Violet Voices

Pumping Iron

I’m really not the athletic type. I live a very sedentary lifestyle. I’m very comfortable sedentating right here in front of my cozy little computer, thanks very much. (And yes, I know “sedentating” isn’t a word–it’s part of my creative license as a writer to coin new words or verb any sort of word that isn’t yet a verb.)

But the last couple of months, I’ve been *gulp* getting up at 6:30 a.m. to do a half hour or so of cardio excercise. And we recently added weight training in the evenings. My legs and my pecs are SO sore! I waddle around the house groaning, and can hardly hold the hair dryer over my head. (Okay, so it’s only like that for a day or so…don’t feel TOO bad for me.)
Am I crazy? Well, uh…maybe you’d better not answer that.

Why am I doing this? Several reasons:

• I’m in my thirties. And last I checked, gravity hadn’t suddenly started working in reverse.
• I want to look in the mirror and enjoy what I see.
• I’ve finally accepted that God gave me a body meant to have muscles. I’m never going to look like an emaciated runway model–not that I particularly want to. But I don’t want to be flabby either.
• I want to look attractive.

The biggest reason for my sudden interest in exercise, though, is because I want to set a good example for my daughters. I want them to have a mom who feels good about herself and who shows them what a healthy, active lifestyle is all about. My former ranting and moaning about how “fat” I was would have accomplished nothing but teach them that this is how a woman views her body. I know only too well how much little girls internalize from what the women in their lives say about themselves and how they treat themselves.

I want my daughters to learn to treat their bodies well, to be healthy, and not to obsess about what the culture says is the way a woman’s body should look. I want to teach them that staying in shape is important–not for the sake of being “skinny” but because their bodies are amazing, wonderful gifts from God to be used and treated with respect.

We started this sort of teaching when our oldest was a preschooler, but I realized recently that my actions will speak so much louder than all of my admonitions and lectures. I hate exercising. But for the sake of my girls, I’ll do it.

Not that I spring out of bed every morning at 6:00 a.m. bubbling over with excitement at the prospect of a 35-minute cardio workout. I actually spend about 20 minutes every morning after the alarm goes off convincing myself that I actually DO want to get up, that it really IS important, and that I really CAN do this. Most mornings, now, I win, and trundle my reluctant, sleepy self off to get ready to exercise.

I hope this all works–I really, really hope that my daughters reach adulthood with a much better self image than I had at that age. And I want it to be based on the right things–like their good choices and decisions, and who they are as ethical and moral people–and not on their weight.

Do you think we have a chance?

Off to get ready for this evening’s torture…uh, I mean, weight training session. I think it’s legs again. Already. Didn’t we just do those last week? *sigh*

The Pumping Iron by Violet Voices, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Written By: Meredith Efken
Posted under: Women's Voices .  Email This Post