My rocky relationship with running and the fat on my body

At some point last summer I started running. I don’t know why. I’ve always kind of hated running. I would run every once in a while as a teenager, just because that’s what people did to stay in shape, right? My mom and dad have always been big recreational runners. My mom used to get up at 5am everyday to run when I was little bitty. That and Jane Fonda aerobic videos was how she lost her pregnancy weight after I was born. My dad still runs on-and-off throughout the year for weight loss/maintenance, but also because it’s a mental release for him. He’s always told me he does his best thinking on a run and feels so much better emotionally after running. Throughout my running experience I’d regularly been plagued with shin splints and similar injuries, plus I never really experienced the “runners high” probably because I was very active in my everyday life anyway and was just “high on life” most of the time. Essentially there was not much that drew me to it other than a great-big Fat-And-Ugly Attack. Then I’d throw some sneakers on and go run a couple miles and feel like I did something healthy for myself.

My experience with running last year was very different. I invested in some good shoes, took it easy, and learned to run more on the balls of my feet and less slamming my heal into the ground to avoid the shin splints I’d regularly suffered. I did mostly intervals on my runs as I was dabbling in the “Primal” way of exercising at the time, but realized very quickly that sometimes I just really enjoyed a steady-state run for a little while. It was my time to be alone with my thoughts (and my music), and I understood for the first time in my life what my dad meant when he talked about that mental release during a run. I guess maybe that is similar to the “runners high”. It definitely boosted my mood, as well. Considering the depression I was/am currently battling, this was/is obviously a great side effect.

While I didn’t run regularly (or at all, really) over the winter thanks to the Polar Vortex, I definitely missed it a lot. I signed up for my first 5K a couple months ago (as most of you regular readers know), and since the weather has started to thaw out a bit I’ve been trying to get out at least twice a week in prep for my race. But what I realized last night is: running is making me feel my age. I can feel all the aches and pains in my joints that I never experienced in my 2+ years of on-and-off weight lifting. And I don’t think I like that.

(Full disclosure: I did experience some lower back pain over the winter due to poor squat form, but once I corrected my form the pain quickly subsided.)

Another thing I don’t particularly like is feeling the fat on my body jiggle around when I’m running… which is something I’ve noticed more of lately. Special thanks to those fat stores I put on over the winter while slacking on my diet and my exercise… A friend posted on Facebook yesterday about being frustrated with what she called “saddle bags” – but essentially she just meant having hips much larger than your top, making it hard to find or make clothing that fits properly. This term must have gotten stuck in my brain, because last night as I was getting in the shower, I started noticing that I have actual saddle bags; these really not-fun little fatty pockets on my hips that I’d never really noticed (or chose to ignore) before. Some of you may be thinking, “WHAA?! No! LIES!”, but they’re incredibly easy to disguise by simply wearing some kind of clothing! So of course you wouldn’t have ever noticed them in the photos I post here, or even in real life if you saw me – because I’m generally not nude. But what I also noticed is that I’m starting to slim up and firm up everywhere except where I most need/want to, which of course is my lower belly/hip area. These are always the last fat stores to go – especially in women of child-bearing age. Whomp, whomp. But there IS progress happening.

I keep thinking to myself, “Self, just commit to your strength training and HIIT and be a little smarter with your food choices – the fat will burn off.” And just about every weekend I think to myself, “Starting this week I’m going to avoid processed food and be really on point with my diet.” – and then I’m not. But I also realized that eating for my training is much like my wanting to quit smoking or wanting to get more sleep at night; I wanted and “tried” to do these things for several years, but it really just didn’t click for me until this year. “Dieting down” may not click for me for a while longer, and really the most disappointing part of that is I will have to purchase shorts in a larger size for this summer. I’m trying really hard not to let that push me into a deep depression, because it’s really nothing worth being depressed over right now. I’m on the right track. I need to just let this serve as reminder to keep on top of my diet/exercise moving forward, and not give myself a 3-4 month “break”. I honestly think the largest part of this equation is going to be returning my focus to lifting and move away from steady-state cardio. Last spring/early summer I was exercising less than 3-4 times a week, doing minimal cardio, and lifting lots of weights – this seemed to agree with my body, although it was around the same time that I started falling into a really deep depression. I think once I wrap this 5k, my runs will be strictly for fun/mental health, mostly intervals, and mostly short distance. This will better benefit my strength training and fat loss while still offering me the mental health benefits of a run.