My New Obsession

I bought myself a set of barbells and weights when I got an unexpected bonus this year. It has become my new obsession. I’ve struggled to be able to run for about five years now, and find myself having to do some run/walk combination in most races. In the mornings, when I walk on my regular trail, I see many people out running and often find myself jealous because I don’t feel up to running like that anymore. But I remind myself that I’m going home and will be doing some heavy lifting and for some reason that helps.

My mirror has a list of all my current PR’s. No, I won’t be going to the Olympics any time soon. Or even back to CrossFit. I have a personal trainer who does a workout with me once a week virtually. She enjoys making sure that I’m a little sore the next day. She knows me well enough to end every session with a timed plank just to see how long I can make it. And she also knows me well enough to sometimes suggest that “we’re not doing barbells for this” because I focus a little too much on those PR numbers.

I’ve also started to enjoy watching my new “porn”: women doing Olympic lifts on my Facebook reels. Facebook seems a little confused because it keeps offering both male and female lifters. I’m not interested in seeing men do lifts. Only women. It inspires me. I love to look at a thick, muscled female form. I’m less interested, Facebook, in reels about how to lose weight while lifting just enough to avoid looking like a man. I like my shoulders to be muscled, would love to have a defined back, and while I don’t need to have a six pack of abs necessarily, I like to feel my leg muscles grow when I take my daily bath and wrap my arms around my legs and feel how my quads and hamstrings have grown. I like to look at my butt in the mirror, growing larger, not smaller.

So if you want to get me excited next time you see me, ask me about my “clean and jerks,” my squats, my reverse lunges, and my Russian twists. Ask me about my goal to be able to do a pull up (or maybe more than one), something I’ve never in my life been able to manage. Tell me I’m looking more muscular and more defined. Don’t tell me I’ve lost weight. I’ve no interest in being smaller. At my height, this is my only way of becoming larger

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