What I Wish I knew Before Starting My Fitness Journey
My relationship with fitness has always been a little complicated (that is until recently). Growing up my parents didn’t really push me to play team sports. I did play tennis for a few years but never really took it seriously. And by the time I was in high school I was already sick with Ulcerative Colitis (even though I didn’t know it) and was so thin I thought “I don’t need to work out because I’m already thin.” You can see at that age I had the understanding that you exercise because you HAVE to for weight reasons and not because it's good for overall health.
Fast forward to college when my Ulcerative Colitis symptoms were at their worst. Still undiagnosed, I could barely eat, let alone do any kind of physical exercise outside of walking to classes. Anything I tried made me feel even worse so I just gave up. I also still had the belief that you exercise to lose weight and I definitely didn’t need to lose any weight at that time.
Years later after I was diagnosed and started medication I was finally feeling good. I was in my first job out of college and could finally eat ANYTHING I WANTED without feeling sick. This was a big deal for me because for years everything I ate made me feel sick. So I spent that first “healthy” year of mine eating everything I could. I definitely wasn’t being mindful of eating a balanced diet or nourishing my body with healthier options. So in turn I gained weight. I was the heaviest I had ever been in my life when I looked in the mirror and didn’t love myself anymore. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin and frankly felt like I didn’t even know the woman looking back at me.
So this triggered the start of my over restricting and over exercising. I went through almost 2 years of trying every sort of workout program and diet I could. I would end up losing some weight and then binging because I had been restricting myself too much. At one point I was working out twice a day because I was convinced that if I really wanted to be “healthy” that's what it would take. I got sucked into an Instagram culture of “no days off” and “sweaty selfies” and felt like if I didn’t look like the fitness Instagram models I followed then I wasn’t worthy.
People started telling me how good I looked and asking about what I was doing to get so thin. I felt like I couldn’t stop because “what if I got fat again?” It took me being so burnt out and exhausted to really take a pause and look at what I was doing to myself.
I did love how good working out and exercising made me feel. I was happier after working out, slept better and felt stronger. But I didn’t like the anxiety I was having if I missed a workout or the negative feelings I was having around food. I realized that resting was actually healthy for my body and that going out to eat with my friends made me happier than the potential to be skinnier.
So from that day forward I made a promise to myself that I would listen to my body and workout because it was fun and made me feel good, NOT because I felt like I “had to do it to be skinny.” That being said, it is still a journey for me. But if I could go back and tell myself a few things when I was first starting my fitness journey I totally would.
Here’s what I wish I knew before starting my fitness journey:
Rest is not only good for you mentally but NECESSARY for you physically
The #Nodaysoff trend is bullshit. I’m sorry but I had to say it because it's just so incredibly unrealistic and not healthy for your body. Physically our bodies need rest to allow muscles to recover and mentally it's just good for us to take a damn break. Now, I am a big believer in some daily movement if possible. Things like a 20 minute walk or some stretching, but that being said we need to get in the mindset that it’s okay if we don’t do any physical activity in a day. Rest does not equal failure. It means you are listening to and honoring your body.
2. Take everything you see on Instagram with a grain of salt
When I first started getting really into working out (and it was becoming obsessive) I got sucked into the fitness world on Instagram. As I’m sure you might be aware, there is a big, dark rabbit hole of fitness content you can fall into on Instagram. And just like anything there are extremes. You can easily find accounts of people who take part in the #Nodaysoff trend and literally look like they aren’t real (no offense to them). And for me, those accounts fueled the thought in my head that I needed to look a certain way or workout non-stop in order to be healthy. The more my feed was filled with people that made me feel like I was never good enough, the more I believed it. Once I realized that, I was able to unfollow a lot of those people and instead fill my feed with positivity and content focused on other things.
3. You should be having fun/look forward to exercising
You guys! Working out should be something you ENJOY! In no way, shape or form should exercise be a punishment or something you dread. If that's the case, you shouldn’t do it or you should rethink what it is your doing! And here’s the thing, I’m not saying just never exercise if you don’t want to, but you do have the power to find a type of movement that you enjoy and you look forward to. Some people love running, others love yoga or weight lifting or barre. There is no “right” type of exercise. You can mix it up and try new things all the time. For me, I love going to the gym and weight lifting but I also love HIIT exercises, yoga, barre and going on long walks. If one thing doesn’t sound good to me on a certain day, I honor that and try something different. If you make exercising fun, you’re much more likely to naturally incorporate it into your life in a healthy way and it will become something you look forward to.
These are just a few basic things that I think are really important to keep in mind if you’re starting a new fitness routine. It’s easy to fall into an obsessive or toxic relationship with working out (I’ve been there). But if you keep these in the back of your mind, my hope is that you can adopt a healthy routine to stay physically active. And, I’m always here to help support you on that journey.