Monday, January 10, 2011

A Futile Exercise

by Kris Pitcher

Her legs were longer, she was definitely blonder, and younger. I couldn't help but size her up as she was doing dips at the gym. Dips are fairly impressive, and she was refusing a spot from her male companion/boyfriend. She has hair that looks like she's been rolling around in the bedroom but just the right amount. There was no chance this was going to turn out well.

I was trying not to stare directly at her, but I wanted to assess whether her shoulders were better than mine. Skinny waist, broad shoulders...skinny legs. Hmm. She's certainly a pretty girl, she always looks great. You know how some women just always look great. I'm not one of those.

But then after her set she did the most repulsive, disgusting thing. In that moment I had absolutely no question in my silly comparative game who came out ahead. She took her hands bringing her thumbs and middle fingers together to place a ring around the "largest" part of her thigh and no problem she could reach finger to thumb. SICK! Hello bird legs be careful when you walk to the car or you might break a leg! It was repulsive!

Where's my lip gloss?
The exercise was futile from the beginning - comparing ourselves to others is just silly. But I'll be honest it's hard not to do it. If we want to make comparisons, we should compare ourselves to ourselves. Make sense? I mean comparing a gazelle, to a zebra just doesn't work.

Seeing our own changes via how our clothes fit, or taking circumference measurements or even pictures is great. Seeing gains in our strength, in how we feel doing our cardio or in our flexibility - all markers of success. Our weight on the scale is tricky, and I believe we have distorted numbers in our head anyway.

I came away from my few minutes of weakness with confidence in my strength, feeling grateful for my structure, and thinking that this 40 is pretty great. Although I did put on my lip gloss. This zebra's got to strut her stuff!

1 comment:

  1. You have the best articles. You write what I am thinking. I have this type of experience almost every day when I go into the gym and there is a new "buff" girl there. The good thing is that when I see these new girls, I work a lot harder!

    ReplyDelete