Story by Lisa Andie
Let’s just make something clear, I am not someone who absolutely loves to work out. I find working out to be somewhat therapeutic and see the obvious health benefits but that’s about it. My world does not revolve around the gym and I do not get the warm and fuzzies when I see a sale on athletic wear. I am the girl that would eat donuts and sip margaritas on the treadmill and convince myself that the calories cancel out. At my core, this is who I am.
But, I will admit, I have a level of body dysmorphia. There are times I get so obsessed with how many calories I eat, how many calories I burn, and what I put in my body. If I slip up, I shame and work myself to the point where my body physically starts to shut down. I push myself way harder than I should and leave zero time to let my body recover. I sneak into the bathroom multiple times a day to check my weight on the scale, I portion out my meals, calorie count, and avoid carbs like there’s no tomorrow. I’m only interested in seeing results, and I don’t care how I get there. I understand that these practices don’t always match up to science, but I still go on living like this for weeks, sometimes months on end while knowing how unhealthy it is.
I know I’m being unhealthy because I know how much I don’t necessarily enjoy working out. When my mental health is good, I work out to be healthy and to keep my body sharp. My workouts are not strict, rather focused on keeping my body active. They are dance parties, mini barre classes, 20 minute HIIT treadmill runs, Zumba classes I make up as I go, and silly things like that. I eat to fuel my body and I don’t shame myself for eating what I want.
When I catch myself spiraling into an episode of body dysmorphia, I know it’s time to break the cycle. I also know how hard it is to do that because it’s taken me a long time to get to this place.
If you relate to any of the above, and you’re starting to realize how important it is to start to break your cycle, I hope you feel empowered to try today to start to break your cycle and I hope you’ll refer back to this.
To break my cycle I spent one week making up random work outs as I go. I don’t plan out cardio or weight training days nor do I stress about the number of miles I’ve ran or how many hours I’ve dedicated to fitness. I simply let my body do what it wants to do in the current moment.
Here is a breakdown of 5 days of Cycle breaking activity:
Monday: I had a lot of energy, but my hip was bothering me over the weekend so I knew I wanted to take it easy. I decided to do a “hike,” something I didn’t even know was a thing until my husband told me about it. It’s a treadmill work out that simulates climbing a mountain. This exercise focuses on incline rather than speed. Every minute that goes by you up the incline by 1 until you reach 10. Once you reach 10, you start your descend down the mountain lowering the incline by 1 each minute. You will be surprised how fast the 20 minutes goes by and how good you feel after.
Tuesday: Today I decided to do the 200 x 50 workout. This isn’t anything you’ll find on the internet, it’s something I made up in the moment because that’s what my body told me I could handle. What I did was 200 jumping jacks with short breaks after every 50. This would get my heart rate up, while also avoiding being miserable. Next, I did 50 squats in a row with no weights:
-10 regular squats
-10 pile
-10 left leg front lunges
-10 right leg front lunges
(Yes, I know lunges are not technically squats but I did them anyway, sue me for my improper exercise terminology.)
-10 jump squats.
You will have to stop and feel the burn. It’s a little bit more of a push but it goes by quick. I decided to do another set because I knew my body would be able to handle it. I did 200 more jumping jacks in the exact same way and I added a 5 pound weight to the squat sets that followed.
Wednesday: I was sore from the squats and I wasn’t feeling up for anything intense. I have a 4-month-old and she had been up multiple times tonight. I was feeling drained and a little stressed and I knew there was only one thing to do: dance party. I turned on a playlist of 90’s & 00’s punk rock and I started jumping around dancing, reminiscing on the memories I had to each song while singing and screaming their lyrics. Next thing I knew, it had been 30 minutes. I was sweating and my heart was pounding. It was the most fun I had “working out” in a while.
Thursday: I wanted to take it down a notch. I hadn’t done a barre work out in a while and I was actually excited to do one. A few weeks ago, I had created a 3-song light weight barre workout to Taylor Swift and Meatloaf songs. I am not even kidding. It sounds ridiculous, but it was the perfect work out I needed in my repertoire. Here’s how it went:
Song 1: I FORGOT THAT YOU EXISTED – I used two three-pound weights and focused on loosening my body, stretching, and working my arms.
Song 2: LONDON BOY – Here I picked up the pace and did a combination of leg toning, bounce squats, and more arms.
Song 3: PARADISE BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHT – This is where I let it all fly. I can only describe this part of the workout as Zumba on speed. If you know the song you know its length and I don’t stop moving for its’ entirety.
Friday: I did another hike, except this time I went up to 15 incline and down to 5.
By Saturday I started to slowly feel myself again. With many mental breaks and lots of self love, I was able to look myself in the mirror and love what I saw. A beautiful body that less than 4-months ago gave birth to a human. A body that feeds that little human every single day. A body that I am so grateful to have. From there, I started looking up brownie recipes.
I’m not claiming that this is how to cure body dysmorphia. I know it’s a serious and personal mental illness. I am aware that obsessing over my weight, diet, and work outs is something that I have to work at every day. I’ve just found through my personal journey with the illness that this is a way to shake the cycle and help myself get back on track mentally. If you relate to any of the above, I urge you to spend one week shaking up your workouts, focusing on fun and not function. Lay off the weights and the stressful running and rev up the one-person dance parties. Focus on workouts that fit your lifestyle in that current moment, not what you think you should be doing or even what you wish to be doing.
When we start to realize that working out doesn’t have to be for results, we start to kick the negative associations we have with being active and most importantly start to love our bodies and ourselves more.
Exercise doesn’t need to be overly physically strenuous or emotionally and mentally taxing. It doesn’t necessarily need to be linked to body goals or weight loss. For some, it can be about structure and underlying health. For others it could mean everything and more. For me, I use it as a way to prove to myself that the overall goal is to be healthy.
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