Ambivalent goals: AKA "Well, hello there again, hipbones!"

Image courtesy of The Stock Exchange

I mentioned back in my "Give me a Reason" post that a couple of my reasons - the ones I'm least comfortable with, funnily enough - revolve around visual appearance.  I don't like that they're reasons, but as mentioned in that post, I don't think I'm really doing myself any favours by trying *desperately* to pretend that they don't motivate me.

One of them was about the appearance of muscles. I love the look of muscles moving under my skin - especially when I'm working out, but also those "surprise, bet you weren't expecting us!" appearances I used to get sometimes when I was getting dressed in front of the mirror and there'd be like... whoah... abs... are those really MINE????

What I'd forgotten, when I wrote my reasons post, is that I also used to like being able to see my hipbones occasionally. Now before you panic and figure the Beast has got its hooks well and truly into me again, I should probably say that I'm NOT talking about the angular, gaunt, protruding hipbone look. It's more... when I was lying on my back and I turned my leg to one side, I'd occasionally have this moment of... hey... there's a bone under all that curviness and muscle and flesh.

It's getting hot during the day here in New Zealand, and yesterday was hot enough that I was lying around in some reasonably loose pants and a sports bra. And my husband asked me something and I moved, and... there was one of those hipbones of mine. Still well and truly covered by muscle and... well, not-muscle... but definitely there. For the first time in a long, long, long time. And I could see/feel it moving!  Which prompted a moment of glee, followed by an experimental *prod* *prod*, and then a distinct thought pattern of  "Well, hello there, again hipbone! Long time, no see!" and finally a sense of "Cool! Human anatomy is an awesome thing, and hey, look, I have some!"

As usual when it comes to this kind of stuff, I'm trying REALLY hard to keep it in perspective. It's a mark of progress. Which is nice. But it's not a particularly important one.  It's not like, for example, being able to run an entire 5k without stopping to walk at any point. Or finishing a 10k in less than 1 hour 20. Or being able to do 50 full pushups without stopping or breaking decent form. All of which are current short-to-medium term fitness goals that I will be celebrating like nobody's business when I finally manage to achieve. But it's still a mark. And I'm kind of enjoying it, even if it's mixed in with some... ambivalence.

And I wonder, am I the only one with goals I'm not always 100% comfortable with? Do you have weight loss or fitness goals that you're just a wee bit ambivalent about wanting in the first place, let alone conflicted about actually achieving? How do you deal with the ambivalence?