I'm talking about body image again. (Over-sharing alert? Up to you.)

I read this article, "Why Love Your Body Campaigns Aren't Working" by Isabel Foxen Duke earlier this week and everything in it rang true to me. (I really encourage you to check it out, it's not long and the rest of what I'm saying here will make a lot more sense if you read it first.) In trying to come up with something more to say about it, something to add to the conversation or a new perspective or piece of wisdom, I'm struggling to do so. I think because I am still so very much in thrall to the idea that my life will "begin" when my body looks the way I think it should. I get a tremendous amount of pleasure as well as physical and psychological gratification from heavy weight training and it has been incredibly empowering to become strong and achieve things in the gym I never thought possible. I respect myself and my body more than I ever have, and I feel incredibly grateful for getting as far as I have in my journey.  I don't want what I'm going to say next to take away from any of that, but I also think it's probably important to say it.

The truth is, that the end of the day I have yet to root out and rid myself of the sad shame-ball at the center of my self worth that compels me ever forward in pursuit of a fitter, leaner body. On some days I think that I want this body because it exemplifies my (relatively newly embraced) ideals of fitness and health and I want to be able to show evidence of my hard work at the gym in more than just my competition numbers. But on a lot of days, the truth is that my desire for leanness is motivated by a fear that I am not worthy of "the guy, the job, or the cute clothes in the window" until I have shaped my body to meet my standards of leanness and fitness and hotness. (I say "my standards" here, and while I recognize they are cultural standards and not actually mine at all, they have been so deeply ingrained in me that they really are mine now, whether I like it or not.)

I don't think I am alone in this feeling. Whether women pursue the body they think they "should" have through diet or exercise or simply through self-flagellation while staring at magazine photos and enviously sizing up other women on the street, I think a lot of us are caught in the idea that something is waiting for us if we can just . . . get . . . more . . . perfect.

Molly Gailbraith pointed out in a recent series of blog posts on getting extremely lean (and while she's talking about fitness competition lean, which is extremely, extremely lean, I think the concept applies to any form of dieting/exercise with the goal to re-shape your body), that while so many people think that getting lean is the road to many things (self-fulfillment, happiness, respect, self-esteem), it is actually just the road to getting lean. That's it. All that happens when you get lean/lose 10#/drop a clothing size is that you are now more lean/weigh 10# less/need to buy new pants. A very simple statement but also profoundly necessary to be stated.

I don't have a neat way to wrap this up. I suppose I should strive to "focus on performance more and the scale less!" or "What my body can do and not what it can look like!" Etc, etc. But sometimes the striving to change my thinking is as exhausting as the striving to get leaner/hotter/better/more perfect, etc. I don't have any answers for that one either.

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Addendum: I want to recognize that a lot of this probably applies to men as well, but not being one, I can't speak to that experience. And I do think that historically this pressure to equate the shape of one's body with one's self-worth/worth in society has been applied much more to women, though in the last 10-15 years by all accounts, men are feeling it too and it's effing up their self-worth just as much.

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Training today:
Warmup: rotator cuff work - landmine presses and band pull-aparts (with all the direct and indirect rotator cuff strengthening I have been doing for almost two years, starting in physical therapy in August 2011, it amazes me how jacked up my rotator cuff continues to be.)
Bench deload: six sets working up to 95#x5, superset with cable rows
Accessory: triceps work and band pull-ups
Finisher: heavy rope slams