Idiotic ideals

I suppose everyone has a list of things they'd quite like to have. Once upon a time it was my fitness back. I wanted to run up stairs and not be out of breath at the top, I wanted to go on holiday and yomp around all over the place without being the red faced knackered person at the top of the random hill in the middle of the pretty random town.

I think I'm mostly there. Certainly, walking has no fear for me any more, except uphill where ironically the issue now being something else utterly unrelated to respiratory systems being the issue. But I wanted something and I've worked a bit hard for it and I've got it.

I still get the usual comments though. People look and don't see what I am doing to fix the problem, instead assuming that I haven't realised there is a problem and am still compounding it. They don't stop to ask how many miles I rode last night - instead I get sniped for not riding tonight. There is a relentless expectation of fat people: lazy, can't be arsed, find something too difficult and never bother again, only excercise is lifting a pint or a fork, smelly, sweaty, uninteresting, no energy, no determination, no willpower, no participation in life.

I'm tired of feeling judged and desperately wanting to scream at people about sometimes things being wrong that you can't actually see and there are many things I can't do right now and you know what, sod you because I'm doing everything I actually can and you don't know what it costs and do enjoy those painkillers for that hangover you've got, do enjoy the luxury mate, because I don't drink more than 2-3 glasses of wine a week because I know there's calories in them glasses and it's calories I've not got time to burn and oh boy wouldn't it be nice, wouldn't it be oh so nice to have the soothing mist of Ibruprofen descend and take it all away.

It wasn't always like this of course. I got fat because I just wasn't paying attention. I was a size 18 before I did pay attention and started going to the gym 3 times a week and it made not the slightest bit of difference at all. I went for 3 months, 3 times a week, cut right down on food and watched everything I ate and lost not a pound. Knowing what I know now, I should have packed myself off to the doctors and asked the obvious question, but of course I didn't, I just got miserable and irritated and disheartened and gave up.

I didn't know what I know now, about very many things. I didn't know because the medical profession hadn't discovered it yet because the research simply hadn't been done. If I had known, I'd have understood a little better why the exercise wasn't working and why simply cutting down on food didn't work and changed my diet entirely, changed the contents of the food I ate entirely so that it did make a difference, so that bits of my body stood a fighting chance of processing the food I was giving it. Stupid, really, in retrospect.

I wasn't always so stupid.

I was the sporty girl at Middle School. Played hockey, starter bod on the 4 x 100m relay, somewhere in the midst of the 4 x 400m relay team, top 10 in the boys and girls cross country running races (never happier than sliding down a hill on my behind - nothing changes). Got glasses, got braces, got.....quiet. Very quiet. Got distracted by books and learning stuff and more books. Lots of books.

Secondary school came and went with a passing venture into javelin throwing and the humiliation of the Country Championships where I discovered everyone else knew how to run and throw bar me. Brief dalliance with rounders in the last ever match of the last year as my House team discovered they were one down and needed someone with two legs to stand in. Discovered javelin arm also meant batting arm also meant no hope of anyone running faster to reach the ball than for me to run around a tiny little loop. Too little, too late, confidence dissipated into the wind and that was it. No more exercise bar podium dancing 3 nights a week in a local club full of rave music while at university. It was enough combined with skint student diet to ensure I was a size 12. I looked ridiculous. I am not designed to be a size 12. Seriously. No, really, seriously. I looked like a cartoon character and not in a good way, in a ridiculous way. Never again.

Then I moved to London and it all went wrong. Too many take aways (what a novelty), earning money, living on my own, too many ready meals because I hadn't a clue how to cook, and eventually when earning more money too much eating out. I just didn't.....notice. I didn't. And by the time I had the gym wasn't working and I just didn't know what to do.

So what would I like now?

I'd like to be smaller. But more than that, I want to be fitter. I want to be fit enough to sit in my saddle for 8 hours straight, hammering around and around red routes, pedals turning as fast as my legs can push them, faster and faster and faster. I want to be faster and fitter for me - a recurring them of the exercise I have enjoyed the most has been the element of competition with myself and no one else. I don't want to beat anyone else, I don't want to be first, I want to only know that I pushed myself as hard as I possibly could and that there is no whispering guilt that I could have tried harder. I want to know how hard it's possible to push my body and for how long and find the edges of what I am capable of, both mentally and physically. Eventually, I'd like to run across fields and up hills again, the exhileration of flying down the side of a hill in the mud, occasional slides into piles of nettles optional. I'd like to find myself again, the 12 year old version of myself, who wasn't self conscious or hesitant, who did things for the love it and for no other reason than that.

Sometimes there doesn't have to be any other reason. Sometimes I ride my bike, not to get fitter, or lose weight, or to get home. Sometimes I ride my bike because I can, because I love it and it really is as simple as that.

I've got the day off tomorrow. I'm spending the weekend bouncing around a field to really rather good music. But my alarm will be set for the normal time, because a day off without sneaking an hours riding in would be a waste.

Life. Changed. Attitude. Changed.