Appreciating the only body I get

I am currently sitting in a Barnes and Noble, where I have been holed up for a few hours to escape the heat in the world, because, as I documented on Facebook yesterday, our air conditioning is broken. A broken A/C is the perfect cap to this current heat wave we are experiencing, right? Martina and I have been lucky to have great people around us to help when things go wrong, so we are doing just fine. Besides, in the grand scheme of life, a broken A/C unit seems relatively small. It makes summer days unpleasant, but there are enough places like B&N that exist to make it manageable. The heat, of course, is not the point of this post, but it relevant to my health.

Summer is currently a week old, and I am proud of my first week. I reached my steps goal 5 of my 6 days, and the day I did not get there, I got close (1 mile away). I ate all of the vegetables, including making stir fry for the first time, roasting broccoli for the first time, and spinach in my breakfast every day and spinach in my sandwiches on sandwich days. Outside of Wednesday night when Martina and I were celebrating, I cut out super salty snacks, and more importantly to my long term financial sanity, we only ate out 1 night. The start of this week has had complications because of the heat. Yesterday I did manage to go over my steps goal by 4,000 steps, but we have not been able to cook at home so far. So far, things are going well. However, I have not been able to truly find a solid rhythm in these things. I went out for walks a few days, but other days I have just relied on my every day browsing of shelves at B&N or Safeway for my steps. I have not yet begun my second daily work out, and I spent too much time during my first week playing video games and not enough reading or writing.

This is my 8th or 9th "Day One" since I began my journey 3 years ago. I have written extensively about Day One, and if I were more tech savvy, I would link to that post, so I am not going to rehash the Day One idea. I want to focus on my positives, in hopes of providing myself with a reminder that baby steps are important. Last summer is when I was at the height of my jogging and biking. I was straight up killing it because I had built a routine. I am slowly building that routine now. My alarm goes off at 8 every morning. Now, I have to actually GET UP when it goes off, instead of laying in bed for another hour. If I can actually get up at 8, I can get out on my morning walk/jog before 9, which is manageable with the heat levels these days. I also need to utilize the pool more. The big issue there is my appearance. I am still incredibly self conscious about all of the fat I am carrying all over my body. It is never an issue when I have Martina with me, but when I go down to a pool by myself, I am suddenly incredibly aware of how fat I am and how gross I feel/look. It is an issue I am continuing to work through, but my self conscious mind always believes everyone else is staring at me and being super grossed out by the pasty white flab swimming through the water. I know, with time, I will conquer this. The fact that I can be shirtless in my apartment is already huge progress for me.

Instead of agonizing over that self consciousness, I am going to focus on the positive. Buying shorts and buying swim trunks this week, was actually a painless process. I have been wearing the same pair of shorts for a few years because shopping for them is always a hassle. Not only was I able to find swim trunks that fit (I usually purchase swim trunks that are too small because it is what they have available), I found regular shorts that fit perfectly and are 5 sizes smaller than when I was at my heaviest. Beyond that, I finally felt comfortable buying a relatively thin t-shirt. Typically Big and Tall size shirts are thick, and do not breathe AT ALL, but this weekend I tried on a thinner shirt and felt comfortable in it. I am not as worried about how it lays against my rolls of fat, or worried about how OTHER people might feel about how I look in a shirt. When you are in 100 plus degree heat, the last thing I want is to be in a t shirt that does not breathe, and just collects sweat.

In keeping with the theme for summer, reconnecting, I am reconnecting with loving myself. It can be a trying thing, to look at yourself and just love what you see. I am not sure I have had long periods of time where I truly loved myself, but I am working hard to replicate those moments, and have them last longer. My body is the only body I get, so I need to appreciate it more. I have started by treating it better, but I have to realize that even if I lose all of this weight, it will still be the same body. I think sometimes I get lost in that. I keep thinking if I lose the weight, I will somehow get a "better" body. It will still be this body. It may look different, but it will still be the body that has been 1 fight. It will still be the same body that has been behind the wheel, for 10 fender benders, none of which were my fault. It will be the same body I had when I fell in love, got my heart broken and fell in love again. It is the same body that played sports as a kid, and danced in theater starting at age 15.

For some reason, just typing that last paragraph out feels freeing. It a lesson I am still learning, but there it is typed in the ink of the internet. I will love my body because it is the only body I get. I will love myself because this is the only *myself* I get. It starts with appreciating myself and my body. It starts with understanding how to treat myself and my body. It starts with treating myself and body well. it starts with understanding this is my body and this is the only body I get.