Confessions of a Personal Trainer

It's been 8 months since my last blog.  The real life has caught up with me and dragged me into it's abyss.  And I gotta say...I don't like it too much.  But lately, I've felt the need to purge my soul in an effort to regain myself and of course, my blog is where I go.  As an introvert in an extrovert world...it's bizarre that I choose such a public forum to unveil my "inner demons".  Whatever...

And don't get me wrong...my life is fine.  It's just that it sometimes seems out of control - which I think is so true for so many of us.  And as some one who has OCD, ADD and Body Dysmorphia, I need to control something, so it drives me a little bonkers.

Last year, it seemed like we were just trying to get settled in our new apartment, new school, new city and new jobs.  Funny, it still seems like we are trying to get settled in our new apartment, new school, new city and new jobs.  I think it is because we are constantly striving for goodness and pleasing others...that we feel all out of whack when we think we could possibly be letting someone else down, or something fall through the cracks.  We desire to err on the side of goodness and sometimes that means we don't get to focus on what our souls truly desperately yearn for.  Which is sometimes, simply, quiet, down time.  Away from the hustle, bustle of the world.

Perfect Pacer hasn't been able to run much since the Route 66 Marathon last November and we've picked up biking as a way to train together for something.  So much so that we did the Tulsa Tough this past July.  But add in bike training, into my run training schedule into my gym schedule into my teaching group exercise class schedules and well...mentally, I feel like...I am off track.

So here's the confession...even personal trainers struggle with training and eating healthy.  I mostly struggle with finding balance in my training and eating healthy.  If you've followed my blog for any amount of time, you probably already realize that I am prone to eating disorders and that I've been able to control that "prone-ness" by controlling what I eat, when I eat and how I train.  For years, I had figured out exactly how many macros I needed for the training I wanted to do or I could figure out how much training I needed to do in order to eat something I really wanted to eat (chips & guacamole anyone?).

But with the increased training of the cycle training, increased class schedule that I teach and my own self-imposed standards of thinness strength beauty, I find myself struggling with the simplest of decisions - from what to wear, to what bills to pay when, to what to eat, to how to best train.  It sometimes seems that once easy daily decisions I used to make, are now major tasks and then I find myself constantly reaching for the disgusting old comfort foods that once took me up to 154 pounds on my 5'2" frame.

And let's be honest, who the heck is going to hire listen to an overweight personal trainer?  So image is huge in my industry.  As well as in my little brain.  And if I can't lend credibility to my industry, then the business I work for will suffer which will then cause that never ending spiral of letting someone else down and not living up to my self imposed standards that I have set for me/it.  And then...it could happen again - I could puff up into the puffer fish I was 8 years ago.  I'm already on my way... I confess, I've gained between 10 & 12 pounds since December 2013.

And it seems like I'm back to struggling to get it off.  I know, I know.  It doesn't seem like much.  And trust me, I've heard "you look better with the extra pounds", "your still not fat" (and WTH does that really mean?), "you needed to gain weight".  I've gotten the eye rolls for not eating bread, bacon, and a plethora of other stuff that my brain just can't allow me to eat.  I've gotten the eye rolls for agonizing over the pounds of the scale and being self deprecating.  I get the absurdity of the situation - no more eye rolls please.

I guess by sharing this confession, I'm hoping that it will allow me to refocus and regain a sense of the self that I feel I so strongly had before leaving the Great State.  I am hoping that it will bring to close the feelings of frustration from self-imposed demands, self imposed stress and self-imposed expectations.  I am hoping that it will allow me to regain the true joy in my own work outs.  Don't get me wrong - I love what I do - empowering people to discover their true inner strength, their ability to become whom they desire and to unleash their inner warriors.  I just lost all of that within myself.  I know it's down in there - layered beneath the extra pounds that I have sloppily put on.  Now...it's time to unleash all of it again...

What do you struggle with? Do you think that personal trainers should have it all figured out all the time?