Editions of Me

Inspired by this post on Can Anybody Hear Me? , I want to talk about this photo I recently posted of myself on Instagram. On the left is my race photo from the 2012 Tinkerbell Half Marathon, and on the right is my race photo from the Star Wars Half Marathon this past January: Jan 2012/Jan 2015. "Fitter, happier, more productive..." #runDisney #running #fitness A photo posted by Thu (@vivaglamr3d) on Apr 18, 2015 at 10:54pm PDT Normally, I'm wary of Before/After photos, and I also don't like to emphasize weight loss, because it's not my goal, but I do want to talk a little bit about my weight loss. Sometimes I feel guilty about pointing out that I've lost weight. Why? Well, a big part of it is that THINNER is a societal mandate. You can't escape it - everyone and everything in mainstream media encourages thinness, sometimes at the expense of your own health. It took me a long time to stop making weight loss my focus and to learn one very

My next marathon (Vancouver, WA) is actually my 4th marathon, but in training for it, I feel unsure about myself all over again. I have not yet reached that point where everything is just lock-step for me, and plus, training through the winter was a brand new experience, since usually I don't get much mileage during January, February, and March. Hashtag: story of my life It's been really hard not to compare myself right now to how I was doing at this point in my training for CIM a few months ago, especially since my tendency has been to focus on the highlights of my training from back then, rather than to remember the everyday ups and downs. For example, during my taper period, I managed to run ten miles at an overall 11:30 pace, which was waaaaaay fast even for me. (I normally go 12:30-13:30.) I remember being shocked... and pleased. That's what goes through my head as I run now. I ran ten miles at an 11:30 pace . So when I fall short of that, which has been pretty

I've recently started deciding to get more serious about my strength training and fitness, and in doing so, I'm actually digging up a lot of old feelings or habits that were once really problematic in my life. There was a period of time when I was obsessive about perfectly tracking every calorie I consumed and when; where I was spending a ton of money at GNC buying protein powder (without really knowing why I needed it, or if I really did) and fat burners that I consumed like candy; when I would sit there sweating and feeling my heart pound as a result of all the stimulants and feel afraid that I was doing something bad to my body, but then I would go home and lift my shirt up in the mirror and imagine the barest hint of an outline of an ab muscle, and convince myself that everything would be okay as soon as I lost 10, 20, 50 pounds, maybe more. "Some girls who are my height are even under a hundred pounds," I mused to myself. "Maybe if I work hard enough, I'