No, I don’t think these two statements are related.
You might remember the breakthrough I had back in summer after completing a via ferrata in the remote wilderness along the Saguenay Fjord in Quebec.
My body was hurting in a bad way. It had been over a year of suffering through a nagging Achilles issue that most of the time was a minor nuisance but occasionally, during periods of major activity, became something more.
After weeks of hiking and climbing, mostly through the gorgeous gorges of upstate New York, my Achilles was in the worst shape it had ever been. I’d gotten used to pain during my first few steps in the morning, and maybe again in the evening after an active day. But by this point in the trip, even the first few steps after sitting were painful, as were any steps down. Which was particularly problematic because the last two places we stayed were on the second floor and only accessible by stairs.
After that trip, I made a bit of a declaration, to myself and all of you, that I was done proving myself athletically. I love hiking and nature. I really really do. But somewhere along the way, it had become about more than moving my body or enjoying nature. It had become a way of proving, more like an f* you to the rest of the world, that yes, this fat body could still do all the things non-fat bodies could do.
During that trip, my husband and I did some planning around the next half of our lives, figuring out what we wanted in our next hometown, even rating how important each of those values were, and then asked AI to recommend a list of places that fit that criteria. Doing that exercise brought something else to the forefront, the realization that if I wanted to enjoy this next chapter, I would need to shift from proving to healing.
It was time to really double down on fixing my body.
So I took the next step in the recovery process, an experimental procedure where my own platelets were injected into my ankle. Before I left on the trip, the doc had told me I’d be able to resume full activities after two weeks in a boot, and my plan had been to do just that. I didn’t want to lose any of the cardio endurance I’d built up, especially since summer heat is so brutal in Texas.
I confirmed it again with the doc on the day of the procedure, and this time he was more measured. Go slow. Stay off the ankle as much as possible and give it time to heal. Just don’t skip the stretches! This was the first clue that this procedure might not be quite as easy as I thought it would be.
It was painful. Much more painful than I was expecting, and in the weeks after, I was actually in more pain than I had been the entire year. There was also more tightness in my Achilles than I had been experiencing. I might need to reconsider my two-week timeline.
After carrying that thought around with me a few days, I shared it, and another I’d been having, with my husband. Why do I need to rush back? Why not take all the time I need to get over it? (To be clear, he’s the voice of reason and would have recommended this to begin with, which is why I’d waited until I was more certain to bring it up with him.)
It was a thought that had never occurred to me before, but it made sense: If I was putting my body through this much torture for a procedure, why wouldn’t I give it enough time to actually heal?
So I didn’t.
The old me never missed workouts. Old me trained through flu and strep throat, more than once in my 40s when I was competing in Oly lifting. Even when I took a day off, the guilt was like an extra weight I was carrying around, a mental kettlebell, reminding me how much weight I was going to gain from those missed calorie-burning sessions. I’d tried to make up for it, of course, through reduced eating, but it was just another mental stressor. Now I see it more clearly: I’d give myself physical permission, but not mental.
Prior to the PRP procedure, I wondered how I would handle two weeks of non-activity, especially two weeks off my mountain bike. In the past, I would have been stressed-out and short-tempered, agitating myself and everyone around me.
This time I was actually … totally fine.
I felt bad for my dog, even though my husband was totally taking on his daily walks, but I was strangely okay. It was the heat of summer in Texas, and for the first time, I gave myself permission to not put myself in it. I took on a freelance writing project and focused on my pro bono marketing work for a local nonprofit I’m on the board of. I leaned into more TV time in the evenings.
But more importantly, I didn’t feel fat.
I didn’t count calories. I didn’t worry about what or how much I was eating. I trusted my body would adjust my food intake to my activity level, and it did.
I had a brief thing trying on clothes in a Nordstrom dressing room. There was cellulite on my upper thighs that had previously been rock hard. But it was more like a momentary noticing, followed by reminding myself that this was temporary. The cellulite and softness, yes, but also my response to it. In the past, that would have set off alarm bells, urgently warning: You. Must. Do. Something.
I waited almost five weeks to return to biking. For the last Ride Like a Girl ride of the season, one of my fellow lady shredders asked me to come out, even if just for the post-ride celebrations. I instead decided I’d see how the bike felt. I joined a slower group and took it easy in the back of the pack. I wasn’t pushing it. I wasn’t overdoing it. When I felt like I’d hit my limit, I headed back to the parking lot without a second thought.
I waited almost five weeks to return to biking. On the last Ride Like a Girl ride of the season, one of my fellow lady shredders asked me to come out for the final ride, even if just for the post-ride celebrations. I instead decided I’d see how the bike felt. I joined a slower group and took it easy in the back of the pack. I wasn’t pushing it. I wasn’t comparing and coming up short. When I felt like I’d hit my limit, I headed back to the parking lot without a second thought.
Body image check-in time. How’s everyone else feeling right now?
A quick Almost Sated housekeeping note: My fall subscription sale continues for a few more days. You can get 50% off an annual paid subscription, $30 for the year instead of $60, for as long as you remain a subscriber. If you’ve been thinking about becoming a paid subscriber, now’s a very good time.
In case you missed it …
‘It’s not about being less big’
An interview with Christina Hall, a Barbados-based non-diet nutritionist with a master’s in human nutrition and public health, who joined me for a conversation about diet culture, size preferences in this Caribbean island, and how Western body ideals influence food culture outside its borders.
What the sorority “Ozempidemic” says about our quest for thinness
As a parent, there’s all kinds of disturbing in this piece. It’s not just the rampant GLP-1 use among girls trying to make themselves skinny enough for the top sorority houses in the SEC, though school outside the conference are mentioned too. There are also multiple references to heavy drug use (ketamine and cocaine) and heavy drinking.
The most body-positive place I've ever visited
For the first few years after I stopped dieting, travel was a trial. It brought questions, uncertainties, insecurities. Not because of the logistics of unfamiliar places, but because I didn’t know, and didn’t trust, my new body. Every trip came with a set of questions I had never had to ask before.