Allysin - Summer Update #1

I know it has been SOO long since I last wrote,  

and I don’t really have a good excuse for it. So instead I’ll just take the responsibility of it. The last time I wrote I had JUST come home from school and now a month later things are all coming into place I have two jobs lined up for the summer and am currently working at one of them. I have unpacked, and I’m all settled in with my family again. So things seem to be pretty good.

EXCEPT for the fitness aspect of my life. I am just so unmotivated now. Even sometimes at work I just feel so not motivated to do anything. The weather is nice and so normally that helps motivate me but lately I just don’t feel like doing much. I have gone for a few runs since coming home and they haven’t been great but better than not at all, and the other day I went for a swim (I’ve worked as a lifeguard for the past four years so I enjoy swimming) but I really wanted to take this summer and work on getting in shape. So far it hasn’t been going well. So Month number 1 is a write off, however I have three more months to focus on being active. So here goes nothing.

Wish me luck

Infinite x’s and o’s

-A

Roxanne's Update: What Fitness Looks Like

One of the hard things with culture is the fact that it is constantly trying to tell you who you are or how you should look. In the North American culture that I live in it tells me that to be considered to be beautiful, healthy and in shape then I must be supremely thin with long lean muscles, but at the same time I need to be carefree - able to eat what I wish with the guys and to step out on any whim looking stunning - - - "Easy. Breezy. Beautiful Cover Girl" right? Everyday I am told over and over that if I want to be accepted or loved then I must lose 100 lbs. If I want to be happy and if I want to be happy with myself then I need to emulate these beautiful models that we see in advertising and other forms of media.
Maybe we have been lied to on what we need to be?
Perhaps it is time for a new definition of healthy? Of being fit?
Now please note that with this being said I am not saying that I don't need to lose weight. I understand that there are health reasons for why I do need to lose some of the fat deposits covering my body, and I am still working on that area of my life.
But maybe I don't need to be as hard on myself as I have been in the past when I'm not dropping a pound a day.
Perhaps there are other better ways of judging the changes in my body?
Did you realise that today was the fourth day of doing the 30 Day Shred DVD? And did you realise that I can now to most of the ab and strength work without a second thought? (Although my knee gives me hassels on some of the moves.) Now it's only the cardio I struggle with. But I'd like to see you do 2 minutes of cardio while carrying an extra hundred pounds, and I know that if I'm dilligent then this too will get easier. And do you realise that yesterday I walked a combined amount of approximately 10 km?
See I'm changing.
And although the scale today again stubbornly read 222.0 lbs I know that my body is a different make up then it was a year ago. I know I am stronger and fitter and have more energy. I know I am healthier, and although the scale is not agreeing, I know I am much closer to reaching my goal.
And it is because of this that I am not giving up.
And maybe this is a more accurate representation of what fitness looks like. A progression toward a goal of health, not a picture which culture constantly shows me. . . .
-Roxanne

Roxanne: Ugly Betty (Or a post on transformation)

Well folks. Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have recently moved home from college where I have a lack of internet, so at this moment I am sitting in a Starbucks across from my sister Allysin as we both try to catch up on our online world and the billions of notifications that several days away seems to entail.
The truth to be told, I am uncertain as to what week I'm on right now, but this I know - that if I were a more driven and dedicated person, then I should be running a 5K by now - or at least a whole mile. But, I am not. I am only a normal young adult with a small amount of motivation, but I think the important part is that I keep trying. And now as I think about it I realize that I could never be happy returning to my completely sedentry life. I like being active. Sure I wish I was more so. I wish I was one of those people who were born with a hyperactive metabolism and a passion for movement, but I wasn't, and now I am choosing to teach myself a love for it. In the words of a value campaign that I have come to respect:

Everytime I make a wise desicion, or get up and excercise or play sports with my family or go for a walk to think I am changing who I am, and sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes you wonder if maybe you should just stay the way you were. Perhaps you will never change so it is better to stay where you are. Change is scary.
But change is also good.
In the weeks just prior to finishing school for the year I began watching the ABC TV series Ugly Betty. So before I came home I bought the final three seasons and spent my first four days of my break watching them.
Was I completely happy with the way things ended?
No, not really.
I really wish they had tied off the loose ends better that would have given it a "happier" ending. I wish that Betty & Daniel would have kissed.
But all that is beside the point.
Ugly Betty actually taught me a lot about change and fear, about insecuirity and working beyond what you think you can do.
The TV show follows Betty who is considered "ugly" by the fashion industry in which she works. Slowly you see the shy, unconfident girl that she was change and transform. She steps into herself and begins to live up to her potential. She doesn't lose who she is, but she grows and transforms.
In one of the episodes of the final season Betty researches bug jewllery. In it she visits a designer with a love for bugs and especially butterflies. The designers has Betty watch a butterfly come out of the cacoon. During the conversation Betty is sad that the caterpillar is lost, and the designer reassures her that the caterpillar is not lost, it's still inside that butterfly - it's just that the butterfly has now become what it was supposed to be. At one point the designer states, "It's gotta be scary to change into a whole new thing."

This is where I feel I am now.
It's almost as though by actually following through with this and losing all the weight I intend to that I will become a whole new thing.
A whole new person.
And that scares me just a bit.
This new person can no longer use her weight as the excuse for why certain people don't like her, or as to why she doesn't have a boyfriend yet.
This new person will need to be disciplined and can no longer justify her bad choices with excuses.
This new person will be someone different then who I have been in the past.

But at the same time I can't keep being who I used to be.
Scared.
Unsure.
Doubtful
Excuse filled.
I'm already different, but I'm not quite fully transformed.
But - I'm headed that way.
In the words of a tweet I read the other day "Sometimes you have to step outside the person you have been" -@herewecollide
I hope I really do transform in the next few months because I am ready for something different.
For a different fight.
I'll keep you posted.
-Roxanne (@RoxyWiedemann or #2012fresh)