When working out isn't working out

It felt like I woke up one day and my butt had grown twice its size, not kidding. My belly was a little bigger, tender and sensitive and I felt tired, really tired. The last few months of 2022 went on like this with no reprieve. Until January of 2023 rolled around and I felt like I was existing in a different body. What did I do to create this problem?

I am naturally curious, I’m a doer, I’m someone who won’t stop until I uncover the issue at hand. So off I went on my journey to figure out how, and why. All I wanted to know was how I gained 30 lbs in 2 months and why I can sleep for 10 hours and still need more rest. Why does every single joint in my body ache and I feel like I’m 80 years old? I found a doctor who listened and encouraged me to not seek a diagnosis. She said she is here to help me manage my symptoms while looking for the root cause. Almost 12 months later and I still don’t have the answers I want. Because I want it to be easy. Black and White. This is what caused “X” and this is how you treat it. Done. I would’ve done anything to hear those words because I can follow protocols and I believe in “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. 

You see these symptoms are familiar to me, I’ve actually been down this road before. About 8 years ago. I was diagnosed with Hashimotos, the autoimmune disease of the thyroid. All of the same familiar “mystery” aches and pains were creeping back. I didn’t want to admit what I knew was going on. I had to slow down in order to get back to homeostasis. But that reality is still something I can’t quite do for myself.

 The one thing that was always constant was how I was able to show up for myself with movement. I was able to wake up and know that moving my body in some way would make me feel better and keep my waist line about the same. It was never “the answer” to weight loss for me, but it kept me regular. It also was a natural antidepressant. My dopamine and serotonin levels were regulated by consistent exercise. So I did it all the time.

So when I began to push myself to show up for movement last winter I crashed. Anything that wasn't gentle was out of the question. And believe me I tried to push it. I would show up at the gym or to P.volve class and get on with business as usual. Two hours later I would feel like I got run over by a semi. To be honest I’m still out here trying to do more and not less. But compared to the way I used to move my body I have had to dial it back. Vinyasa yoga has been replaced with gentle yoga and meditation/breathwork. Personal training sessions are geared towards mobility and just weightlifting with a sprinkle of cardio (30 seconds hahahaha). 

I’ve added a pole dancing class this year to give me a sense of community.  It’s a place I can show up as I am and wiggle and jiggle my bigger body around the pole. I wish I could say it’s energizing and I feel like I’m more confident. I wish I could say it didn’t make me so exhausted as other methods but alas if I push myself too hard it does.

Just this month I had a wild experience when I walked into the P.Volve studio where I have religiously taken multiple classes every week since 2020. The receptionist was so excited to tell me that today was my 900th class! What?!?! How the hell have I done 900 classes? The first emotion that hit me was shame…how the hell have I done 900 workout classes and I still look like this? Shouldn’t I be walking around with a shredded 6 pack and sculpted arms? A snatched waistline and a lifted booty? Instead I am an exhausted human, just existing with more lbs on me than I’d like. I have worked so hard to show up regularly to move this body, it’s practically my religion. So I have had to work on changing my perspective on this. I am now proud of how I show up, unwavering, even if I’m tired, because I know it’s important. 

However, it has led me to also gain perspective that overdoing it and letting working out become your religion, your life, your purpose, is a dangerous slippery slope. Womens adrenal glands(especially in your 40’s) don’t respond well to “more is more”. They don’t respond well to “wake up and grind’, “my body is my machine”, or “sweat, sacrifice, success”. All of these masculine ideas that we have to push push push until we break. That’s how we get stronger. That may have worked on my body before, it may have motivated me in the past. But today I am faced with 900 workouts, and a bigger, heavier, more exhausted body. 

Now what? Well I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that I am going to try to do less. Maybe some long walks, more breathing. More living. How I arrive there will be a surprise, because accepting and trusting that the road ahead is paved exactly as I need it to be is hard, but here I am doing it. And I want to insist that everyone remember that your body is not your resume! It is also not an apology (read that book by Sonya Rene Taylor) The skin and the body we are in right now is going to change over and over and the memories it keeps for us are just those. Learning acceptance will probably take me a lifetime. However I don’t think many of us have much of a choice do we?

You can find me moving my bag of bones at these places:

Biking the flat streets of Chicago! What a freeing sensation to blast past all of the traffic

P.Volve West Loop Chicago, a true evolution of movement practice with amazing instructors

Midtown Athletic club working out with Elodi Senetra, keeping my form in check 

Yoga and breath with Emily Rezetko of Verdant Place at Chicago Plants in Wicker Park Chicago. Yoga surrounded by greenery

Pole dancing at Catalyst Movement Arts, a true somatic experience, the only to get me bodied

Roaming the many acres of Humboldt Park in Chicago, watching hawks, ducks, geese, squirrels and homeless folks exist in harmony.