My primary goal on this Skinny Emmie journey is to be able to live a functionally fit lifestyle. This means no more huffing and puffing up stairs, no more aches and pains, no more straining to be able to move in my day-to-day life without getting exhausted.
The past couple of days, I've been busy with work with a quick overnight trip to Atlanta. It was the first time in a long time that I actually felt a noticeable difference in my functional fitness.
Victory 1: The airplane. I wrote before about my difficulties with flying. My size just isn't accommodated in airplane seats. It's unfortunate because I love to travel. When I got on the airplane this time, however, I popped right in the seat without issue. I didn't have to squeeze myself against the window, tense up my leg muscles to keep my legs as stuck together as possible, and hope that the arm rest in the middle didn't get forced up by my moving fat rolls (I wish I was kidding). I still needed a seatbelt extender, but I really didn't have even a fraction of the discomfort that I've had in the past.
Victory 2: While walking through ATL, I realized that I wasn't winded. Yes, my feet hurt later in the day due to my 3 inch wedges, but carrying my duffel (I like carrying the soft case duffel for an overnight trip so I don't have to pink-tag it on the small commuter planes) and my heavy work laptop bag didn't have me red faced and huffing. Again, it was a noticeable difference.
Victory 3: Stamina. Getting up super early, running and meetings all day – I thought I would be EXHAUSTED. I wasn't. Not at all. Felt good. Couldn't believe it.
Victory 4: Some coworkers told me I looked good. And I totally believed them, and accepted the compliment without qualifications. Felt pretty damn good to just accept and appreciate the attention.
It's important to think about these non-scale victories as often as we can. I'm hoping that writing them out will help me remember them for a long time. I might complain about foot pain, swollen legs, half marathon training aches and the scale moving too slowly, but this week, I got to actually FEEL some of the fruits of my labor and know that I'm making progress towards my functional fitness goal.
