Being Tough is Tough.

All my life all I have ever wanted to be was strong. Strong mentally, emotionally, especially physically. I wanted people to look at me with a mix of awe and trepidation. Strength is an important quality to me- it isn't the be all end all- but it is high on my priority list. Something I never really realized is....being strong- being tough-----fucking sucks. Cause there are so many different definitions of strength, so many different measures you can make. Not only that, but once you achieve a certain level of toughness people expect you to be that all the time...it is like being the world heavy weight champion in boxing. Once you get to that level you spend the rest of your life fighting to keep it. Let me say that again for those of you following along....ONCE YOU GET TO THAT LEVEL YOU SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE FIGHTING TO KEEP IT!

In modern social media terms I would say something like "the struggle is real", but people who hear that don't understand the meaning behind those words beyond the internet meme. Struggle- the constant feeling of treading water to keep yourself alive. It is an active verb, it never stops- not even when you are sleeping. I think about my food, my training, my physical body, my goals non stop, because it has to be a life style.

Strength has to be a life style...Today I am struggling harder than I have in awhile. I am struggling with this new training style- I honestly feel like I am not doing enough work. The volume and level of training I am doing doesn't feel as heavy or as hard as I was doing....the cardio is certainly much less intense. Maybe that is the key.

Then of course comes the hard part of eating the right way----I am having to consume MORE calories in a day then I expend. It is completely contrary to my entire thought process since I was a child. My mind has always been on a constant loop of "reduce, reduce, reduce" and "get smaller, get lighter"....and now I am intentionally trying to put on weight. Logically I know what I am doing is going to result in a stronger, healthier, better looking body than what I have now- but mentally and emotionally I just can not reconcile it.

How am I supposed to get stronger if getting stronger requires a strength of will I have never had to exert over myself before? I have never had to imagine a world in which I intentionally ate more than I required in a day- especially after working so hard to lose so much weight.

So many people that see me and know me and my story tell me how amazingly strong I am, how tough I am, how inspiring I am...now I have to be all those things because I don't/can't let anyone down, but most importantly I can't let myself down.

Strength, I think, true strength comes not from the force of will you can exert or the amount of weight you can pull but from the impulse every single day to be better, to do better than the day before...at least that is what I am going to tell myself.