Navigating Health and Body Image - My Story.
I’ve shared my story and battles with my body image and body weight in varying depths on varying different platforms, but I’ve never dived super deep in to the nitty gritty of each stage of the journey. So that’s what I’ve done. I feel called to share the finest details because all too often I see nutrition and exercise viewed in isolation from all other elements of an individual’s life. Your relationships, work, hobbies, education, family, sleep, sex life - all of these play a factor in determining your behaviours around food and exercise and the perceptions you hold of yourself. I hope that by breaking down every little bit of this story, you can come to recognise how so many things interplayed in my journey and perhaps help you recognise anything in your life that may be indirectly adversely affecting your physical or mental health, that you may not have otherwise considered.
The story really begins at age 15. Prior to then, I was pretty healthy. Body image wasn’t really something I thought about all too much. I was relatively active, played sport, though spent a lot of time on MSN (lmao) and ate Easy Mac most afternoons after school. In the ninth grade, I had my first break up. Which in hindsight and if you know any one in grade nine now, seems silly and cute, but back then it was extremely traumatic and triggered a pretty severe cascade of events. I thought his new girlfriend was way prettier and skinnier than I was so I tried to get skinnier in an effort to level up to her.
I started running every day and restricted my eating. I had no guidance in either of these things - I just ran as far as I could each day and kept a food diary so that I felt guilty if I wrote down anything “bad”. My running was pretty intense and so I improved quickly and began competing in events from 4-21km. I made some teams that issued meal plans to their athletes which enabled me to pass off all of my running as “training” and my eating and weight loss as “supporting my sport.” I also got braces around this time which made it hard and messy to eat a bunch of foods, so that was a good excuse too. I’m still not sure if the people around me honestly believed that these were the reasons behind my behaviour and associated weight loss or rather managed to convince themselves as a coping mechanism. In any case, I’m sure it was a very challenging time for my parents and loved ones.
I had obsessive behaviours in most areas of my life throughout all of my senior school years which didn’t leave much room for a social life. I committed myself to training, work and study, really isolating myself, which unsurprisingly, meant I lost most of my friends. I didn’t share any of my thoughts or experiences with anyone. I was very in denial about my body and my health which certainly made living in my mind a very lonely experience.
My lowest weight was 45kg at 172cm tall. Mum always told me if I weighed in below 45kg she would intervene so I weighed myself every morning to make sure I was above 45kg but no more than 46kg.
Sydney, 2010. This was some running event in Sydney. I did many. iPhones weren’t a thing back then.
Gold Coast, 2010. It was on this trip I decided I was moving. It was super impromptu but probably my best decision to date.
New Caledonia, 2010. Family holiday for Christmas. The only person ever to not gain any weight on a cruise ship.
At 17, I finished school and moved to the Gold Coast, pretty spontaneously if I’m honest. I went for a road trip to Queensland in November 2010, loved it, changed all of my university preferences and moved up in February after being accepted in to Physiotherapy at Griffith University. I still think this move is the best thing I have ever done for myself. Putting myself so far out of my comfort zone obliterated any and all of my negative habits. I didn’t have body weight scales in my apartment to check my weight, I had bugger all money so I was making cheap, poor food choices, I was still running everyday, but I gained weight. Without being able to check my weight each day, I just saw in the mirror that I was looking healthy and I liked what I saw so I had no reason to change any of my behaviours. I continued to eat Coles BBQ chickens (my cousin who I lived with worked there and got them for $5 at closing time) and I continued to look and feel better for it.
A year in to living on the Gold Coast, my health had done a complete 180. I was doing well at uni, working jobs I enjoyed, I had an amazing circle of friends, still exercised every day, went out regularly for cake with my girlfriends and sushi to get out of tutoring, we clubbed two nights a week, I felt great in my skin and my new found confidence gifted me a whole new life. I started getting numbers (Tinder wasn’t a thing yet) and going on dates for the first time since grade nine. Which while not inherently important to the story, paints a picture of perhaps my physical appearance but more so the development of my confidence and interpersonal skills.
Gold Coast, 2012. This was my 19th Birthday and the first time I got drunk. I had one Bacardi Breezer lmao. We went to the Coolangatta Hotel to see Aqua live. It was amazing. On the right you see Grainne wearing “aqua for aqua.” I still find this funny.
Gold Coast, 2012. This is my neighbour at the time, Amanda. We did a run series with her family: one Sunday per month leading up to 15km in the final month. Running got more challenging with the more weight I had to carry.
Gold Coast, 2012. You wouldn’t catch me dead dressed like this on invasion day now.
At 19, I took a break from uni to work and travel. Early on in that year, a personal trainer that I worked with convinced me to go train legs after weeks of me carrying on about how fit I was. I did my first leg day and I died. This was the beginning of my love affair with the gym - I’ve trained consistently ever since. I went on to train with him five days per week. He taught me how to use a barbell and basically use a gym, and I was introduced to the chicken and broccoli bro diet. There were certainly positives here - my running became less and less as i was in the gym more and more, but the bro diet was certainly just another way to restrict my eating. The personal trainer would have me look for photos online of girls that I wanted to look like. I didn’t know these girls had been training for years (they were photos from BodyBuilding.com); I wanted to look like them in 12 weeks. So this phase certainly brought back some compulsive behaviours and brought my focus back to my appearance again. It was no where near as bad as in the past, I didn’t experience any crazy weight loss or anything, but certainly feelings of inadequacy started to show up more and more frequently. I had crazy “cheat days” where I would legitimately have a burger for breakfast and pastries for lunch and it was just out of control and made me feel awful. Then I’d go back to eating chicken and broccoli the next day, with immense cravings but feeling so miserable with myself.
In the middle of this time, I did a solo Europe trip for two months. It was such a great time - I really let my hair down for the first time in my life, partied almost every night, saw amazing sights, met amazing people. It was awesome! I found myself even more so on this trip, feeling no pressure to conform to any ideals; just being myself. But, as comes with this kind behaviour, I gained 5kg in the time that I was away and felt pretty gross when I got home. Loved ones laughed at my new found curves and cellulite which didn’t exactly make me feel better. My training was punishing and misguided in an attempt to reverse the effects; at least 2x sessions per day, intense cardio, chicken and broccoli.
Fortunately, this didn’t go on too long before I enrolled in my Cert 3/4 in Fitness, learned the fundamentals and started training with another great personal trainer five nights per week. Investing in my education and starting with this trainer was very positive. There was a group of four of us that trained together, all with very different personalities and goals but we were great for each other. My training was social, fun and sustainable. Less cardio, more resistance training and the cardio I did do was in a playful group context. While I had aesthetic goals, these weren’t my focus so much while I was training. Training was fun, I had FOMO when I didn’t go and so I looked forward to it every day.
Amsterdam, 2012. I was singing “Respect” by Aretha Franklin on stage if you were wondering.
Some island in Greece, 2012. I was about five weeks into a bender at this point.
A little more immersed in the industry at this point, I discovered body building and decided to do a fitness contest. I hired a coach and did a 4-5 month prep if I remember correctly. I loved every part of the process of preparing for a competition. I loved training, I had amazing training partners, I lived on the Gold Coast so hill sprints always came with a beach swim afterwards, I learned how to track macros and my food never felt overly restricted because I had such a solid support circle going through the whole process with me. I learned so much in this time. I remember early on struggling to hit my calorie intake because my coach wanted me to eat so much. She suggested eating ice cream and I thought she was sabotaging me. She was extremely patient, informative and compassionate.
On the day of my first competition, I looked in the mirror and cried. I thought I was so fucking beautiful. My family flew up to support me, I had my best friends with me all day diva-ing the shit out of me because if I did anything, I’d ruin my tan. It was just so much fun. I loved being on stage; my smile was so big. I took home fifth place which may as well had been first given my reaction. I was so pumped. I did another comp two weeks later which I also loved, got invited to do a couple of catwalk shows which was really fun; the whole thing was just a really fun whirlwind of events!
Burleigh Heads, 2013. I would run hill sprints here four days per week with the guys I worked with at a cafe. There were 2x baristas, 1x waiter, 1x chef and 1x customer in our running crew. I was the slowest. They weren’t prepping for anything. They…
Brisbane, 2013. Never mind the diet, learning to walk in stiletto heels without falling and popping a tit was way harder.
Brisbane. 2013. Fifth place. Given the size of my smile you’d think I’d won. I cried actually. This is Casey, one of my training partners. She placed fourth.
Then, when it was all over I piled on 20kg in about two months. Now, I have a lot to say about this. Had I had the experience and knowledge I have now, this wouldn’t have happened. But that being said, the two months to follow were some of the best of my life. And for years following, I viewed and communicated this time as an unfortunate unfurling of events. The truth about this period of time: I had just decided to move back to my hometown to start a business with my best friend. So, over a period of weeks, I quit all three jobs I had been working and spent every spare minute with the friends I had made in my three years on the Gold Coast, of which there were many amazing ones made from different chapters of my life there. I went out a lot, I had weekends away, we had dinner parties - it was extremely social and so much fun! Then I moved home in time for Christmas, had an incredible Christmas with my family, went away for New Years Eve which was also a blast in a super classy hotel, then I went backpacking in Thailand for three weeks which was also incredible! It was the most amazing Summer that yeah, led to some unwanted weight gain. If I had my time again, I would have moderated everything just a little bit; but also, I would not stand for the guilt that I allowed to follow.
Some part of Thailand, January, 2014. This trip was so incredible. I travelled most of the north of Thailand over three weeks.
Krabi, 2014. We had been hiking and camping in the middle of nowhere for ~2.5 weeks by this point. Then we were set loose for a night in Krabi. I don’t remember a lot but I do remember having money thrown at me while I danced on a pole.
Some party, somewhere in Thailand, 2014.
After the summer was over, I started my new life back on the Central Coast. I went back to uni after being accepted to Newcastle University to continue my bachelor degree and my best friend and I launched Bella Muscle. It lasted as a women’s only bootcamp for 10 weeks before growth and weather demanded a permanent space. More on this later. But life was pretty hectic: running a business at 21, I was full time at uni and I started getting ready for my second competition season, which post gaining 20kgs was going to be a long road.
The second season was so miserable. It was everything the first wasn’t. I would cry taking photos and skin folds each week. I felt isolated. I didn’t have the huge support network of the first year. Posing practice was awful. I did not want to take my kit off. I did not enjoy any part of the process. I dropped around 13kg in ~16 weeks and placed again on competition day with a second and a fourth placing if I remember correctly but I was hardly pumped about it; more just glad it was over. The biggest win here was how much I learned over the two seasons and the big rebound in between. I wasn’t super lean second time round, more so just a healthy body weight. I stood on stage at around 61kg which I have roughly maintained ever since with the awareness and knowledge I gained.
The other big win: it was during this second prep though that I was introduced to powerlifting. I didn’t know much but I liked the idea of being strong. I watched a few comps, incorporated the powerlifts in to my program a little more, (loosely) prioritised strength some days and generally just dabbled with it. I loved my strength sessions - I felt strong and powerful and they took my attention away from how I looked. Those sessions were some of the only times during that prep that I felt liberated, free and confident. I clearly recall walking off the bikini stage like right, my powerlifting career starts tomorrow [right after a Big Mac].
I have no idea the date of this or how far in to prep this was. Bella Muscle, 2014. This was the first time I had the confidence to take my top off for posing practice. It was extremely confronting but I was starting to get some of my confidence back.
Competition day, Sydney, ~October 2014. Way more into my pec development and bench progress than any other part of the competition experience.
I came away with two trophies. Second in one category, fourth in the other if I remember correctly. Felt nothing like fifth had the previous year. Was much more “thank fuck that’s over.”
So I very diligently reverse dieted and began powerlifting. I was a very classic case of “all the gear, no idea.” I didn’t have a coach, I didn’t know the rules, but my belt was mad and I owned knee sleeves. I competed in my first competition six months later. I laugh so much looking back on my first comp, like most people do I guess. I weighed in 4kg under my weight class and was still stressed that I wasn’t going to make it, didn’t submit a single attempt card, squatted high bar and cried when I beat the down command on my first deadlift. I was a shamble but I absolutely loved it! I squatted 110, benched 67.5 and deadlifted 150 at 58.7kg body weight then went on to Junior Nationals in Melbourne three months later. I learned how to squat low bar this time round, still didn’t have a coach, though finally had someone handle me and run cards and I weighed in much closer to my weight class. I finished with 122.5 / 70 / 157.5 at 62.3 for silver. I loved all of it, the whole experience. It loved training, competing, having loved ones around me and certainly defying all of the limitations and expectations I had come to place on myself.
Junior Nationals 2015, Melbourne. 122.5 / 70 / 155 / 347.5. Silver 63kg class.
Bella Muscle, 2015. The rack was positioned perfectly for the 9am sun. I was sponsored by Australian Sports Nutrition 2014-2016. They were incredibly supportive and contributed very generously to my travel expenses.
This is still in the top five most exciting days of my life. Australian uniform arrived. Sometime late 2015.
This part gets a little interesting. I had a long term partner during this time. We went away for a week straight after Junior Nationals, a road trip down the Great Ocean Road which was such a big bucket list item for me! She had said no training for the week. I was to relax. Not allowed to take my belt. It made me anxious but I thought I might be okay and it would make her happy. It was only a few days in that she woke up to me crying hysterically - I felt awful. We had been eating so much food, it was raining a lot so not much activity, I felt sluggish and awful. It was probably the first time I had ever had someone else’s food and exercise rules imposed on me and I didn’t like it one bit. I do still experience a bit of confusion around this. I can’t put my finger on whether this was still part of a compulsion and an unhealthy reaction to the circumstances or if I really enjoy exercise and eating well and having those things taken away from me made me feel a little yucky and not myself. I lean more towards the latter.
My result at Junior Nationals was enough for me to be accepted as part of the Aussie Team for Asia Oceania Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in December. What a fucking story-rewriting experience this was for me. I’ve always prided myself on being tenacious and resilient but this cemented and positively reinforced those beliefs for me. Travelling to compete and represent your country is fucking mad. I don’t really know what to say on it, but travelling as part of a team, wearing green and gold, learning to compete in seriously sub-optimal conditions with a sub-optimal lead in [thank God I wasn’t vego back then], exploring such a different country that I hadn’t even heard of before and forging life long friendships in such a crazy context was just epic. I met one of my very best friends on this trip, John Paul coached me for the very first time and we got absolutely blind together for the very first time. A lot of good has ultimately come out of this adventure.
Arriving at the venue. This was surreal af. Uzbekistan, 2015.
Australian Team for the Asia Oceania Powerlifting Championships, 2015.
My performance on the day was not great and I was horribly disappointed. I think I only made six lifts and I cried a lot. But I did break an Oceania deadlift record and I won four gold medals. It was extremely bitter sweet. Going from crying from disappointment to standing on the top spot of the podium with the Aussie flag in a matter of minutes. I had very mixed emotions on the day but God have I learned from this experience. It’s funny how something can happen and you learn what you needed to from it like 3-4 years later. I couldn’t see it at the time but I am extremely grateful for every part of this experience. It was “character building.”
Athlete registration the day before competition. I got a fresh shave for comp day. Language barrier left me with a clean shave. Not the number one I thought I had asked for.
This is Charlie (Bear). Current best friend.
First time drinking with 5trong. He coached me earlier this day, we celebrated and mourned my performance then he flew home that night. I was so sad he was leaving.
While all this training for Uzbekistan was going on, I was still at uni (now part time), I was still the co-owner of a women’s only gym that had bloody grown and I was travelling between Newcastle and Melbourne around 1-2 times per month to visit my then long distance partner. Ultimately, I burned out. I am a perfectionist so I always maintained at least a distinction average at uni, powerlifting training is extremely demanding in terms of time and energy, owning a gym is no easy feat, nor is maintaining a long distance relationship. Body image still haunted me, so being the leader of hundreds of women in a gym certainly came with it’s own pressures (self-imposed) to look and perform for the part. I was spreading myself so thin trying to excel in every area of my life. I felt like I wasn’t winning anywhere. Everything felt like a struggle. I felt like I was letting people down. And in retrospect I can’t imagine I was the nicest person to be around.
The years we spent at Bella Muscle were some of the best of my life. The pride and fulfilment that came with guiding so many beautiful women to a place where they felt safe and supported was like nothing else. I’ve always been inspired and guided by the quote “be who you needed when you were younger” so opening this space in my hometown felt like my ultimate calling and duty. I’m proud to say that the 300 women that came through our doors are better for it. We educated and inspired them to prioritise their own health and wellbeing. Opening and operating Bella will forever be one of my proudest accomplishments.
Sisterhood Saturdays, sometime around 2015. We trained by the beach somewhere at 7.30am every Saturday and it was undoubtedly the best way to start my weekend.
Bring yo Boy session. We often got called out for just taking selfies and playing around so now and then we had a point to prove.
But amid the burnout and with her personal reasons, my business partner and I made the difficult decision to close the gym in June 2016. In hindsight, my coping mechanism was to run away from all of my problems and responsibilities. It was probably not the best way to go about it but I can’t say it hasn’t worked at least in the long run. I closed the gym, moved to Melbourne, stopped powerlifting, finished my degree and got a 9-5. My attitude was to take everything off my plate then slowly add things on as I wished to. This in itself presented many challenges because in removing all of these things I lost everything that made me, me. My identity was tied to being a gym owner and an athlete and diligent student. And now I was none of those things.
The first 18 months or so in Melbourne were turbulent. When I moved to Melbourne I moved to be with my long term partner turned fiance. The details of this are private by a few key points. Firstly, there was a continuation of having someone else’s food and exercise rules enforced on me. Food was a big part of her culture / family life so there was an expectation to consume big meals as a family on weekends. Italian meals. Pizza and pasta and pastry and more pasta. Plus, exercise was not for weekends. So where I was used to waking up early on Saturday, running hills by the beach and going for a cafe breakfast. Now, I was not exercising on weekends, lounging around all morning, then eating my body weight in spaghetti. It didn’t feel good.
I had used the move as an opportunity for somewhat of a life overhaul so I had stopped eating meat and stopped tracking macros from the day that I arrived in Victoria. I adopted a vegetarian diet and unexpectedly this helped my relationship with food a lot. It gave food and my food consumption a higher purpose; what I ate affected more than just my appearance. It was for the environment and Mumma Earth. Further to that, in no longer being an “athlete” or “fitness leader” and generally living in a cooler climate and so wearing many more layers at any given time, I felt much less pressure on my body image and performance. But yet still, living by somebody else’s rules meant body image still haunted me.
Bayside Farmers Market, Highett, 2016. I set a whole bunch of goals when I moved to Melbourne to generally be a better human. They included adopting a vegetarian diet, ceasing macro counting, using canvas shopping bags and shopping at local businesses. I also said I’d stop swearing but that hasn’t fucking happened.
Crossfit Red Bluff, Highett, 2016. I joined a Crossfit gym when I first moved to Melbourne. I absolutely loved it! The only real problem was that the powerlifter in me could not do any exercise for 5x5 in 30 minutes. If the sessions were 90 minutes long, I’d probably still do it.
It’s a weird phenomenon going vego - your compassion towards every living creature is amplified. I used to be terrified of anything that crawled and now I absolutely cannot kill a spider or bug of any kind. That being said, you can imagine my love for anything with fur.
Our relationship broke down just shy of 12 months of moving to Melbourne. This period of time challenged me a lot as you can probably imagine. Moving to Melbourne was perhaps the first big life decision I had made that wasn’t entirely selfishly motivated. So now I was living in a city for someone else where I was hours away from my loved ones, I didn’t know many people or have many friends and I was homeless for 2-3 weeks while I found a rental. Sleeping on a blow up mattress and eating every meal at the food court was lonely and humbling. But I enjoyed my job and my best friend was opening his own gym so I wanted to stay.
Nevermind my troubled teenage years, the six months to come were the hardest of my life. I was an introvert who didn’t enjoy my own company. Read that again.
I suffered debilitating anxiety. I was commuting for work, the days were bloody long and I was not getting even a little bit ahead because living alone in the city, every cent I earned went towards living expenses. So I lived for the weekend. Then Friday night would come around and I would spend it alone because I lived alone and I was introverted and didn’t really have many friends. In comes weekly Friday night anxiety attacks. I’d lay on the kitchen floor hysterical from about 6pm-1am until I was finally exhausted enough to sleep. Repeat weekly. This my friends, was fucked.
It was around now that I started practicing yoga. I initially started to aid recovery from training but it ended up being amazing for my mind. I cried a lot in yoga initially. I had amazing teachers who held space for me to be vulnerable. I’d lay on my mat for 10 minutes or so post savasana regathering myself before getting on with my day. My teachers never really said anything. They just made me comfortable to come back and to feel what I needed to feel. Except for one actually. S/O Kat Harvey-Barakat [@kat_harveybarakat on IG] who was like a fairy godmother. This woman changed my life and I don’t even know that she knows it. Her gentle words of encouragement sprinkled with a hint of tough love did a lot for me. Yoga gave me the strength to take on the day ahead and of an evening, well it just delayed going home a little longer.
The anxiety was pretty relentless for about six months. Working for government, I had access to free mental health care but it took me a long time to work up the courage to actually utilise it. Fuck am I glad I did though. I had my first psychologist appointment in December 2017. I was way too nervous to go to a clinic so my first appointment was over the phone. I remember so clearly sitting on my bed, sun streaming through my window, in my pjs with a cup of tea anxiously waiting for the call. A pep talk here. I remember her first asking me what she could help me with and I was so embarrassed to answer that I didn’t know. I think this was my biggest fear and hesitation - what is she supposed to help me with? I don’t know what is wrong with me; I am just sad. She comforted me when she said that almost everyone is the same. You don’t need to know why you are sad to see a mental health professional in the same way you don’t need to know what is wrong with you to see any other type of health professional. That is their job.
I saw the psychologist fortnightly for a period of time, eventually in her office and she was amazing! I am a very goal / task oriented person so she gave me homework tasks to complete before each appointment which suited me well. Things like completing a life audit, buying a lounge so I can relax and the biggest one: finding activities that I can do alone on a Friday night that I enjoy. This was a bloody life changer and the start of my gardening and sewing and macrame. Every Friday after work, I would buy garden or craft supplies and a bevvie of sorts [sometimes tea, sometimes cider] and settle in for a Friday evening on my balcony. I learned to love Friday nights and ultimately, my own company again.
Those six months weren’t all doom and gloom. A lot of good things happened. My best friend opened that gym I was talking about. The Strength Fortress Open Day, 2017.
I landed my boyfriend. Artvo, 2017.
I travelled and hiked a lot of Australia and got back on the powerlifting platform for the first time in two years. There were loads of happy times as well. Tasmania, 2017.
I’m a big fan of the new year. I don’t party or love fireworks but I do love the symbolism of a fresh start and by the end of 2017, that is exactly what I needed. I always set goals for the new year so going in to 2018 they were all centred around soul searching and becoming me again. I had four: 1. To do more craft because I enjoy it, particularly alone. 2. To become a Powerlifting Australia referee so I could be more involved in the sport that I love. 3. To start studying again because I love it and am good at it. 4. To journal. This last one never happened lmao. But 2018 was fucking bomb.
I don’t feel the need to go in to a tonne of detail here, but I soul searched A LOT. For the first time ever, body image was absolutely not an issue. My boyfriend and I moved in together. I made and continue to make my own rules around food and exercise that make me feel amazing. My partner accepts all of my quirks and imperfections. He thinks I’m sexy af and this is completely unperturbed by any fluctuations in my weight. I studied yoga for six months which was initially only for me but I felt it selfish not to share it so I starting teaching. I quit my job because I no longer loved it - the commuting was wearing me down a lot and I had a lot of anxiety surrounding my work. I spent a lot of time (happily) alone. I returned to coaching full time which was such an amazing decision and I feel so relieved and happy to be back doing it and to be so much more available to my clients than ever before. I refereed a lot and believe I have had a positive impact on the sport in doing so. I travelled. Relationships flourished. The whole year was incredibly successful - not monetarily or career wise - but I was so much happier than I had been in a long time by the end of it.
I don’t really know where this paragraph fits in to the story but it needs to be mentioned. When John Paul and I first started dating, I was pretty damaged. As previously mentioned, I was absolutely not okay in my own company - not a great state to be in at the start of a new relationship. I remember reading “The Honeymoon Effect” - hopefully someone reading this has read it. There’s an analogy in the book that uses noble gases to describe a person who chooses to enter in to a relationship but does not need to, because they are fine alone. And God this was the biggest motivator for me - I was fucking hydrogen and I wanted to be helium. So I had to do a lot of internal work to be strong alone again, so I could be strong in a partnership. He never ran to my aid when I struggled and we didn’t move in together until I had my shit sorted. He always gave me space for me to save myself - even when it wasn’t what I wanted in the moment. Further to this, I had some residual food hang ups / rules early on: I wouldn’t allow myself to eat sweets until after dinner and I wouldn’t share a meal. I opened up to John Paul about these eventually, apprehensively. In the past, divulging such information would have lead to scrutiny and pressure. John Paul never mentioned them. When we’d share a meal, wouldn’t mention it. When I brought it up to celebrate post meal, he was fucking pumped for me. Then wouldn’t mention it again until I brought it up. He has been one of the greatest contributors to my positive self image by literally doing nothing; just by holding space for me to be myself.
So this leads me to 2019. I’m doing the work I love, I relish in being alone, I live with my best friend and love of my life, I travel often and do all of the things that make me happy. We bought our own home earlier this year and after a long round about road, are doing the work we love, together. I’ve returned to powerlifting just recently and track my macros as required to help me achieve my performance goals. I have no expectations of myself - goals, but no expectation. I feel no pressure to perform or look a certain way. I can start and stop tracking as I wish and feel no pressure or discomfort either way. I am in control of my body, I am in control of my life - my schedule and my decisions. And hell, if all of the adversity, ups and downs have lead me to this level of freedom and self mastery, then damn I’m about all of it.
We bought our own home this year and our office is in that top window. Melbourne, 2019.
This isn’t mentioned anywhere because it’s probably not relevant. But we also rescued a kitty this year who has been a huge source of joy in my life. Add kitten to your mental health plan.
I have continued and will continue to study yoga. The more I know, the more I realise I don’t know. Yoga has been an incredible journey of self discovery. Byron Yoga Centre, 2019.
I have learned a lot through this crazy journey. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but if you’ve gotten this far, you deserve something to take away.
If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Trust your gut.
Nothing occurs in a vacuum. In reference to exercise / health / nutrition, your attitudes and behaviours towards these things are heavily influenced by everything else in your life. You can’t change your health without your life changing somewhat too. It is ignorant to try.
Your partner doesn’t need to call you fat or anything like that to have a negative impact on your self perception and self esteem. Observe the influence they have on your attitudes and behaviours and how you feel when you are with them.
Training and eating with only aesthetic goals can be dangerous and obsessive. If you have never set a performance goal, I highly encourage it. Direct your energy to being more rather than less.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I don’t fix my car or colour my own hair. You don’t need to navigate the diet / fitness / health industry. Ask for help.
Learn about nutrition and exercise. Invest in your education and your health. These are life skills that will free you.
Exercise and eat in a way you enjoy. If your exercise improves your physical health but you are fucking miserable, it may not be healthy at all.
Your physical health means little when your mental health is no good.
There are no such things as good and bad foods. Just foods you can afford to eat more or less of.
Your brain is plastic and malleable. Anything you have learned - any stories or limiting beliefs - you can unlearn.
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
Not all personal trainers are created equally. Find someone you vibe with and who makes you feel good about yourself and your goals.
Perception is everything. Gaining 20kg can be viewed as either a horrendous fuck up or a complete liberation of expectations. You get to decide.
Either you create your world, or your world creates you. Step up.
You are responsible for every single thing in your life. If you didn’t influence the event, you can influence your response to the event.
Set process goals. Big, ambitious goals are amazing but they can be daunting. Break them down in to things to do this year / month / week / day. Then do them.
In the face of your biggest challenge, you are becoming a better version of yourself. Reframing your challenges is freeing and empowering.
You can do everything that you want to. Perhaps just not all at once. Be realistic and compassionate with your expectations.
And, literally nobody gives a fuck what you weigh. Absolutely nobody.