When I read David’s post on 21043 Happenings, it spoke to me. For a long time, probably well over a year, I was “needing” something. Needing a new way to get active. But what do you do when you don’t KNOW what you need? You do N.O.T.H.I.N.G., that’s what you do. But I was done doing nothing. I knew what I should do was “try”. So I did.
I was home alone when I responded. It was a good thing. Maybe if I had someone to talk to out-loud…I might have talked myself out of it. My answer was. “David I filled out the form. Hoping to be chosen.” It was a 21-day summer trial for a kettlebell boot camp. But I think what really caught my eye was “you’ll get…..a community of women just like you.”
Those last words crept into my soul. Into the deep part of my brain. To the thoughts we rarely say out loud. “I need a friend”. Frankly, I had been missing the community of women I left in WW when I moved from NJ to Maryland. Most honestly, all this time later, I think a big part of why I eat my emotions, is from feeling lonely. From loneliness comes a deeper feeling of being unwanted, unworthy. When you are alone…you can tell yourself lies. All the warts seem bigger, your self-doubting thoughts get louder, your microscope pointed at your own flaws gets stronger. And the only voice you have nearby to listen to is the critical one in your head. The only friend….is the sugary snack that licks at your wounds like a viper. The little girl that ate Twinkies as her friend, sat up a bit straighter at the idea that she could workout, lose weight, get stronger ….. and make friends? I was sold.
So for $47 dollars, I made a promise to myself. Diane — you can do anything for 21 days. You can’t quit. Even if it’s hard. Even if it’s not your “thing”….like Zumba and Spinning weren’t your “thing”. Don’t quit. Don’t quit. You Ran A Marathon. Don’t Quit.
When David called me that weekend, he was so…..encouraging. He didn;t promise me anything. He just offered me an approach he felt confident about. I think he was trying to determine if I was more talk than action. At the end of the 20 minutes or so……I KNEW I was a.c.t.i.o.n. I KNEW it. Don’t ask me how. It was something about the calm, assuredness in David’s words, his approach, the experience he had had with women in their mid years. I was going to do this thing, this kettlebell workout thing. I was locked in. Right there. Right then. 21 days.
That weekend I went back to Weight Watchers and re-joined. I got on the scale 16 pounds heavier than when I quit. THINK ABOUT THAT WHEN YOU CONSIDER QUITTING! If you think quitting weight monitoring is EVER going to be a positive outcome, I’ll give you a $100 bucks if you ever show me someone who rejoined Weight Watchers lighter than when they quit. Offer stand. I digress, ..I was back on a path. A path toward something new. Something that scared me. Something I didn’t know I could do. But I knew M.E. I was a.c.t.i.o.n.
Up in my bedroom closet I had two 5 pound dumb-bells and 1 10lb kettlebell, all three bought for me by my husband Peter as a Valentine’s present a few years earlier (at my request! Peter is no Peleton man!). At the time…I “thought” they would help me tone my arms. HAHA! A bit of foreshadowing….David and his wife Abby run a business together and they use 10lb kettlebells as door stoppers. That pretty little yellow doorstopper in my closet was as close to a kettlebell as I had ever been, but it would not play a part in my workouts to come. This 21-day journey I was about to take would be work. Good. Value driven. Hard. Fun. Result-producing. Work.
……And I didn’t have to give up dessert! 🙂
More tomorrow.
Ciao for now….Diane