What Becoming a Runner after Losing 100 lbs Taught Me About Myself

Losing weight is a journey that is both mental and physical and requires ongoing work even after you’ve achieved your goal. I started my weight loss journey with a mission to get healthy, get fit, and feel confident in my body, but ultimately became a runner, and that changed my life. 

After a year of hard work, I lost 100 lbs and set out on a journey to get fit. This eventually led to my development of a passion for running, which became a life-changing experience. 

Where it Started

I was overweight my entire life, and although I participated in sports, I was never particularly good at them and never felt confident in my abilities or appearance. I never thought I would see myself as an athlete or be considered one by others. I was shocked when, after losing 100 lbs, I became a runner, and being an athlete became my whole identity. 

I hadn’t realized how competitive I was until I joined a group gym, and the fire stayed lit after that. It wasn’t so much about competing against others as it was competing against myself to see what more I could accomplish and how much more I could give. Sometimes, that meant out running a component, and other times, that meant running a further distance than I ever had before. So how did I get to this point?

I started my weight loss journey by working out with a personal trainer 5 days a week for 30 minutes and eating low-carb. After some time, I transitioned to counting calories. Once I met my weight loss goal and started running, I transitioned to more of an intuitive eating approach. 

Mindset Matters

Learning to eat to fuel my body after having focused so much on losing weight was a mental challenge, and it took some time to make that my default way of thinking. Fueling your body as a runner is incredibly important for both health and performance reasons, and learning to do this taught me that throughout my weight loss journey, I had developed some disordered eating habits. 

Luckily, becoming part of the running community provided me with a plethora of resources to learn how to improve my relationship with food and inspire others to do the same. While the running community sometimes gets a bad rep for unhealthy relationships with food, the trail and obstacle course running community I was a part of had exactly the opposite influence. 

Imposter Syndrome Runs Deep

The biggest struggle I had when inserting myself into the running community after major weight loss was imposter syndrome. It was hard to feel like I belonged when I was not only surrounded by people with seemingly picture-perfect bodies but also had this idea in my head of what a runner was supposed to look like, and that was not a picture that I felt I fit into. 

I am so glad that I pushed through the imposter syndrome and kept working toward my goals despite often feeling like I didn’t belong. I realized that at the end of the day, all I truly needed was a few people to believe in and accept me and that the energy from those people could go far. 

I will say that I don’t think doing it alone would have had the same results, which is why I urge people on health and fitness journeys to find a community to be a part of. Support goes a long way and can make all the difference. 

Confidence is Everything

It took me a lot of time to understand that how I looked didn’t determine how successful I could be as a runner. What determined that was how hard I was willing to work to achieve my goals and how much I believed in my ability to do so. I learned a lot about how much mentality plays a role in your success as an athlete and how little other people’s perceptions or judgments should be. 

Gaining confidence took me a long time, and I’ll admit that it wasn’t until I had experienced the external reinforcement of medals and recognition from others that I truly felt like I could let myself be confident. I suppose I felt like I needed those external rewards to truly feel like I deserved to feel confident. 

I now know that what happens on the outside doesn’t need to be the decider of what you allow yourself to feel within. I learned that, eventually, the external rewards dissipate and that at the end of the day, if all you have is your goals and efforts, that’s enough to feel proud of and confident about. 

No One is Looking

What I also learned was that no one was really paying that much attention to how I looked. If they were, it was because they saw how I looked and then recognized how I performed and felt a bit surprised by what I was able to do despite not having a “runner’s body.” 

I realized that many people became inspired by this, and it made them have more confidence in their own abilities. Having the ability to inspire other people to work hard towards their health and fitness goals inspired me to work even harder at mine, and this really lit a fire in me. 

Takeaways

If you are on a health and fitness journey or intend to start one, remember that you don’t have to do it alone and that different things work for different people. Work on building your support system, changing your mindset as needed, and never let self-doubt stop you from challenging yourself in a new way. 

If you’re looking for more content about my health and fitness journey or are interested in using me as a running coach, I encourage you to continue browsing my blog and to contact me via email or comments with any questions you may have.