I bought a bicycle and it arrived on my front door today. I want to get more fit this summer and my boyfriend suggested we buy bikes. I was pretty apprehensive about it. Mainly because most cyclists you see are skinny-minny men in Lycra. And also because I haven't ridden a bike since I was a kid.
When I got home from work, I spent about an hour getting the courage up to take it down the street. This is the unfortunate reality of a lot of plus size gals - the frustration that something simple like riding a bike can cause so much anxiety and doubt. But guess what? I did it. I rode on the road (as a kid it was strictly the path) and cars drove around me without beeping. People didn't stop and stare. I just...did it. My boyfriend bought me some portable speakers so I could hook up my iPhone, and I placed this in the basket and listened to Cut Off Your Hands and Jungle Giants as I rode.
I went for a ride but came back home after 10
minutes because I forgot something. I forgot that I'm fat and can't ride
for more than 10 minutes. I'll have to work on that ;)
On a side note, I'm reading this memoir of a girl who suffered from Bulimia and Anorexia. It's called Wasted, written by Marya Hornbacher. It's so beautifully written that I haven't been able to put it down. I haven't finished it, but she wrote something in the introductory chapter about her recovery that really struck a chord with me. She writes about the need to "make her way back to reality" on her own terms:
"My terms amount to cultural heresy. I had to say: I will eat what I want and look as I please and laugh as loud as I like and use the wrong fork and lick my knife. I had to learn strange and delicious lessons, lessons too few women learn: to love the thump of my steps, the implication of weight and presence and taking of space, to love my body's rebellious hungers, responses to touch, to understand myself as more than a brain attached to a bundle of bones. I have to ignore the cultural cacophony that singsongs all day long, Too much, too much, too much. As Abra Fortune Chernick writes, 'Gaining weight and pulling my head out of the toilet was the most political act I ever committed'."
This meant a lot to me because I'm learning what it truly means to love my body and enjoy it NOW. Not to wait until I'm a size 14 or smaller, or when that roll of fat right there disappears. The perfect body may never exist for me, and I'm okay with that. I've made my peace. Yes, I want to lose weight. But I love being curvy; I love my body as it is now. And it's taken me a long time to get to that place. Thank God I did.
Yay for cultural heresy!
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