My legs and I have always had a bit of a rocky relationship. I must have been in middle school, probably no older than 11 or 12, when I began actively hating them. I refused to wear shorts or skirts that hit higher than mid-calf, thinking my legs too chunky and unsightly to be acceptable. My mom told me my calves were shapely, but I just called them fat. It took me a number of years—and a few hot summers of suffering through overheating—before I gave in, eventually moving to knee-length styles, and eventually to shorts that hit mid-thigh. In university the skirts got shorter and tighter, but were worn only on nights out and accompanied by sky-high heels and a strong dose of discomfort.
Even now, I still don’t love my legs. I still think my calves are too chunky and my thighs too jiggly. I hate that I’m knock-kneed in an obvious way. I don’t care about thigh gaps one way or the other, but I hate how much my thighs chafe, and I still feel uncomfortable with the way they squish out when I sit while wearing shorts.
Thigh squish—ack! I can’t believe I’m willingly putting this picture online!
But worse than that, I still sometimes resent my legs. I don’t resent them for their stockiness, not directly anyway, but I do resent how inconvenient they can be. It’s difficult to find jeans—especially my favoured skinny jeans—that fit properly around my calves without constricting, and it’s nearly impossible to find boots that come even to mid-calf, and even then they usually need to have laces in order to fit. Not to mention the fact that my jeans are more likely to have to be replaced because the inner thigh has worn out than for any other reason.
But on the other hand, I like wearing shorts, and I love short, swishy summer dresses—I even wear them with flats without really thinking anything of it, even though I know they’re not as flattering. When I do find skinny jeans that fit, I wear them constantly, and often find myself looking in the mirror thinking my legs look good. And, as I’ve said before, I love what my legs let me do; I may not love the way my soft inner thigh smooshes out during certain pole moves, but if that’s the trade-off for having the grip to stick leg hangs, pikes, and Supermans, I guess I can live with that.
Thigh grip is necessary for the Superman. Plus, being able to do this makes me feel like a superhero!
All in all, though my legs are still a sticking point when it comes to loving every detail of myself, I don’t actually hate them the way I once did. I still cite my thighs as my least favourite body part, but I’m not sure it’s really true, and maybe it is, at the very least, time that I start giving my legs a little bit more credit.
Success # 2 – Goals and Motivation
I’ve never been very good at making goals. I like results and I like success, but actually setting long-term goals and taking specific steps to meet them—especially when results don't happen immediately—well, I don’t really excel at that. At least, not when getting to that end point is the only motivation. For me, figuring that out has made a world of difference, because making goals and failing to accomplish them kind of sucks, and it's certainly never made me feel good about myself.
If I look at myself back in high school, or even in university, my goal with working out was always just to lose weight. No matter how much I wanted to be skinny (note: being skinny, as such, is no longer a goal of mine—being happy and healthy in my body is!), I could never find the motivation to actually hit that goal because results wouldn't happen immediately, and so it would seem like I wasn't getting anywhere, and eventually I'd simply give up. And then, inevitably, I'd feel worse than before, hating myself and my body for the inability to follow through or to change.
These days, though vanity certainly plays a role, health is a bigger factor, and the reality is that other things have mostly taken over. As I mentioned in my last post, when I started pole dancing, the primary goal was to try something new and to get myself out of the house, since I’d begun to feel like my life was stagnating. When I took up pole again after moving to Toronto, the goal was largely the same: it was something I already knew that I liked, and it gave me a reason to wake up and to leave the apartment. Now, pole is a motivator all its own.
For a while I’d begun to plateau—I was unable to learn new moves without gaining strength—and so when there was an opportunity to start hitting GoodLife with coworkers over lunch, it was easy to say yes, knowing that it would help me gain the necessary strength to improve. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't magically made me keen to spend an hour lifting weights; I still struggle to motivate myself some days (or weeks, or months), but when the goal is to improve my ability to do something that I love, it's a lot easier to give up that hour of reading BuzzFeed in favour of spending time at the gym.
So, sure, weight loss is still a motivating factor, but it’s secondary to a lot of things that are more fun and that are, quite honestly, better for my mental health and sense of self.
Part of my fitness goals list—in no particular order.
If you look at my list of goals, it’s largely pole moves. Some are far off goals, ones I may be working towards for years to come, and some are ones that I could get next week or next month if I just keep working at them. Every time I accomplish one of those moves—or even feel myself get that next step closer—I feel successful and I feel strong, and that's what keeps me moving forward. And really, that is what reminds me of how amazing my body is and of what it can do, and, much more than losing weight, that's what makes me feel confident in my own body.
The Jade Split is still on my goal list, because my version is far from perfect—but it still feels pretty amazing!
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