Thursday Confessional

I'm a big dope. Let's just get that out of the way first.

Why? Because I've been feeling down on myself since Tuesday night. I'd been feeling all athletic and cool and then I had a look at myself in the mirror while doing yoga at Bootcamp. Bad thing to do. I didn't like what I saw. I have an image in my head of what I look like and what was staring back at me wasn't what I thought it should be. As Mulan once opined, "When will my reflection show who I am inside?"

What I saw was an overweight dumpy-looking girl (with two inches of underwear showing, but that was yesterday's story). I couldn't help but think that's why those girls thought they could beat me. Because I looked like the sort of person who should be beaten. The low bar to be jumped at the barest minimum.

Since then, I've been sulking. I told myself I'd write a blog post asking for people to tell me that I was hawt and I just didn't know it yet. You know, my own little pity party. My husband tried to cheer me up, but that didn't work. I was sulking but good.

I was sulking so much that I didn't realize that I've already been given what I had asked for. First, a coworker complimented me on my weight loss yesterday morning. She'd never done that before. Second, a friend also mentioned it to me yesterday - she said I was looking "tiny." (side note: I love that word). Again, she'd never done that before either.

And here's me, being all boo-hoo about it and I had my encouragement right there. Not only that, but some of my own words came back to haunt me. At the beginning of my weight loss journey, I promised myself that I would appreciate my body at all stages. Because when I was young, dumb and skinny, I didn't appreciate my body for what it is. A gift.

From now on I'm going to try and focus on the gift that I've been given. To love it, love handles and all. And I'm going to remind myself that though the outside might look like a low bar, my spirit is a high bar over which none can jump.

Or if they do, I'll trip 'em.