Getting Healthy Hurts

There were things nobody told me about burning fat. Not my friends, not my family, and certainly not the woman smiling out of that before and after photo, unrecognizeable compared to the person she used to be. These are the words we learn to associate with weight loss: “fast” “easy”....and my personal favorite, “eat whatever you want and STILL LOSE WEIGHT.”

The fastest way to my inner toddler’s heart is to tell her “Yes, you CAN subsist on a diet of nothing but pizza, ramen, and sugar cookies! In fact... it’s GOOD FOR YOU!”

We’re not losing weight. Despite our parents' generation eating a diet that consisted of butter, meat, and potatoes (in that order) as a generation, they were slimmer. There’s no need to re-iterate the notion that morbid obesity is at an all-time high. Why?

When you bounce into the gym looking glorious in your brand new under armour bra of boob death and adorable tights, carrying a mammoth water bottle with the words “fast!” “easy!” and “fun!” playing on repeat in your head, failure is inevitable.

The truth is that starting a healthy habit is a process. It doesn’t happen in one day, or one trip to the gym. On my first day at the gym, I stood on an elliptical for twenty minutes, staring glassy-eyed into space, and wondered what I was doing amongst the thin and the toned and the beautiful, looking like this.

It wasn’t fun or pretty. My hair looked awful. I was covered in sweat. No amount of deodorant was covering that barnyard smell. To say nothing of the pain.

I’m fully convinced that people who say they love working out have some sort of masochism issue. I see them at the gym, pushing and grunting so hard that I’m afraid they’ll have a heart attack right there on the bench (and if that happens, how long will it be before those weights are finally free?)

Nobody (sane) loves working out. It is incredibly painful. Fat loss is also painful. Before I lost the weight, I didn’t know what “burning fat” actually means. There is a very real sensation of burning. Your body heats up. Your skin turns red. You feel like you’re going to throw up, pass out, or die.

The worst thing is, those are the moments you need to push through to change your eating and exercise habits. Moments when you feel like you’ll die and the entire world will end if you don’t consume an entire pizza RIGHT NOW. Moments where you are exhausted from work, dreading an entire night spent putting the kids to bed, and have zero interest in anything more challenging than opening a bag of chips and switching on the TV.

If you can push through those moments of feeling sore, tired, inadequate and just plain DONE, yes, there is a magical land on the other side. A land of feeling less exhausted at work, looking fantastic in that outfit, actually craving vegetables (I know it seems impossible) and being able to carry the groceries home without feeling like your arms are going to snap in half.

But first, we need to let go of ideas like “easy” and “fast” and “under ten minutes.” It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be fast. You’re not going to smile a gigantic smile and sweat glitter. It’s going to suck.

And it’s going to be worth it.