An homage to my legs....



These are not my legs, but there are similarities.  Source: Pinterest

My legs and I have had a love hate relationship since, as an impressionable 13 year old, several events converged on me in a perfect storm of body issues:

a.  I started to read magazines like Dolly and Seventeen (so sophisticated) and I realised that my legs were not like the legs of the girls in those mags at all.

b.  Someone at school casually mentioned, as we sat sunning our legs one lunchtime, that my calves were huge.  Exact word used, I can remember the incident very clearly.

c. A family member, in a way that exuded pity, told me that I had inherited my legs from a line of the family notorious for having legs shaped like those normally found on a piano.

Never mind that I was very athletic and those legs had taken, or would take, me to state championships for gymnastics, netball and several track and field events.  Never mind that they got me from A to B every single time I asked them to.  Never mind that the rest of me was not a source of pity or wonder, but well within the realms of normal. 

Kim Green - Australian netballer and owner of a magnificently strong and athletic pair of legs
Source: smh.com.au

I really spent a lot of my teenage years (and beyond probably) hating my legs.  Really truly...  how negative and what a monumental waste of my time and energy. 

Now I am a 44 year old - doing the 12wbt to build my fitness and shift a lot of weight.  My legs are now a source of awe for me.  I am not even joking. 

At the start of the 12wbt, I could only do a wall sit for 18 seconds.  A few short months later, I can sit against a wall for minutes, pretty much willy nilly.  My legs have adapted to Spin classes, to doing squats while lifting extra weight (not just my body weight), to rowing and to all sorts of resistance on cross training machines. 

My legs are not going to win any prizes for being long, slender and shapely.  And I have come to the conclusion that I am never going to look good in skinny jeans, even when I am skinny.

Source: pinterest

 

The sad thing is that I've taken so long to be okay with that. 

So, legs, I love that you are both there and that you both work and coordinate so well together.  I hope we can move forward into a future where I look after you and you take me lots of exciting places. 

I'm glad I've reached this point of gratitude for my legs while they are still operating so well, and I can fully appreciate and enjoy that fact!