5J: Why I Work Out

My friend Tracy and I busting a move after the Market to Market relay this past May.

This won't be a post with the the top ten workout moves to get your body bikini ready.

I'm not going to discuss running or lifting or yoga.

This week, for whatever reason, I've had three different people in three different situations, tell me I'm fit.

I'm fit.

I'm fit?

I guess I should be.

On a typical week I run two or three times. I lift weights two or three times. I stretch and practice yoga after most every work out. Some days I can't wait to go. Other days it is definitely mind over matter and I push myself out the door.

I know that pushing myself brings rewards. I take comfort in knowing that I can get myself over my own thought barriers. I can usually run 10 minutes longer that I thought I could. I can usually do two or three more reps of weights even when I'm burning.

I like turning up my workout playlist, shutting out the world and diving in. It's an outlet of creativity for me. How can I move today? Exercise experts say to move this way or do it that way. They say to work out this many times a week or that many times a week to get this kind of body or that kind of body.

Whatever.

I can move however I want, for however long I want, in whatever way I want, as often as I want. My body is a pretty good indicator of what it needs. Sometime the best workout is no workout at all and sometimes I need to push it as hard as I am able.

I open my arms up wide, look up into the heavens and jump up and down. I make up a dance moves that will never be repeated. I sway and circle my arms, kick my legs, squat and shimmy on down, because I can. I do simple moves in my nightie and then sit down and write in my journal and I count that as a workout.

When I'm all done and getting ready to take my shower, I stop and look into the mirror.

I look deep into my eyes. My hair is frizzy and doing things that would horrify most. I have black circles under my eyes. My skin sags around my mouth and I have a scar over my left eyebrow from where skin cancer was removed. I've had three kids and my body shows it. I'm not ashamed and neither do I wish for a beach body.

I am middle-aged. I have wrinkles and scars. Some may see me as fit and I guess I am.

But that is not all I see.

I am a fabulous, wonderful, God-breathed story that has lived all the way to today.

I see knowledge.

I see a knowing that hard days will come. They always do.

Working out can make me fit but it can't give me a pass that excludes me from difficulty, even if I would have a bikini-ready body.

Working out simply offers me assurance.

I just know. I know deep down that I can.

I can.