{a different mirror}

My husband always tells me I don’t look in the same mirror that he does. When I am having a bad body day and feel “fat”, when really I know that I’m not, but for some reason I cut myself down and say that I am. My hubby tells me I look in a different mirror than everybody else. These days are usually at the end of a string of days that start with me falling off my “clean eating” wagon. A day or two doesn’t hurt the appearance of my body, how I like my body to look, but a day or two more than that and all the sugar and toxic crap from sub-par foods starts to show up in a bloated hot mess in my mid section. My mid section is my gauge, that is were the crap settles in my body. It is different for everybody, this is where my “problem” area is or what I see to be my “problem” area when I’m not totally eating how I should be. This is when I have to step back and put things into perspective and look back at how far my body has come and ultimately what I want for my body and how I want to live my life.

I don’t want to be skinny. Before I got married I was skinny. Yay, right?! I thought so until I come across pictures when I was in the height of my exercise obsessed and bad dieting days, which I thought was good dieting. I looked skeletal. I weighed about 112#, 25# less than I weigh right now and I still didn‘t think I was skinny. I am 5’4”, I’m Mexican and Danish. I have half Latina genes and half 6’2” farm boy genes. 112# is not right for my body type. It is skeletal and not healthy. I would workout seven days/week and not eat any fat, because fat makes you fat, right? Wrong! I remember days that I would go out and run at 11:00 p.m. because I hadn’t had time earlier in the day and I was freaking out because I didn’t get a workout in.

Before I came to CrossFit I still wanted to be skinny. I wanted to be skinny because that is what society has made women to believe is beautiful. 

I look back at pictures before I joined CrossFit and I still looked skinny, but I never thought so. I weighed about 123#, about 15# less than I weigh now. I was a runner. I ran a few ½ marathons and running was my sport. I ran in the streets, I ran trails (which I miss) and ran in the winter, I ran in the dark with a headlamp and a reflective vest. I ran and these were my legs.

They were skinny. Yay, right!!! WRONG! I probably couldn’t pick a huge bag of flour off the ground with those legs! I could run 13 miles, but who cares. When in my life am I going to need to run 13 miles? I want to be strong to do everyday things. I want to pick up a 50# bag of dirt when I am planting flowers. I want to be able to move a piece of furniture by myself if I have to. I want to be able to do anything in my everyday life that requires strength. So these are my legs now.



They are not skinny. They fit into very few pair of jeans at the mall. My butt is probably twice as big as my running butt, I have a booty. My thighs look substantial in a pair of shorts in the summer. I have given away half my wardrobe because my shirts no longer fit because my back has gotten broad and I have big shoulders and arms. I have to wear large tshirts because mediums no longer fit. I will never be skinny and I love that. I weigh 12 pounds more than I did before I started CrossFit, but I am down one jean size. My body composition has changed so much. I went from skinny-fat to strong and lean. This is what I want for my body. This is how I want to spend the rest of my life.

This wasn’t an overnight acceptance of my body. For a long while after I started CrossFit I still wanted to be skinny. It took well over a year. After having surgery over a year ago I lost muscle mass as I was recovering and rebuilding my strength. There was an in between stage where I really liked what my body looked like, but I didn’t have all my strength back. I had to decide what I wanted more. A “smaller” body size with less muscle mass or did I want to be strong again which meant more muscle mass and a bit more size. Not bulky, but more size. I opted for the latter and I have never regretted it. I’ve learned to embrace my strength and know I will never be super model skinny and I’m okay with that because I think a strong, fit body is sexier and more attractive than skin and bones. I know. I have been there. So today I weigh an average of #137. This is the same weight I was after my first year of college when I had gained my “Freshman 15”. The two bodies don’t even compare. I have gained and lost and gained and lost and gained in my adult life. I am ending at gaining and my body is all the better for it.

On a side note, looking back I know now my desire and obsession with being skinny lead to years of struggling with infertility, as well. My lack of body fat resulted in a lack of ovulation. Each time I got pregnant it was after, for whatever reason, I had gained weight and I weighed about 130#. After starting to pay attention to my body I started to realize that my body won’t ovulate if I weight under 130#. So in my effort to be skinny I was killing my efforts to get pregnant. I took fertility drugs of all sorts to try to get pregnant and they never worked. All I needed was a healthy lifestyle. My body has never ovulated regularly until I started Crossfit. Not until I was 37 years old when I started making my body strong and balance and eating a clean, healthy diet did my body start to do what it is naturally supposed to do. Everything we do to our body and everything we put into our body makes a difference, it matters.

I have also finally embraced the body that I was born with. Thanks to genetics I don’t have a waist and that has always bothered me. I say I have an “H” shaped body, no defined waist. What’s the sense in whining about that? What can I do about it? Nada! That’s the waist I got from my dad. So, it is best not to wear belted dresses and tops and an empire waist looks better on me. I can live with that, fashion problem solved! So, I have no waist, but thanks to reconstructive surgery I have bigger boobs and it makes my waist appear smaller. Hallelujah for optical illusions. Slowly my body issues are being solved by the miracle of modern medicine J (seriously, this is not the way to solve body issue problems!). It has been a long slow process, but I have finally wrapped my head around how I want my body to be. I want my body to be strong, not skinny. I know that if I decide to add heavy lifting to my CrossFit programming I will start to get “thick” in my midsection. My back will start to broaden out and I may start to look like a linebacker in my clothes. I don’t always like this. This is when I have to stop and reconsider my goals. Is the change in my body worth the tradeoff to get a 300# squat or to make it to Regionals next year? After much thought the answer is yes! These are goals that I want to achieve and I will take what comes with it. It took me awhile to get used to my strong body and they way it has changed and the way it continues to change, but I‘m there.

Thankfully, I found a support group of women that I go to about five days a week that have helped me to be proud and content with my strong body. It’s our CrossFit gym. All these ladies understand that skinny isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. They all understand that jean shopping is not an enjoyable experience. We celebrate our CrossFit butts and have fun doing a “butt test” to see if we have the coveted CrossFit butt yet! (Yeah, I know silly, but we all laughed and had a good time with it!)

It’s a wonderful thing being surrounded by like-minded women and having every body shape and size celebrated for what it is and not what society has led people to believe it is. I love that my body is strong and healthy and that is a good place to be!