Exercise is the Best Medicine: Struggles with Body Image

I originally started writing this article weeks ago, to talk about my passion for health and fitness and how great exercise is for your mental heath, especially in stressful times like these; But as I wrote, the story took on a life of its own and turned into something completely different. I didn’t really think I struggled that much with my relationship with food or body image until I started looking back over the years. This is part 1 of a 2 part post.

It’s in my Blood

Some of my earliest memories include my parents working out.

Siting on a mat in a school gym, watching my mom instruct her aerobic dance classes to a room full of women, all shapes and sizes, sweating their asses off, and having so much fun doing it.

The smell of chalk and sweat, pictures of old school body builders plastered on the walls, loud music and clanking weights while my dad did bicep curls and hit the bag. 

Sitting up with my dad when he came home from a night shift, finishing off his egg yolks as he ate the whites.

Sitting behind my mom on a bicycle as she peddled and my dad jogged beside, or being pushed in a stroller as she ran.

Flexing my biceps when my parents would say ‘Montre des muscles’ (show your muscles). 

I consider myself extremely lucky. My parents brought me up in a household where eating healthy and doing some form of exercise every day was not just the norm, it was the only way to live. I look up to both of them for their motivation and discipline and am so grateful that they instilled these qualities in me. For me, not exercising isn’t an option.

• 

• 

Working out has always been and will always be my life. It has gotten me through some of the toughest times, by helping clear my head and gain a new perspective. No matter where I have been in the world, I have always found a way to train, whether it be burpees on the beach in Nicaragua, hitting the bag in a Muay Thai Gym in Thailand, running down dirt roads in Columbia, or paying an extortionate amount for a day pass in a high end club in LA. I don’t know who I would be today if I couldn’t do some form of exercise every day. It was my meditation before I found meditation.

• 

• 

Exercise is the Best Medicine 

My parents got divorced when I was 8 years old, and being an only child, I felt really alone. I don’t think I knew how to process what was going on, and I never really realised how much the whole thing affected me until recently since I’ve done some reflecting.

As I got older I used running, and later the gym as an escape – as a way to let out my anger and frustration. As a way to get lost inside myself. To say I became addicted would be an understatement. I couldn’t control my environment, but I felt in control when I was working out. I could run as far as my body would take me, do as many sit ups and pushups until the burn took my mind off of whatever problems I had.

I Have Never Been Good With Balls…hehehe

I tried multiple different sports growing up from baseball to soccer and volleyball, and I have always been athletic, but I have never been good with balls…heheheh. I always loved the running events in track and field, I had been in dance since I was 3, and I fell in love when I discovered cheerleading. I felt like it came naturally to me, and I was pretty good.

• 

• 

Cheerleading was my main focus for the beginning of high school (that and boys). I was training a lot with the team but I was still running and doing Jillian Michaels videos in my basement on top of practice. I loved working out. I couldn’t get enough. Because I had been exposed to weight training from such a young age, I was counting down the days to when I would be old enough to join the gym. On my 16th birthday my Dad brought me in, showed me the ropes, and I was hooked.

After a year in the gym, I met a competition prep coach and he convinced me that I should compete. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. All I wanted was abs, and I wanted someone to tell me exactly what I had to do to get them.

My parents advised against it, but I didn’t care what they said. Not only was I doing this for all the wrong reasons, I was only about 17 years old, not even fully developed yet and certainly not secure in my body or who I was as a person. I was also unprepared for the emotional and mental repercussions.

SuperMom

Throughout my life, my mom has always been supportive of my decisions, whether she agrees with them or not. I think she wanted me to learn for myself rather than telling me what to do or not to do, and this time was no different. 

I had to get my 1- 2 hours of cardio in a day, but we didn’t have a treadmill, so my mom would wake up with me every morning before school at 5am rain or shine to power walk with me for an hour outside.

While I got ready for school, she would prepare my egg whites, oats with blueberries and pack my lunch. When I got home in the evening she would have my dinner ready. There’s no way I could have carried on for as long as I did without her help.

Burnt Out

On top of my morning cardio and sometimes 2 weight training sessions a day, I had 2 dance classes, and 3 cheerleading practices a week, was a full-time high school student, and had a part-time job at the movie theatre. In order to fit everything in and still see my boyfriend I started skipping class. 

Cheerleading was the most important things to me at this time, I excelled in it and it is where I found my sense of self. However, eventually my practice started to suffer. I had no energy or focus, and would get frustrated easily if my stunts weren’t working out. When I got moved from the top of the pyramid I was devastated and didn’t know what to do. At this point I had to decide what was really important to me.

Who Am I

After about 2 months of this shit I finally called it quits on ‘prep’. However, my confidence and self esteem had taken a huge blow since the quality of my cheer practice declined and I was still looking to find a new sense of self.

I only cheered on a University team for one year. My second year I switched schools and I didn’t try out. I’m not really sure why. I kept up my training in the gym since high school, but now without cheer, I needed something more.

Over the next few years, through university, I focused all my attention on my training. School came second. Again. I had a few different shitty personal trainers throughout university and I ended up sticking with one for over a year. He was completely disinterested in my training; would be on his phone or talking to a colleague in the middle of my set; he would have me lifting heavier than my capabilities with bad form to the point where I got injured; he had me on such low calories that I stopped menstruating for months. The crazy and scary thing is, while he was my PT, I idolised him; I thought he knew everything, and I did everything he told me to do without question.

What I can thank this guy for is for making me the best possible personal trainer I can be, and for teaching me everything not to do.

It gets worse before it gets better

This period of extreme under-eating and over-exercising couldn’t last forever. My friends started getting a little bit worried about me because I started skipping social events either to go to the gym, or to avoid food and drink. They would tell me I looked like I was getting too skinny but I didn’t believe them.

After months of living in only gym clothes, I decided to out out with my friends for a birthday, and as I tried to find an outfit, I realised nothing fit me. I went into my roommates closet who had always been a lot smaller than me to find something, and still nothing fit. This was a huge wake up call. I looked at myself closer in the mirror and it was like a veil had been lifted. I was finally seeing what I actually looked like and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was very tiny, had no ass and had lost a lot of muscle.

I kept training at least 2 times a day, but started slowly eating and drinking normally again. Unfortunately no one told me about the damage the prolonged calorie deficit can do to your metabolism, or how quickly you can gain more weight back than you lost in the first place.

The Damage is Done

Over the course of the next few years in University I kind of yo-yoed between being a bit heavier and bit lighter, looking back, always looking good, but never being happy with my body.

After University, while I was travelling, drinking every day and eating all the pizza, I gained more weight than I ever have in my life and felt completely lost. I was still training almost every day, but it didn’t make up for the shit I was putting in my body. It was the first time in my life that I felt too uncomfortable to be in a bathing suit. I didn’t know who I was looking at in the mirror. I needed to lose the weight, and I needed to do it now.

Over the next couple months, my relationship with my body deteriorated and I ended up making some bad decisions. I am only realising now, as I write this, how much of a problem it became…