self conscious

I’m gonna get real honest on this site for a couple minutes, so buckle up and hang onto your hats.

And trigger warning: I need to write a bit about body image.

See, I’ve never really been a skinny guy. I’m mostly okay with that. It’s genetics and life choices and rarely putting too much thought into it. As a result I’ve gone through ups and downs, highs and lows, but on average I’ve always been a little thicker around the middle…

…which if I’m being blunt, in perspective, seems a little crazy for guy who is as active as I am in this stage of my life. I run. I walk everywhere. I swim and cycle. I break a sweat numerous times every day. One would imagine that I would shed pounds like a snowman in the summer sun given all the time I spend on my feet and doing manual work.

Look. In previous iterations of my running writings I’ve devoted a substantial amount of word count to detailing the efforts I’ve made to control a bit of that weight. I don’t do it for looks. I do it most often for no other reason than every extra kilogram is extra wear and tear on my joints when I run distances. Knee issues? Lose some weight. Ankle pain? Lose some weight. Run faster? Yes. Lose some weight.

Every single time I’ve had success peeling off, say, twenty-ish pounds it has been almost exclusively through diet. Oddly enough, it often seems to have very little to do with my exercise regime.

And just like in those previous iterations of my writing, here on the latest version of this writing adventure I’ve set aside a whole category to go into some detail on this topic. Why? Because I know myself. I know I’m going to stray into writing about it, hell, if for no other reason than this summer’s running photos have be feeling a little self conscious that I’ve let the weight creep back over the last few years.

Also. My knees hurt. My ankles hurt. The soles of my feet hurt. And I suspect it has a lot to do with lugging an extra ten kilos of Brad along on all my runs.

Of course, it’s making me self conscious to even bring it up, but I also think some brutal personal honesty might help make longer term changes.

We all look in the mirror from time to time: I try to do it for the right reasons, but I’m a human caught up in the same world as the rest of you, for better or worse.