This morning, I completed my first run.
I have obviously run before, but I really can’t recall too many times that I have run since I finished playing baseball in college, especially where I intentionally decided to put my shoes on and go outside for a run that wasn’t structured as an interval as part of a cardio regimen in the gym. This morning’s run is more of a symbolic transformation of identity.
For years, I have identified myself as being this massive, muscular male. I used strength training and bodybuilding as a way to uphold and solidify my identity. My business name, Big Jon Fitness, was to solidify this identity. For so long, I have based my identity around muscle mass and being big. As I have aged and my competing years have come to an end, I find myself desiring to change my identity to where this idea of being big is more of a haunting feeling that continues to prevent me from accomplishing desires that lead in different fitness directions.
One of those desires for a few years has been to start running. This does not mean I desire to run a marathon, nor any other form of competition that involves running. I intentionally do not want to be involved with any form of competition because I no longer want my fitness regimen to be based on the idea of training. I used to say, ‘I don’t work out; I train.’ It was almost offensive that someone would ask me if I work out. I would think that, can’t you see, to get to where I am, I just don’t work out; I train with a specific regimen in the gym, and I eat the right food, and so on. Working out is something that individuals do who lack direction. Today, I find myself wanting to rid myself of the idea of training and to simply “work out.”
I aim to incorporate fitness as part of my overall health optimization goals, which encompass the realms of mind, body, and spirit. I feel that competition detracts from that trilogy, as the idea of competing against others or even myself continues to emphasize the activity in an external direction, with measurements used to gauge progress rather than the activity being used to understand my inward state of being, encompassing my psyche, emotions, and physical states.
What has prevented me from just going for a run these past few years?
I continue to tell myself that once I reach a certain weight, I will start running, with the idea that it will create less stress on my joints. However, my internal conflict persists in the identity of being a large, muscular individual. There is a deeply rooted mechanism in place that I continue to work on. I find my body does not want to go below a certain weight, regardless of the efforts or strategies I employ, even while optimizing hormone balance. Could it be that my identity as a big, muscular individual is so strong that it creates an unconscious response in my mind and body, preventing me from downsizing?
This is an interesting area of exploration, and I believe that even when we do everything right, there is the variable of the unconscious mind that fights against many of us who desire to change. For me, it isn’t just about losing body mass; it’s also about maintaining muscle. I have spent a lifetime building muscle, and now I can say I almost don’t want that muscle, yet I still do. This is the internal conflict that I have battled for several years now as I work on figuring out who I am within my physical being.
I finally woke up this morning and decided to do it. I am not close to my mental weight running goal; I have previously held onto it over the past few years. Sometimes we get caught up in thinking that if we do “A,” then “B” will happen, and we can do “C.” However, sometimes we may have to focus on “C” and not worry about “A” and “B.” Today, I leaped ahead of my mental goal and just went for that run. Maybe this is the step I needed to mentally let go of being that big, muscular guy, so that I can continue transforming my fitness and physique as I progress into the subsequent phases of my life.
For some, maybe if you are doing everything right and putting in the effort, yet struggle to reach your goals, maybe it has to do with your mind’s inability to shift in its identity.
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