One Hundred and Eighty-Five Peloton Rides

Today as I completed my 185th Peloton ride I was amazed at how far I've come. I'm not a super athlete. I wasn't even athletic or in shape when I bought the bike. I'm still not. I'm fifty pounds from my ideal weight, mine, not even the one on the chart for my height and age. According to that one I'm about 80 pounds overweight. My point is, you don't have to be super athletic to have a Peloton and to get active.

It has taken me two years to get here, with a lot of hurdles along the way. But I'm here and I was killing that 30 minute pop ride with Robin Arzon today, and that's all that matters. 

I've also completed 173 strength workouts. The bulk of those have been arm workouts. Most of them are 10 minutes high rep workouts with 3 pound weights, but I recently added 20 minute workouts with heavier weights. That is also an example of how far I've come. 

My original plan was to complete my 200 rides by Halloween, but things haven't really worked out that way and now some unexpected plans came up for that weekend.  I've set a new goal to get to 200 by October 28. That means I will have to average one ride per night this month. 

I am going to take this moment to feel proud of myself because as Robin says, "If nobody's clapping for you, clap for your own damn self."

See Yourself Like Your Kids See You, With Eyes of Love

A few weeks ago I went to the Rodeo for the first time in a really long time and I went twice, back to back. On the second night there I wore these beautiful earrings that my sister gave me for my birthday, so I asked this woman I hardly know, a friend of a friend, to take a picture of me. You couldn't see the earrings in the first picture so she arranged them and took the picture again. What resulted were these two photos of me that sparked so many likes and comments on social media.

Friends commented that I looked beautiful and I commented that it was just the angle or the lighting, etc.. One friend chastised me to accept the compliments, something I always tell people myself, but then don't follow.

At home I told my daughter about this and she held my face in her hands and told me, "That's how you look. You look just like that right now. You look like that all the time."

Part of me thought that it was my daughter just being nice because I'm her mom and she loves me, but then I stopped. I can't think that way. I need to see myself in those same eyes of love.

Yeah, sometimes photos aren't going to be flattering. Sometimes you can see the wrinkles, the bags under my eyes look bigger than usual because maybe I'm tired. Or the angle shows off my double chin more than usual. When we see photos like that of ourselves we tend to think that's how we always look, but it's not true. We have to stop that negative self-talk.

For some reason we've been led to believe that thinking we are beautiful is narcissistic and vain. Women are criticized for posting selfies of themselves.

When I hear that criticism I always go back to the poem "Ode to the Selfie," by Megan Falley and Olivia Gatwood.

The last half of the last stanza is amazing.

"Today millions of girls loved themselves
in the face of a world who tells them not to.
And isn’t that small revolution enough?
And isn’t that the greatest revolution of all?"

Why does it have to be such a revolutionary idea to love ourselves? It shouldn't be.

This week I will make it an exercise to see myself like my kids see me, with eyes of love, and to believe that I am just as beautiful as I look in these photos. Will you join me in thinking the same about yourself?