My Exercise Autobiography

Exercise in My Childhood

I was like most most young kids...active and adventurous. My grandpa lived next door and I spent much of my youth running around his farm and playing games in the fields. I loved riding my bike, swimming in the pond near my home, and playing night games with the neighborhood kids. I also took dance lessons and played little league softball. Never once did I associate any of these activities with changing my body.  I was active for no other reason than it was fun and it made me feel good. I had no idea what calories were or that being active could burn them. 

         

Exercise in My Early Adolescence
Two very significant things happened the year I turned 12: my parents bought me my first trampoline, and I started power tumbling lessons. A new passion had been unleashed and I was obsessed. Actually, obsessed is probably not even a strong enough word to describe it. POSSESSED might be more fitting. It was not uncommon for me to come right home from school and jump on the trampoline until bed time, only stopping to eat dinner or grab a drink. In the winters I would go out in my snowsuit and shovel 2 to 3 feet of snow off of the trampoline just so I could practice my tricks. Rain, snow, freezing temperatures, blistering heat...none of it stopped me. I was power tumbling twice a week and participating in competitions on the weekends. It was as if this athlete inside of me had fully emerged, and I felt empowered. Again, none of this ever correlated itself with trying to change my body, lose weight, or burn calories. Nope, I only did this because I truly loved it. It was exhilarating every time I learned a new skill or made improvements on an existing skill. I remember talking to a friend about heaven. My vision of heaven had been miles and miles of trampolines that I could do never ending flips and aerials on. Looking back, it's evident that this is about the same time the first signs of  my clinical depression began to emerge. I didn't know what clinical depression was at the time, nor did I know I was suffering from it. I only knew that I was hurting and that power tumbling made me feel better. I had no knowledge of endorphins and their relationship to exercise, but nonetheless, I was subconsciously medicating myself with this powerful and natural anti-depressant. 

Exercise in My Eating Disorder
I was 14 when my eating disorder developed and it completely changed my relationship with exercise. power tumbling became a way to burn off calories, and with this change in motivation came an eventual loss of passion. Soon, I dropped off my power tumbling team, and jumping on the trampoline became more of a chore than something I loved doing. My body also recognized that physical activity didn't feel as good anymore. I wasn't properly nourished to do such rigorous activities like power tumbling. I became lightheaded and dizzy, instead of energized like I had in the past. For whatever reason, my love of dance seemed to stay intact throughout high school, and I became a member of the drill team. This was actually a pretty positive thing for me. I felt more motivated to quit my eating disorder behaviors, because I was part of a team and I knew others were counting on me. All throughout high school I was on a roller coaster. Some times I was very motivated to get better, and other times I just wanted to give up. My weight reflected this roller coaster and it fluctuated A LOT. As the eating disorder progressed, exercise became a way to torture my body. Many times I would stay up all night and just do exercise videos over and over until morning (this was so I could hide my obsession from my family). I secretly exercised in my room for hours at a time. There was nothing fun about exercise anymore. It got even worse as I went off to college. I couldn't do the simplest physical activity without passing out and scaring my friends to death. One night, after I had been out exercising, I ended up passing out outside of my apartment complex and then was taken to the Emergency Room for severe electrolyte imbalances. This was the turning point for me. I had hit rock bottom, and knew that my body couldn't take much more abuse. It was either death or treatment. I chose treatment.

Exercise in Early Recovery 

Intuitive exercise (which I will discuss in more detail in future posts) is one of the principles of Intuitive Eating, so learning to develop a healthy relationship with exercise was part of my treatment at the Center For Change. We weren't allowed to exercise until we reached a certain phase, and even then we could only do it at certain times or during certain groups. In treatment, I started to make some healthy connections with exercise, but I still had a very long way to go. After leaving the Center For Change, It seemed that any time I did try to incorporate exercise into my life, eating disorder thoughts would overwhelm me. It was far too triggering early on, and so I had to tread very slowly. My recovery mattered more to me than anything else, so exercise was put on the back burner until I felt I had recovered enough for it to be something positive in my life.

Snowboarding and My Recovery

 In early recovery, I had longed for physical activity and physical fitness. I so desperately missed that part of myself. I didn't know how to reconnect to the healthy love of exercise that I once had. About 7 or 8 months after leaving treatment, Josh (my boyfriend, who is now my husband) & I bought season passes to the Canyons Ski Resort. Before treatment, he had taken me back country snowboarding a couple of times, but my sick body could not withstand the rigor of the sport and I often ended up passing out. This decision, to give the sport another try, was the beginning of  me reclaiming the athlete that had always been a part of me. Once again a passion was born. I found it easy to push eating disorder thoughts out of my mind, as I focused on learning a new skill. The first day on the slopes I met, who is to this day, one of my very best friends. It was her first day too and we learned together, laughing at each other along the way. All season long we went at least weekly, and sometimes several times a week. That familiar exhilaration of learning a new, physical skill returned and I was hooked. Most days we would go for 7 or 8 hours, with little down time. Often, my muscles would be so sore the next day that I could barely walk. To me, this feeling was WONDERFUL. It meant my body was becoming stronger, it was recovering. I was reclaiming something that my eating disorder had taken from me. The athlete, that had been buried deep down inside, was once again emerging and so many positive connections were being made. I had some of my very best friends, as well as the love of my life, by my side. It was so very different than the exercise I had experienced in the dark days of my eating disorder. My fitness levels improved so much and it felt AMAZING. By the end of the season, it all felt so easy. I wasn't out of breath, or too sore, or too tired after a full day of snowboarding. This new awakening led to discovering and rediscovering other passions as well. I started jumping on the trampoline again, and power tumbling in my back yard. My life started filling up with things like: hiking, swimming at the lake, and wake boarding. My winters from that point on were ALWAYS filled with snowboarding, and I will ALWAYS have a passion for the sport that reconnected me to my inner athlete.

Getting Back Into 'Formal' Exercise

Josh and I got married, and together we lived a pretty active lifestyle through our different hobbies and interests, but I still didn't have much desire to do any kind of formal exercise. It scared me. I didn't want anything to get in the way of my recovery. Every now and again I would go to the gym, but there were always so many triggers. Doing exercise videos at home brought back bad memories and I couldn't enjoy it. At the time, I didn't really know how to come up with my own exercises, so formal exercise was not a very big part of my life over the next few years. That was until the birth of my first child, Jaxon, in 2005. I fell into a deep postpartum depression, Josh was working and going to school, Jaxon was extremely colicky, I was adjustinging to being home full time, and I was unable to go out and do the things that normally had kept me active. I knew I needed to do something to nurture myself during this difficult time. I decided to buy a gym pass, which included daycare for Jaxon. I started going to the morning workout classes 5 days a week. Before my very first time going, I gave myself a pep talk that I would not go to these classes to lose weight or change my body, I would only go to these classes to take care of my body and mind. This would be my ONLY motivation for exercising. I knew I would be surrounded by women, with different motives and I prepared myself for that. As I started going, I realized how much progress I had actually made in disconnecting exercise from weight loss. The women's comments had very little effect on me. There was one instructor that was very extreme in the way she tried to motivate the class to lose weight and diet. My answer to not being effected by her comments, was to simply tune them out. Sometimes I would repeat positive affirmations in my head, until the class was over. It felt SO GOOD to be moving again, and to see the progress in my fitness levels. I felt the powerful effect this ritual of daily exercise had on my mental health. Kickboxing was my most favorite class of all. I could go in their and beat the crap out of the kickboxing bag, and release all the stress and frustration that was pent up inside. During the weight lifting classes, I remember doing weighted squats and just thinking about how easy snowboarding through the powder would be with my tougher legs. This one hour of physical activity at the gym, was my time and I looked forward to it everyday. 

Exercise Now

I continued working out at the gym for almost 7 years. It was only about a year and a half ago that I transitioned to working out at my own home. I was worried at first about doing my own thing, and not having an instructor there to tell me what to do. I was also worried about it not being able to be my own time anymore, since I wouldn't have the daycare for my kids. It all worked out though. I guess when exercise has become something you love, you find a way to make it work. I get up and do my workouts at 6 a.m. and have actually become a morning person (this is a miracle for me, believe me). My two older kids are usually awake at 6:00 or 6:30, but they either watch a movie, play upstairs by themselves, or come and join me (which is absolutely adorable when they do). I started out doing CrossFit workouts from their website, and eventually decided to design my own workouts from what I had learned. Working out is what gets me up and going every morning. It gives me energy to tackle my role as a mom. I continue to keep my focus on nurturing myself and fitness and OFF my appearance. I have reached a level of strength and endurance that I would have never thought possible for me. I exercise for no other reason than it is fun and it makes me feel good.  And now, we have come full circle.