A couple of days ago someone wanted to know how I deal with loose skin. Some of you know and many of you don’t, but I have a good amount of the stuff on my legs. Sigh. I’ve worked and worked and it is still there. It certainly looks better than it ever has, but it is there and will never be tight and hot like I would love it to be.
I’ve accepted it for what it is…a reminder of the way I used to be and a battle scar I am not willing to surgically remove yet. I will continue to press heavier and heavier on my legs hoping that one day I will have big, quadzilla legs that fill up that skin, but until then I think about how great it is that I can hide a little loose skin versus trying to hide an extra 100+ pounds!
Mentally it gets me down sometimes. I work and eat like an athlete yet I will never have the legs to show for it. Who wouldn’t have moments where they think “why do I put myself through this if it isn’t going to get better?” I can’t linger in that, though. Thinking about what I can’t change doesn’t help me move forward on the things I can change. Besides, loose skin isn’t going to kill me like 100 lbs would have.
My goals now have little to do with aesthetics. I have learned to have the body you want, loose skin and all, comes by having goals that don’t reflect the scale or even the measuring tape. Those are the results of hard work. It’s the challenges you put in front of yourself that defines what you look like. I lost most of my weight when my goals were to run 1/2 marathons and complete triathlons. The weight fell off along with my muscle tissue. That’s when I decided to get serious and become a personal trainer. I started shaping up by doing weights to learn how to teach others. Through the late winter my upper body further built out when my goal was to complete 50 push-ups. I didn’t get to 50 but I did get some awesome biceps in the process.
What are my new goals? Unassisted pull-ups for one. It’s my dream to do these like a champ! I would also like to free squat over 200 lbs. Achieving both of those will take a lot of work and should give me some pretty good physique changes in the process. That’s a nice side effect.
My last goal is to attend a local figure competition. It is still a dream of mine to one day stand on stage just once. That is a huge endeavor and takes a lot of time and dedication to training and eating to do. I’m not sure if I’m ready for all that, but watching a local competition might be the push I need to just get over myself and reach a little further.