Are You Addicted To Working Out? 'Cause I Think I Might Be

I had a feeling I was doing too much when I told my fiancé I was thinking of going to the gym after initially planning not to, and he responded with, “I don’t understand why you can’t just go home and rest for once.”

Did he not understand that if I were to forgo the gym and go home, if left to my own devices, I would stuff my face with all of my trigger foods? I mean, duh! Who does he think I am?!

But I went home anyway, and I did just what I thought I would do. After not making white rice for myself in more than a year, I decided to make just that–and red beans with ground turkey and cornbread. No gym? No rules!

I ate that, two helpings, as well as some cookies and a pity salad. When I woke up in the morning and got on the scale, the increased number yelled back at me, “What did I tell you about carbs?!” I felt crappy all over again.

Just a few hours later, while perusing on BlackGirlLongHair, I saw a story about popular fitness blogger Francheska, or Hey Fran Hey, who proudly showed off her 25-pound weight gain last summer:

I had two thoughts.

“If only we could all look so good with 25 extra pounds…”

And, “I think I’ve been going about this whole exercise thing the wrong way.”

And not because I immediately determined that I wanted my body to look like hers, but because I immediately connected with her story.

As I’ve said before, I lost more than 40 pounds within the last year. I had ballooned after college and decided to commit to not only eating better but tangible fitness goals. Once I dropped that weight, I guess you could say I became a little obsessed with keeping it off.

I enjoy working out these days. When I don’t go, I start to feel sorry. In fact, I try to go at least four times a week. But you’ll almost always find me there for nearly two hours, obsessing over doing everything in my power to work off the food I ate during the day, build more muscle, and define my abs some more. I sometimes feel like I haven’t had a good workout until I burn upwards of 600 calories. Just workout and leave? Oh no. I have to do cardio, and then do ab work, and then make time for weight training. If I don’t do all three, I worry that overnight, the abs I worked to get will disappear, my arms will get flabby again, and I’ll balloon like I did years ago.

And that’s why it takes everything in me not to step on the scale every morning. Why before I put clothes on in the morning, I check to make sure my abs are still showing. Why I spent a grip last year trying every boutique fitness class I could in NYC to find something that would get me hooked for the long-term. Why I feel absolutely shameful every time I can’t get my willpower together and have seconds when I eat sometimes. Why I keep talking about fast metabolism in the hopes I can get that, and then eat whatever I like, whenever. Why I could relate to Francheska.

I’m focused on the wrong things.

And it’s almost laughable, because who would think that an obsession with getting in shape and having such a fixation without starving or purging yourself would be unhealthy? Why, working out has been deemed pretty much the best thing you can do for your body! But it’s definitely unhealthy when you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.

Like hoping to blow everyone’s mind with your Instagram selfie that proclaims you got up at the crack of dawn for spin class. The harder you go, the more kickass you seem and feel.

Or because you want to look like the celebrities who go hard with the help of trainers and chefs who keep their diets restricted.

Or, in my case, because you want don’t want to look like what you used to, not in this health-obsessed society we now live in. And, therefore, you’re frightened at the prospect of it. So Zumba, then weightlifting, then a run on the treadmill until your plantar fasciitis flares up it is.

So, I’m working on it. I do, in fact, plan to go to the gym after I finish writing this, and I also plan to bounce that ass in Zumba on Saturday. But I want to focus on doing those things because they make me feel good, not because if I don’t, I will lose control and spiral into a binge-eating session. So maybe I need to stop “treating myself,” so much. Maybe I need to focus on how I’m eating again. Maybe I need to stop buying all my trigger foods and then going overboard. Or maybe, I need to cut myself some slack and appreciate the work that’s been done instead of harping on what could go wrong.

Whatever I do, I need to get it together, because this obsession with exercise, weight and the scale that tells me that number is not cute. Or healthy.