Strong over Skinny
At the gym with therapeutic cupping marks from
Summer through winter 2020 I was the smallest I have ever been in my adult life. I had almost reached my “goal” weight that I had been striving for for the last decade. I was working out every day and felt tight and toned. I could see visible abs for the first time in my life. I was “happy”.
I use “happy” like that because the truth is, I wasn’t happy at all. I was depressed, stressed, anxious, and my life felt out of control. I was so incredibly sick and getting worse by the day. But I was skinny… and that was good.
I was the kind of skinny that our culture tells us we are supposed to be; so, from the outside, it looked like my life and my body were the “ideal”. They were what everyone is told they should want.
I had the house, the husband, the dog, the friends, the businesses, the body… “the life”.
My ideal life NOW! - On a trip with She Moves Mountains
But that ideal “life” a few years ago was wrought with hurt and upset. I felt out of control in so many ways that the one thing I felt I could maybe control was my body. I worked out every day… hard. I ran, did pilates, worked on yoga, was taking tumbling classes, and cut out every piece of refined sugar in order to have some semblance of feeling like I had control. By all appearances, I was “healthy”.
But at night, I was being fed drink after drink after drink and often drug after drug. I was anxious. I was panicked. I couldn’t sleep. So, I was, in a way, kept sedated. Here… try a sleeping pill, a pain killer, some THC, a bourbon, another bourbon, maybe a double or triple this time.
But from the outside… I looked happy and healthy.
I “looked” well. I appeared like I had the best life.
Soft smiles from my life now. Shirt from: Reverie Apparel
It wasn’t until last week that I realized exactly WHY I was so small a few years ago. Even though I wasn’t eating sugar, I was still ingesting as much food as I wanted in a day. I was eating so much! But I was ALWAYS hungry.
I was eating anything I wanted and still losing weight. People questioned if I was actually eating enough and I needed a witness to attest to the fact that I ate ALL THE TIME in order to be believed.
Over the past year, I’ve done a lot of work to eliminate stressors in my life. To change my routines and habits in order to build an overall healthier life. I’ve cut back on the amount I’m eating and for some reason put on several pounds. WHY?!?
I was so upset initially. If I was making healthy life choices, why was my body changing?
What I’ve be learning is that chronic stress and especially being in a state of fight or flight can impact your body’s metabolic rate. I was so small despite eating everything because I was in a state of constant fight or flight… for years. I was hungry because my body was needing all of the calories to literally support my ongoing state of hyper-vigilance and awareness. I was alert and tuned in to every small factor surrounding me. I was always on high alert.
Maintaining that state became impossible for my body. My whole body shut down and in a big way. My joints began hurting to the point where holding my cup of coffee made me cry. I was dealing with chronic inflammation that when walking or running a 1/2 mile sent shooting pain throughout my whole leg and back. I felt broken.
The girl who had just run 10 miles, who was working on learning back handsprings and maintaining hand balancing poses could no longer run at all or bear weight in her wrists. She couldn’t even carry her dinner plate or open a door without wincing or being reduced to tears
My brain also suffered. I was forgetting the names of my closest friends, blanking on lyrics I’d been singing by heart for over a decade, forgetting where I was and why, etc. Let’s not even touch the subject of my emotional regulation. What. A. Mess.
I had to make a BIG change in order to, literally, keep living.
What those big changes have allowed me to do!!
Hiking in Utah!
I made a series of incredibly difficult choices to start changing my life and atmosphere. I started working with a variety of therapies and learning how to end my constant state of fight or flight. And with all of that, I’ve been working to create a strong mind and body, rather than a skinny, compliant one.
Learning to love my body as it is (a different shape and size than 2 years ago) has been a challenge. Having been my “ideal” self at one point, learning to accept, appreciate, and love this new body for what it is has been a slow practice.
Through tracking my progress and recognizing all of the victories in my current life, I’m able to LOVE the body I am building. And I mean that… the body I am BUILDING. Because I am building a strong body. A strong body that supports me, that carries me, that can do things I never thought possible.
And I’m loving her. She knows how to rest now. How to sit still. How to sleep. My body can slow down and relax for the first time in my entire life.
What’s funny is even when I was my “ideal” shape and weight, I still didn’t truly LOVE my body. There was always something “wrong”.
But as I’m working to build a stronger mind, heart, and physical body, I’m learning to actually love myself. My whole self. For everything I am.
What building a strong body and mind has allowed me to do.
Climbing with She Moves Mountains in Moab, Utah
I will always value strong over skinny.
Stay tuned for more on this journey and for ways you can work to build a happier life every day.
<3 Katey
