A conversation with my mother

My mom read my blog yesterday and told me she better not show up in it. Well, that's like telling me the oven is hot! Of course I have to touch it!

But seriously, she said a couple of things I want to write about.

First, and she's said this before, she asked me why I don't just cut down what I eat, and therefore not have to exercise so much. I was like, hmm. Stop doing something I like, so I can stop doing something else I like? That doesn't seem to make sense.

So she said, "Well, I still have this mentality that exercise is pain - not fun!" And I told her I was terribly sorry for her.

In Dean Karnazes' book Ultra Marathon Man, which is really a fun read, he also equates pain with exercise - and goes a step further. He actually says he enjoys the pain.

I don't enjoy the pain. I endure it when appropriate for the fitness gains (when I say pain, I'm talking running my mile or 5K time trial or pushing hard up a hill on my bike or doing those last couple of reps of bench press). But the vast majority of my training doesn't induce pain - it may result in a high heart rate and heavy breathing, but it feels fun - especially when I'm with my girls! I mean, we could be out drinking margaritas and eating chips and salsa and gossiping. Or we could be together, running on a brisk fall morning and kicking up leaves like little kids. Chips and margaritas sounds okay, but running is just so much better - all the social benefits, plus the health benefits!

And then, eating. I love to eat. I always have. I remember being in kindergarten and getting a snack when I got home from school - two cookies - then getting a second snack when my little sister woke up from her nap - two more. I felt slightly guilty about it even then, but I was able to justify it to myself somehow. So I was pretty much a compulsive eater early on. My mother has never loved food like that. In fact, when I was an overweight teenager, to make myself feel better about my mother's naturally thin body I would tell myself - and her - that she was really anorexic, so she wasn't healthy either. But I was always jealous that my mother and my sister could share clothing, but I was too fat. And today, I'm kind of jealous that my mother doesn't love food like I do. It would be so much easier to eat for fueling only; I could weigh and measure everything and eat perfect meals if yummy food didn't mean something to me.

So I remind myself that my mother isn't out running marathons. But honestly, I wish she would - I would love to share with her the joy that I've gotten by getting and staying fit. (She does exercise, but she appears to have mental blocks about running.) Too bad she's 3,000 miles away.

And I also remind myself that now that I'm thin, even though I still weigh more than my mom and my sister, it's not about numbers on the scale (which today were weirdly low, especially given the 470-calorie slice of Starbucks Maple Pecan Streusel Loaf I ate last night, while enjoying a coffee and hot chocolate with Gabriel, who was telling me all the reasons he doesn't believe in Santa Claus - how sad!). It's about what I can DO. And I can do a lot that I never thought I could!