Quote Originally Posted by Biciclista View Post
Crankin, I didn't mean you shouldn't care about how you look. I just have seen so many well built lovely women on here griping about their imperfections. Then we get gals on here who are 100 lbs overweight; how must THEY feel?
Well, as one of the gals with 100 lbs to lose, I can only speak for myself. When I hear the uberfit complaining about their bellies or whatever, I just sort of shrug. It shows me that we all have body image issues. It sort of blows me away what some of my superfit friends say. Once I was at a dinner party with four friends and me - they're all thin, fit, active people. We were talking about pregnancy and they all have more than one child. I've got one miracle child and I've lost five. I just sort of stay quiet for conversations like that, when women start talking about how challenging it is to juggle more than one kid's schedule, all the work it is, and so on. I feel really blessed to have my daughter and we get to do an awful lot together that I'm sure would be more challenging if there were a younger sibling inthe picture, but oh, to have that opportunity. Anway, in the course of the conversation, one of the women said she got up to nearly 200 pounds when she was pregnant the second time, with her son, and she felt like a total cow. She's 5'11". She could carry 200 pretty easy, but she weighs about 130 now, runs, swims, black belt, etc. I just about sank through the floor, sitting there weighing around 250 at the time. I wanted to leave, but it would have been really conspicuous.

I just think sometimes really fit people forget how lucky they are (and maybe lucky is a bad word - it's a lot of work being that fit, I know), or maybe they figure they've worked themselves into this kind of enviable physical shape, why can't they conquer this last little flaw, whatever it is.

Another friend, also 5'10-11" and the wife of a professional athlete and she's got legs down to there and plays volleyball and looks like she just jumped out of a magazine ad most of the time, she's doing this triathlon I'm doing this weekend, too. They both are, actually, she my other tall friend (I have a lot of really tall, thin friends, go figure). She was trying to convince me to do the triathlon, too (I'd brought it up that I'd like to do it, but hadn't been able to find a wetsuit to do the swim portion - I can swim the distance, but it would take me over 45 minutes because I'm just not fast yet, and hypothermia is a real concern, so I hadn't committed to doing the race), and she said they'd all been talking about how I'm probably the strongest of all of us, with my 50-mile bike rides, and how it's unfair that I've had so much trouble finding a wetsuit to fit, but mentioned that she has, too, being so tall and thin.

It gave me a new perspective. As someone once told me when I was lamenting that woman in black who rides around my lake on my path looking all gorgeous and powerful and leaving me and my mtb in the dust, everyone has their own issues.

I'm just so grateful to be moving around under my own power at all. I don't need assistance for anything physical. I'm way overweight, yes, but there are people who are so much more challenged than I. I feel lucky to be able to go ride my bike and feel like an athlete, and to get in the pool and swim ten laps with little breaks here and there, but ten laps, and sometimes fifteen, under my own power.

I do weigh frequently - every other day or so - and it helps keep me focused on the goal. I don't freak if the scale moves up a pound or two. It's all relative. I've lost 15 pounds over the last month and hardly anyone has noticed. Really, it's all relative. I'm still very weeble-shaped. (reference the photos on my new used Ruby Comp off Craigslist thread)

And maybe when I'm down to 135 and struggling with the remnants of the belly roll, I'll be lamenting the same way the uberfit are now. Who knows.

Roxy