"Oh Yeah, You Blend "

For years and years that famous quote escaped me, I had never heard it until one day a very good friend, said it aloud to me, and when she heard I never watched the movie " My Cousin Vinny" where the quote originated from, she insisted I that I do. I watched it and recommended it for a day you need some mindless chuckles. I can not think about blending in to any situation where I do not hear that line from the movie and think of my friend and smile.
I am thinking about blending a lot lately especially as I have started to incorporate running into my exercise regime.
I have tried and most times successfully to just blend in with the crowd. Until I hit my heaviest weight I always could just blend, and I liked that, never wore flashy clothes even if a particular flashy item really caught my eye, nope not me. The reason being was I was never wanted to draw attention, clearly tied to self esteem issues, and feeling not good enough or that somehow my extra weight made me feel less than. It is more complicated than that though as the reasons I have been overweight has been tied to that same feeling, so that I know is where the real work or weight loss and maintaining my weight loss will come from, resolving that "stuff".
Back to the running though, it reminds me when I first went to the gym and how i just wanted to be invisible, I searched for the treadmill that had the least amount of foot traffic around it. I wanted an outfit for the gym that covered everything yet did not look like a Hawaiian Moo that was sure to get snagged on treadmill and make me look like one Jillian's treadmill floppers from the Biggest Loser. Four months later, I do not even worry about that anymore. I am on most days not heaviest lady there, but more importantly I am strong and making it through my workout and have lost weight, it is working, and I feel good about me.
I have found a track at the local Community College and it is pretty close by, which is good as I go there at 5 ish early evening in the hopes that as it is dusk nobody will be around, or very few people as I want " to blend", I can get my 40 minutes in just as it is getting dark, I would run in the dark if it were not unsafe!
It is the fear of standing out that clearly is making me the most uncomfortable about the running. To me success with running will be more about feeling comfortable and not that I can run more than 90 seconds and have to so stop and walk 90 seconds it will be when " blending" is not a thought and I will only be running at dusk because I had no other available time!