Endorphins

Yes, its old news...but new to me. Going to the gym can make you feel good and exercise can get addictive.

I have always had to bear the burden of coming from a non-athletic family. Sports, phooey...what matters to my family are our drawing, writing, singing, ballet-dancing, piano-playing and pictionary skills. Basically I was built to be a creative person who's pretty much a weakling. When my metabolic rate started easing its way out at age 26, I was left to try my hand at actually exercising to look fit instead of deceiving people into thinking I was fit just because I was naturally skinny.

So I picked up climbing, running, surfing along the way, still demonstrating my klutzoid abilities and natural non-athletic-ness all the while, but damn I tried! I even saw progress sometimes. But in the last year, I've had over 10 people tell me how much weight I've gained, including my half-blind grandmother, the older helper of our next-door neighbor, and my best friend's mom who actually called me chubby *sniff*. I admit I'm being overdramatic especially to people who have bigger problems with their weight than me, but I guess its just a glaring difference to someone who always struggled to get beyond 104 lbs. This year while vacationing in the US I weighed in at 118 lbs. DING!

I gave up my luxury gym membership last January because I was bleeding cash by going only twice a month, but this July I crawled back to the ghetto gym on the next street and signed up for about 5 months. Then I got a trainer (a guy who's skinnier and shorter than I am though he seems quite capable). I've been going back religiously 3x a week. I get withdrawal if I miss a day. And I've started seeing results! I don't know if its psychological, but I'm imagining cuts along my arms already, and the poof in my tummy area seems much less. In fact when I suck my gut in during the mornings I can actually see abs. And I now weigh an ideal 113-114 lbs.

Physically, I haven't felt this good in ages. Its a good counterpoint to the gloomy weather thats prevailed over our skies lately, weather that just makes you want to crawl into bed and meditate on your life. Now if I hadn't been gym-ming I'd probably think of all the bad stuff and magnify them by a hundred times. Thank goodness I've been going, its helped me to stay positive no matter how things are.