Bigger Than My Body

In January, I decided to join a gym I’d been driving past every day for months. From my car seat, I could see the folks inside, looking like they were being raked over the coals, and I’d feel both dread and deep curiosity. When you’ve put your body in neutral long enough, as I had, once familiar things can seem foreign. How would I lift myself long enough to even do a push-up? I’d wonder as I drove by, so far removed from my last one that it felt more like a concept than a possibility for my body.

But through some miracle of time—and frustration with my status quo—I found myself walking through the gym’s doors earlier this year. During my assessment, I didn’t learn anything I couldn’t have guessed myself: I was in pretty bad shape. This wasn’t about scales, BMI, or looks; this was about the body's capacity to do the simple functions that allow you to grow older with some measure of health.

I was heading into middle age, waging a war with my future self, robbing her of good health in exchange for my immediate gluttony of pleasure and laziness (which, honestly, was becoming less pleasurable by the day). The return on that investment had faded. And so was I.

I signed up for the three-day-a-week class training package. I do well in group training; I often need others to push me past my mind’s limiting beliefs. The coal-raking I saw from the car was very real—but so was the community of support I found from the coaches and my classmates. So I kept going back.

The most significant part of the success I’ve had so far is simply that I showed up—even when I, truly, absolutely did not want to. And there have been plenty of days when I wanted to be anywhere but in that class, doing things I wasn’t good at, that brought me some measure of pain, and didn’t offer me immediate joy—a trifecta of excuses to bail. But I stayed.

Now, in my fourth month of working out, I’m starting to see how my body is responding to the consistency. But it's my mind that’s doing the real heavy lifting.

This week, when I did my heaviest deadlift set yet (this is where you clap), it all came together for me. I filmed myself so I could review my form and make corrections for next time. As the weights get heavier, I've become increasingly concerned with ensuring I’m not just lifting heavy weights, but lifting them safely.

Looking back at the recording, I noticed it takes me a while to start. And I know exactly what’s happening: I’m talking to myself—more so, I’m convincing myself that I can do the thing I’m about to do. This is how I’ve always approached hard things: coaching my mind into action.

During cardio (my actual enemy), I repeat affirmations to myself like:
"You’re so beautiful right now."
"That’s right, bitch, you better run!"

As I prepared to lift that 165-pound weight, I had to remind myself:
"You’ve done much harder things—and survived every last one of them, even the ones that hurt."

Up the weight went.
I did two full sets at that heaviest weight, and I felt invincible afterward. It was in that moment that a new affirmation was born:

I love myself so deeply, thus—
I lift heavy shit.
I do heavy shit.
I am the shit!

I lift heavy shit. I do heavy shit. I am the shit!

Say it with me:
I lift heavy shit.
I do heavy shit.
I am the shit!