Trim Und Fit
Those of you who know the current version of me know that being active, whether that means getting to the gym, biking to work, or going on an adventure, is important to me. I say "currently" because god knows 6 or so years ago that was not the case at all. I knew back then that I wanted to get into shape (not that I was obese or anything, but definitely "skinny fat") but I didn't have any impetus whatsoever to get into a gym. Don't get me wrong, I was a relatively active kid, if you count staying inside most days and then suddenly hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim "active". But I never had that fire lit under me to really care about my body.
Cut to my annual doctor's visit for my 18th birthday. It was at this visit to the men in white coats that my first blood-work panel was done, and I vividly remember the doctor coming back in a follow up visit to review the findings. He walked into the room after rather theatrically opening the exam room door, and sang-song "guess who's blood pressure and cholesterol is uuup?". I couldn’t believe my ears - me, at 18, having high cholesterol and blood pressure? My parents and the doctor seemed unphased; it was natural, they said; what with my family's medical history and all. More or less, as they were telling me, I was on my way to becoming like many of the men in my family: amazing fellas, but with a whole army of medical problems nipping at their heels.
I tell you all of this to express where my modern day way of thinking about health, fitness, and all things medical started; for the last 6 years or so it's been about preventative care, rather than treating something once it becomes a problem. It was preventative care that got me off of meat for all of 2016, due to my wanting to know what exactly was going into my body. It was preventative care that got me into the gym during college, to make my body look better (obviously) but also to combat my family's hurricane of a medical history that's been passed down to me. And it was preventative care that pushed me to visit my doctors some 3 or so months ago to check and make sure I was on the right track nutritionally. It was at that meeting that we realized together that I may have (and later confirmed that I had) Lyme Disease.
In the past 3 months while under treatment, I've been unable to go to the gym more than once or twice in that whole span of time. Which as you can imagine does NOT sit well with me. It's given way to some unhealthy habits that make treatment even harder. That, and many of the symptoms of Lyme were easier to deal with while I was being active (ex: sleeping better), even though I didn't know at the time that Lyme was present, or that it was preventing me from losing any fat or gaining any muscle. After 3 months of not being active I had certainly started to get unnerved by the slew of men who'd come into work everyday looking great and toned with their summer bodies (note: I currently do freelance brand marketing for a hair salon in Boystown Chicago, gay capital of the Midwest).
Cut to 2 days ago when a very fit and muscular gentleman (who was a regular) came into the salon. He was a regular and we'd met briefly before, and on this instance I mentioned offhand how I wish he could be my personal trainer. He suddenly got rather serious and reassured me that I'm "beautiful just the way I am" and that I shouldn't compare my body to the bodies of all the other men I interacted with her at work or in my personal life. Granted, he's right, but all the same he missed the point of what I was trying to tell him (and mind you I did try to tell him that I wasn't trying to get buff so I could be like everyone else, but he seemed determined in his thinking that I had a deep insecurity when it came to body image and others' perception of me).
Here's the deal tho. While there's certainly some vanity involved, my wanting to have a fit and strong body comes from my desire to show on the outside what I know I feel on the inside. I know that over the course of my life I've grown to be a pretty strong person internally, mentally, psychologically, etc. And for me, becoming "Trim + Fit" or "buff" or whatever is more about knowing that I CAN be physically fit. That if I set my mind to it, I CAN achieve this goal. Lord knows there isn't much in my life that's coordinated or planned out or fully executed to the mark and followed through. I'm a bit of a gypsy in that department. But I care deeply about my health, and my body. And I want that to show. I want to feel strong not only internally, but externally. I know body image doesn't mean everything, and vanity/bodybuilding/weight lifting of any kind is a slippery slope, and we all sag and wither over the years no matter what. But I have ONE body in this life. ONE chance to get things right. If I have the ability to improve that situation, I'm going to take it.
Especially when you consider the zombie apocalypse and all that. I do NOT plan on being lunch meat for the undead.