I have been thinking about this for some time, I am not the person I used to be. Or should I say I am not the personality I used to be?
I don't think I am who I was before I got so fat. I am even more confident than that. I am more certain, more comfortable. This is due, in part, to age. Let's face it, middle age brings on confidence - it just comes with living. The really interesting stuff, though, is not related to age, it's related to massive weight loss.
Something very profound happened when I lost weight. Layers started to peel away. All the insulation that I wrapped my ego in came away. Like sloughing off dead skin or peeling an onion. I can't say if it was quick or slow, but in less than a year I already felt like a different person. My sister said she got her sister back.
The manifestation of this is manifold. I join conversations and groups readily, I accept offers and take more risks, I seek opportunities I wouldn't before. My last post was about movement, and this has a lot to do with it. Being able to move easily in this world is a big thing, no pun intended! I also notice that people treat me differently. People I knew before are just, well, different towards me. Or is that am I different to them?
I am more relaxed in some ways, and yet more animated. I feel more myself.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Move It!
I can move it. And I am.
Being able to move is reason alone to move. Before surgery I avoided moving. I knew this wasn't the way life used to be or should be, but moving had just become, inconvenient. It wasn't easy, it wasn't fun. I sweated, I panted. I didn't like the thought of anyone seeing the mass in motion.
On Tuesday my sister treated me to a NIA class. A combination of free dance, yoga, martial arts, isometrics and motion. It was fun, it was carefree, it was (eek!) exercise. Wednesday and Thursday I felt sore muscles in amazing places. I felt tired, but also exhilirated. Exercise as it should be.
But it's easy to say that when you are not overweight, isn't it? So I write this lest I forget some 5-10 years from now how much fun it is and how significant that is.
I wouldn't have dreamed at jumping at the chance to take this class in the past. Sure there were times in my life I was fit and eager, but they were not recent and not the norm. My sister has been a long-time devotee of NIA and so I had been hearing about it for years. Having the chance to spend a leisurely day with her and partake was just too tempting to miss. I had to do it, I wanted it!
I still love yoga, for the meditation and the physical development. But maybe, just maybe, I don't need to be so...cautious...anymore.
Being able to move is reason alone to move. Before surgery I avoided moving. I knew this wasn't the way life used to be or should be, but moving had just become, inconvenient. It wasn't easy, it wasn't fun. I sweated, I panted. I didn't like the thought of anyone seeing the mass in motion.
On Tuesday my sister treated me to a NIA class. A combination of free dance, yoga, martial arts, isometrics and motion. It was fun, it was carefree, it was (eek!) exercise. Wednesday and Thursday I felt sore muscles in amazing places. I felt tired, but also exhilirated. Exercise as it should be.
But it's easy to say that when you are not overweight, isn't it? So I write this lest I forget some 5-10 years from now how much fun it is and how significant that is.
I wouldn't have dreamed at jumping at the chance to take this class in the past. Sure there were times in my life I was fit and eager, but they were not recent and not the norm. My sister has been a long-time devotee of NIA and so I had been hearing about it for years. Having the chance to spend a leisurely day with her and partake was just too tempting to miss. I had to do it, I wanted it!
I still love yoga, for the meditation and the physical development. But maybe, just maybe, I don't need to be so...cautious...anymore.
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