Uplifting

I have had a pretty great day today. I sent a friend of mine a link to my blog, which I wasn't planning on doing just yet. It goes back to some of the things I wrote in the first entry about being apprehensive about telling people you know and love what you are doing in regards to weight loss...and I think I was most embarrassed than anything else.

Anyway, I sent her this link, and it was waaaayyy less horrific than I thought it was going to be. And by that I mean it wasn't horrific at all, which I should have realized because this person is one of the people who understands me the most, and has been one of the best friends I've ever had (how's that for sentimental, Julie). This is also the friend that pointed out to me a while ago that I really hide what I am feeling, even around the people I trust most, so I figured it was fitting to have her be the first one of my close friends I talk to about my weight and my issues surrounding it.

So, in sending a simple e-mail that started as a joke about a Rod Stuart song and a fake lesbian relationship, a lot of anxiety and unnecessary worrying was let go in my mind, and it reminded me of something I'm NOT afraid of (which is weird because this is something that most people, overweight or not, are anxious about).

I am not at all self-conscious about wearing a bathing suit. Yes, to some that might seem trivial when it's written like that, but if you think about it, it is not at all trivial; almost every woman (and even most men) are extremely self-conscious about "swimsuit season."

Why am I not anxious about this? I used to be on the swimming and water polo teams when I was in high school. I was already overweight at this point (200 lbs at the very beginning of my freshman year), so you would think that I would already be a little self-conscious about being in a bathing suit when I was that overweight and a 14 year old girl on top of all that. I was at first. Probably the first 2 weeks, I was self-conscious as hell. But there were a few girls on the team who were around my size, and they walked around like they didn't notice how big they were. After a while, I was so used to being in a bathing suit, that I stopped caring that racing bathing suits were waaayyyy more revealing than the usual one piece I wore in the summer. And for the record, even with all the intense practices, I still didn't manage to lose weight because I still ate a ton...swimming=carbing up for big tournaments=pasta parties for the whole team...yea, not so good when you aren't swimming in the tournament because you're on J.V.

From there, I became a life guard, and then head life guard, and then pool manager, which lasted until my senior year in college. So I spent a sizable amount of my life in a bathing suit, in public. I am a pasty white Irish girl with tons of freckles and about 100 extra lbs to spare, not what you would imagine in a lifeguard, but I never really felt self-conscious just walking around the pool deck with my much tanner, much tinier counterparts.

Even now that I am just getting back into a swimming routine, I walk around in my bathing suit like I own the pool at the gym because the pool is where I feel comfortable...the skinny lifeguards might have looked better in the bikinis they wore during their breaks, but it was always me they came to for swimming tips, and I could always go faster in the water. Hey, you're weightless in water, so there's that :)

Thanks, homie for helping me out!