I started exercising last year. While it was slow going I was starting to see the benefit of some daily exercise every day and a parkrun every Saturday. My parkrun times are shit but they’ve been creeping down slowly.
Then I got injured and had to take a break from most exercises for 6 weeks. I’m about 6 weeks back into it and it’s all incredibly hard again. I feel no joy in it, the thought of it hangs over me all day. I feel unfit and fat.
Well, I am fat. A lot less fat than I was 3 years ago. I was 22 stone then and I’m about 13.5 now. But I can’t shift the last few stone. I’ve been trying consistently since Sept. I don’t overeat, I really don’t, I just don’t lose weight unless I’m eating less than 1200 calories a day and that is so hard to do over a long period. I have a relatively active job. I’m in my 40s.
Hence the exercise, to try and kick start my metabolism, but it’s such a mental battle because I’m no good at it. It hurts, every time, and now it’s hot, running feels unbearable. I force myself to do it, but last weekend at parkrun I got bashed in the shoulder by a faster runner lapping me and I nearly burst into tears. I kept going but it’s sort of stayed with me, the feeling that I’m just no good at this and I’m taking up space in a place not made for people like me. I hear inspirational stories of people who take up running and crack 10k, then half-marathons and marathons etc, but feel like if I’m still wheezing my way round a parkrun sometimes hardly able to run it at all and having it knock me out for the rest of the day that there’s no hope for me.
Anyway, I decided maybe the problem was that one run a week isn’t going to make me get fitter, so for the last couple of weeks I’ve done 2 runs in the week too. Not 5k, because I don’t think I could take it, but 2 x 3.5k runs, and planning to up it as I feel I can manage. I have one planned for tonight and I just want to go home, put my PJs on instead and forget the whole idea.
My DH is supportive, but he’s super fit and super active and, not through any fault of his own, his excellence makes me feel utterly useless. He’s always telling me that I’m doing well and that the real achievement is putting the effort in and never seems to doubt that I can get fit, but I’m losing the will to do it.
So would some kind people please kick my arse and tell me to go for my run tonight, to stop being such a self-pitying dick and that one day there will be some sort of worthwhile pay off for this. Reasonably gently if you can, despite this being AIBU, because I feel horribly fragile right now.