When I get home from a really good workout I strip down to my underoos and sports bra and strut my stuff. I’m waiting to stop sweating before my shower and I feel like an uber hard body kick arse super human. To be more accurate, I feel like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.
Her muscle definition in the movie set the bar at ripped and shredded and when I’m feeling like a boss I think of her.
Every now and then I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I do my panty parade and think “whoa, I do not look how I feel”. Bodies are weird. I know I refer to “the oatmeal” a lot but he seems to get my mindset about working out and how your body responds to working out. My thighs are large and lumpy, the skin on my belly folds over my cesarean scar to hang over my underoos, I look like a slowly deflating skin suit.
Yet, I feel like a kick ass ninja and my muscles are hard beneath the fat and skin. I don’t exercise to look a certain way, I exercise to do things and support my health but it would be nice to have a touch more congruity between how I feel and how I look. I feel guilty about this, like me dabbling in mind/body dualism is making for shoddy feminism but I also do feel this way. I love my body…
AND it would be nice not to:
- smell like an unwashed ferret after a workout
- have really loud gas while working out
- manage thigh and armpit chaffing
- have a long term relationship with athlete’s foot
- constantly imagine a workout bra that both supports my mammaries while allowing me to breathe.
Seriously, the breathing and boob management thing, we need to do something about this my engineering sisters!
And that is why I think bodies are weird.
Hahaha I’m with you in the bra department! And yes sometimes I feel invincible and like a kick a### zombie killer, others days not so much!
We need a post about the movement though the zombie killer spectrum hahahaha
Now you make me imagine a zombie era, and all departments that sell bras are infested with them and I cant get a single bra…. Aaahh the horror!!
Thanks for this! I have recently started searching for control top exercise pants, not because I want to look good, but to “manage” the flopping of my belly. This is to make running more comfortable and allow me to enjoy it. I confess it’s partly a worry that it will sag more from being stretched by the movement, so it amounts to a belly bra. But it is mainly about the desire to be literally comfortable in my own skin.
When I got back to running I hadn’t anticipated this, I thought the clippity-clop was mounted police…nope…just my belly oscillating and slapping my thighs. I now love lycra and wear some to contain and support my belly. I actually had bruises from the impact. I refer to the complex series of lycra layers as my lump management protocol.
Hahaha! I think all women have to toe the line with the mind/body dualism from time to time. It’s kind of more of a human nature than anything else because men do it too.
Bodies *are* weird! I don’t know if your boob issue stems from having large breasts, but if so, I highly recommend the Panache Sports bra. I’ve owned two in a row now and they are just about my favorite thing ever! I know they also recently came out with a wireless one recently, but I haven’t tried it.
I’m not a sales rep, btw, I just can’t contain my excitement about one of the best splurges I ever made! Peace!
I think size is a factor as well as age, as the tissue changes in middle aged they are way more floppy!
I will definitely check out a Panache. Thanks for the tip 🙂