Not Gonna Die

I know I write a lot about my love of healthy living, most notably about crossfit, so I’d like to reference you back to important things about me & my blog, one of which is “huge douche about my love of crossfit.” It’s important to me to stick to my goals & improving at the gym helps me live better & be happier. Endorphins keep anxiety away which helps me look at my life & see what a charmed life I have & helps keep me grateful for how lucky I am to live this life. 

But I digress. 

Anywho, I was surfing the Facebook this morning & I saw this random post about a runner encountering an overweight woman running & how he was really proud of her for starting her journey to health. It made me think of my first day at my gym & how nervous I am about switching gyms because of the move (despite the one 10 minutes from my new house offering UNLIMITED CROSSFIT. *Homer drools*). 

West London Crossfit is full of cool people. Despite what you’ve read about crossfitters being elitist douchebags, they’re pretty much the raddest people. My first month there, I was so intimidated. These people were athletes; I am me. I am barely coordinated & overweight & not strong. So, I often hid in a corner & hoped no one could see me struggle through my burpees & power snatches & sometimes I was so embarrassed that I was trying to do what the bad ass athletes could do that I wanted to quit. However, they did see me. And one day, about five weeks in, while going through a workout, huffing & puffing, all of these athletes were cheering & encouraging me to keep going, I was doing great! I finished, but most importantly, I came back & I kept going back. I stopped being afraid. I entered the open. I tried really hard. And now, when new people come, I’m the one encouraging them, which isn’t as meaningful as someone who’s lifting twice their body weight, but I want to pay that forward. Hopefully, the new gym knows what big shoes they have to fill, because the good peeps at my gym helped me realize what I was capable of. 

Which is why I’ll never understand the idea of people bullying the fat person on the track or at the gym. They’re trying! They’re working & struggling & hoping to reach healthy goals. Yes, they may not be doing what you can do, or they’re using the equipment you needed, or worse, are the dreaded resolutioner, but I bet you were once one of them. You didn’t come preprogrammed to rock fitness. Why not smile, or offer a small encouragement? That might be the thing that gets that person back tomorrow, instead of quitting & feeling like they couldn’t do it & shouldn’t be there. I’ve always been fortunate to have support because my best friends are personal trainers. But for others without that support, your smile or eye roll may be what keeps that person coming or why they quit. 

And what you do influences the next generation. I’ve mentioned in the past that my kids come with me to the gym often. I often hear them encouraging the people just starting out & that they’re doing great. And just yesterday, while I was finishing a workout, climbing a rope (which I hate & is really hard), I was pulling myself up & struggling. Then I looked over to see that my kids had made encouraging signs, which made all of the difference. 

 
We were put on Earth to help each other, not tear each other apart. Let’s not tear each other apart when we are at our most insecure and exposed. After all, you wouldn’t want someone taking your flaws & picking you apart for trying to change them.