Struggling

Not so much with Bootcamp (although it does kick my ass every day) or even with my diet (although I did indulge in a piece of cheese and a dollop of mayo on my sandwich today) I'm just feeling exhausted and depressed in the worst way. I've been struggling with feeling this way on and off all week. I know there are a number of factors contributing to it, just wish I could get a handle on it and beat it back. I'm feeling like so many things are hopeless right now and I just feel incapable of giving myself the kind of pick me up talk that I usually do.

Anyway, on the body front, I feel as fat as ever and I'm constantly tired so that is pretty discouraging. I haven't weighed myself but my clothes are just as tight. I remain my own personal afterschool special with the instructors taking turns nursing me through the running parts of the workouts. On Thursday we did Guts & Guns, focusing again on abs and then using tricep dips, pushups and resistance band exercises to work our arms. And there was a painful amount of running interspersed with it. As usual, I coped with everything but the running. Whenever we're running from point A to point B there are a few of us who set the pace for the end of the pack. The instructor leading notes when we've fallen really far behind and will have the bulk of the pack run back and forth until we catch up and then the whole group continues. This is smart and considerate as it allows the group to roughly stay together and arrive at the different points at the same time without allowing the faster folks to be stuck waiting around a lot. Its also sometimes really really annoying when a bunch of pony-tailed size 2's lap you repeatedly while maintaining chirpy conversations about their weekends of partying. I'm really working hard at not just hating them out of hand. I know that would be wrong. And some of them have really gone out of their way to be encouraging and supportive. And they are probably perfectly lovely people who rescue abused puppies and volunteer with illiterate convicts.

Why do we devalue people so much based on appearance? And why do I despise myself so much when I look in the mirror? The layers of flab are like testaments of my failures, my laziness, my worthlessness. I feel so buried sometimes. I really thought that bootcamp would help snap me out of that, help me feel proud of myself, help me develop a sense of accomplishment and empowerment with my body. I'm not giving up on it, but I'm not feeling those things yet and I don't know why.

Anyway, just for the sake of documentation, Friday we did Relay day which wasn't too too bad except that the last relay race involved a section of crab walking and I simply could not get my butt off the ground at the point. So I did the best I could dragging it through the wet grass for the entire length of the course while everyone cheered me on. The ridiculous nature of the scene saved me somewhat from abject humiliation. One thing that I do like about bootcamp is that its a chance to sort of relive all those Elementary School PE sessions and field days which were such awful experiences the first time around with "classmates" who are actually encouraging and less likely to point and laugh and refuse to pick you for their team.

Today we did something that I think the leading instructor called "Jog-a-Rama", you can guess how much I enjoyed that. I do think I slipped into some sort of zone for the latter half, my memories of the whole morning are a bit fuzzy but there were lots of stairs, and somehow the course WAS uphill both ways. I just know that the cold wet grass I collapsed into at the end was some sort of transcendental nirvana.

Till next time . . .