When you’re an intern, you table your feelings, so to speak. By 9 am July 1, you become so laser focused on becoming a master of efficiency, on checking off check box after check box that you’ll look up and realize its April and start to feel just a tiny bit of emotion, which then starts to get overwhelming, and you quickly return to your checkboxes.
Answer the page, check the box.
I feel similarly about exercise these days. Its become a checkbox in a sense. I can still wax philosophic on why I run (or go to spin or pilates) and I genuinely think I do things for the right reason. However, as an intern, exercise has become a bit of a compulsion for me, an emotional crutch that I lean on heavily to provide a sense of normalcy in a fairly hectic life. Its something I’ve always done (dance, gymnastics, tennis, swimming, softball, soccer, so on and so forth) and I genuinely like it.
#tbt 1996
However, since I’ve started intern year, I’ve been a goal-less exerciser, for the first time in my entire life. I’m not trying to become a stronger gymnast, a better tennis player, or a faster runner. I’m….doing something I love to do.
And, this got me thinking…because the prerogative of millennials is to overanalyze our happiness instead of just being happy. Right?
Fundamentally, I think I like to work out a lot because its fun, it makes me feel better, and, most importantly, I am deathly afraid of the following: hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, coronary artery disease, strokes, heart failure, not feeling my feet from diabetes, kidney failure from high blood pressure, and so on an so forth.
And, because I’ve met my best friends through sports…
And, to be honest, “exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don’t shoot their husbands” – truer words have never been spoken. I’m pretty sure Malcolm Gladwell could find an association between exercise and crime rates.
At the end of my analysis, I determined that if we get to the root of the issue – besides the “I like it” part and the “I’m terrified of coronary artery disease” part – there are really two reasons I exercise: body function and body image.
Which one is more important to me? I can’t figure that one out.
Let’s back up a little bit.
First, meet Chainsaw and Jaws (yes, those are their names – sort of):
Aka “Chainsaw” Photo Credit: Flex Studios
“Jaws” photo creed: Soulcycle
[Sorry you guys, I took these pics off the internet. Don’t hate me.]
I think I’ve spent what equates to a small wedding fund going to both of their classes this year (pilates for Liz, spin for Jaws) mostly because I like their classes and partly in an attempt to look like them. [And partly because this winter was terrible and I was not into running in the polar vortex with ice on the ground if I could help it.]
This weather is more up my running alley.
Unfortunately, thus far, osmosis hasn’t worked. Science is really letting me down.
By the principle of osmosis, shouldn’t the higher concentration of abs spontaneously migrate to the lower concentration of abs to create an equilibrium? Yes?
I also take their classes (and others…and run) because I want my body to be able to do the things I want it to do. I want to be able to run marathons if I want to…or to work 80 hours a week on a labor floor without collapsing.
As I said in my last post, I’ve done some double/triple spins and run/pilates or run/spin or pilates/spin combos. So, if my body can conceivably do what I want it to do, why do I care exactly what it looks like? If can run a marathon, why am I mad at science for 6-pack osmosis not being a “thing?” If I can work 80 hours a week, run, still fit into my clothes, and not collapse, why do I keep interrogating Lauren on “how she does it.”
Seriously, Lauren. What do I have to do? Birth a child 10 months ago?
I don’t know either. The answer escapes me, like the concept of the iCloud.
[Seriously, you all, what is and where is the iCloud.]
Just some food for thought.
I probably won’t figure out the answer (like I’ll never understand the concept of the iCloud), but I’ll keep working out because I like it and the way it makes me feel. Do my part in decreasing the crime rate. Because, in the end, we really do this because endorphins make us happy, right?
TELL ME: BODY IMAGE VS BODY FUNCTION – YOUR THOUGHTS – GO!
Until next time…
The Thinks I Can Think 