Every fitness journey starts somewhere. For some, it starts in youth, with team sports or athletic friends or family. For others, it's a natural competitive spirit that drives them to push themselves to the limit. For me, it was a fight - a fight for my sense of self and my freedom.
The problem with telling these stories, to one degree or another, is that they are so often full of cliches, potential hashtags, and worn out vows that get annoying. "I was sick and tired of being sick and tired." "I hit rock bottom." "My wake up moment." The list goes on. And yet, for better or worse, every transformational fitness journey story has these traits! In literature, and in science, it is called catalyst, an inciter of change. And I believe it is essential to honor these moments, even as we try to move to remove the cliches from our narrative. So here is my story. Here is my
I was a small child, always one of the smallest in my class. I was so small that the pediatrician was, for a time, concerned that iI had an eating disorder. And perhaps I did. I was the child of a teen parent who tried and nearly succeeded in killing herself when I was six months old. While she was in a three-day coma, a family friend nursed me.
I was weaned quickly; she had her own baby after all. And while I remember my mother from childhood, she was a shadowy presence, a peripheral person, an entity who seemed forever in the next room, the next town, the next state. Luckily, very luckily, my mother's mother became my mom. I have no doubt, though, that this early trauma, abandonment for lack of a better word, affected my health and my growth.
After being weaned from the breast, it took nearly 5 years to wean me from a bottle. It was my comfort, my succor, and I just couldn't let go. The "milk" rotted my teeth to the extent that I had to have most of them pulled or covered in silver caps. I think I was pretty cute, but I wonder what others must have felt. And my poor grandma, who was simply trying to make me happy (and perhaps make up for the fact that my mother had left me on her proverbial doorstep), found it challenging to listen to my nightly crying. To top it off, I developed an allergy to milk, it made my throat sore, my nose stuffy, and my tummy upset. So in came the soy milk, 1984's replacement for mother's own. I have no doubt now that the phytoestrogens in the soy caused my PCOS and set the stage for insulin resistance and extremely addictive behaviors when it comes to sugar.
I was never particularly athletic, although I loved to ride my bike, cross-country ski, snowboard, climb around on the mountain behind my house, these were things I did intermittently and without much skill. In college, I became the "tortured artist." I wore all black, I smoked, I stayed up late, I wrote poetry and painted and studied theatre. I became a costume designer, then a fashion designer in New York City. I
commuted via subway, I ate every meal out. I developed cystic acne on my chin. After reading Skinny Bitch I became a vegan and then a vegetarian. (how could I not eat NYC pizza after all?)
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