CHANGING YOUR MIND BY CHANGING YOUR BODY

CHANGING YOUR MIND BY CHANGING YOUR BODY
By Lise Funderburg

What if fitness, besides shaping your body, also sculpted your mind—sharpened it, opened it, even changed it? What if exercise swept you up into a back-and-forth of brain and brawn, taking off pounds and putting on wisdom, stretching your confidence and flexing remnants of character long buried in your life's rubble. Weight training gave Lise Funderburg an appreciation of her own form.

I took a trip. I packed nothing—although believe me, there was baggage—and I traveled far and wide. Without ever imagining such a destination, I ended up in a surprising place of comfort and joy: my own body.

The trip, after decades of aimlessness, turned toward its end a year ago, when in a moment of harmonic convergence, a friend I'd made at my gym started to offer personal training sessions. Russell Swan, Esq. (a lawyer for the government with a master's degree in public administration), started training people just because he likes to. I signed on for one session a week.

In our first few months, I felt like a walking bruise. I experienced pain and stiffness that consigned me to the right side of escalators for days at a time. Russell laughed at my complaints (although he also checked to make sure the aches were appropriate muscle soreness and not injury). When he asked for my goals, I said I wanted to preserve a feminine silhouette. Tone, not bulk. I admitted that my underlying aims were one part health but two parts vanity. In terms of health, I knew that weight lifting increases bone density—an excellent defense against osteoporosis, a condition that runs in my family. A more developed, balanced musculature also reduces the risk of injury and improves athleticism and endurance. Who could argue with such benefits?

Inside, my body has begun to develop quirks—none of them good. A chronic knee thing. A chronic wrist thing. A pinch here, a twinge there. Outside, well, I believe I just mentioned that birthday. And so the purpose of regimes—for skin, hair, or physique—has, for me, shifted from improvement to preservation.

As it turns out, I am also relying on something I hadn't ever noticed: my own determination. After I'd been working out with Russell for a while, the aches abated. Since then, changes have surfaced. I feel previously unknown muscles switch on from a dead sleep—strength coming from odd places. I find myself bouncing up stairs. I run faster. I jump higher. My arms have become so articulated that I now go sleeveless in the dead of winter. Don't try to stop me. Russell tells me to "dig it out" at the end of a hard set; when I'm running alone, up that last long hill, I tell myself to dig it out. And I do, with a big strong sprint that leaves me panting and proud.
Russell was the one who pointed it out. "What I really didn't expect, even though I knew you," he told me one day, "is how competitive you turned out to be." Now I no longer look at every reflection of myself and see a map of disappointments. I see vigor, curves, and force, an organic tumble of sensual, sexual energy. (Russell has watched me struggle to make peace with failure when I couldn't lift another time, another pound, another set. He has reassured me that even if I fail in a specific instance, I make progress—by testing my limits, and then pushing beyond them. Who knew that losing meant winning?) Russell went on to say he saw that drive emerge over time, a fight that kicks in every time he bumps up the weight or increases the reps. I am competitive, I thought. I do want to win. "Everyone's competitive about something," Russell said. "At its core, competition is passion. It's hope."

I stand straighter. I breathe deeper. My heart opens. I dress differently—I feel better about how I wear clothes but also less concerned with the whole enterprise. I don't buy as much, and when I do, I buy to complement, not compensate.

Lise Funderburg is the author of Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity (William Morrow).

From the November 2001 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.