determined not to give up and I didn't give up.  Again, I had help.  It seems like everyday, but it was probably more like once a week, my dad and I would go out and hit softballs.  He would pitch to me while I would swing away.  It took me months of practice and thousands of swings and misses, but eventually I started hitting the ball.  As I recall it, I had one of the highest, if not the highest, batting averages on the team in the second half of the season.  In fact, what I do remember clearly, is my teammates being surprised when I did not win the highest batting average award at the end of the season.  I had to remind them that for the first half of the season I did not have a single hit.  What I did win was "Most Improved Player."  I was 16 years old and I had my first trophy.  That may not seem like much to you, but to me, it was everything.  I felt like a winner that day.  Just like I felt like a winner yesterday when I reached my goal weight.  With practice, lots and lots of practice, I can get good at athletic events. 

So here I am, beginning on a brand new adventure to become a triathlete, (with Ruth's help, I should add) and I am staring down this remnant of emotional baggage that I have tucked into a corner of my psyche.  How surprising is that?  I guess it will give me something to talk about as we plow through training regimens, pain, the boredom of training indoors, and the many other challenges of preparing for a triathlon.  It'll be an interesting 7 months.  My sister and I have worked hard on figuring out who we are as individuals and as sisters throughout our adult lives.  Over the last 30 years we have both made a lot of progress.  I feel like this last 46 weeks has brought us closer.  My relationship with my sister is one of the most special relationships in my life.  The things you work hardest for are the things that you value the most in life.  I know this next year will be transformative, as well.  Ruth, I guess I need to ask if you are OK with me talking about some of the past as we move forward.  I'm a bit surprised by how the emotional and the physical are still linked together pretty firmly, but they are.  Crap...too many thoughts whirling around now and I need to go to work.  This is not where I expected this post to go but here we are.  I have to start somewhere and I guess we have found our starting place.  Phase II, Day 1.  What an interesting and exciting place to be.