A month or so ago, I signed up for the online qualifiers for a competition where the top 8 people in the Masters Division get an invite to National finals.
I’ve done the qualifiers a few years in a row now. The first year, I was in a division where the top 32 were invited to finals. I was 32nd – and went – and had an absolute blast! Last year, I didn’t make the first cut, but based on who had accepted, eventually did get an invite to go. The timing wasn’t quite right for me, so I declined. Roll on 2020, and I sign up again because I know I enjoy the push doing a competition gives me, a fair few of the Dawn Raiders crew are putting their names in the ring, and I want to be part of the community throwing down together. I thought that I was totally focused on the experience, that I was going into it not expecting anything, and wasn’t even thinking about qualifying.
But…
Once I crawled away from the rower after the first WOD, I immediately felt down on myself, and am struggling to shake the feelings.
I’m not good enough.
There is no way I could qualify.
Inner Me
Then, I watch the video, and it gets worse…
I look silly
How embarrassing
Inner Me
This is, of course, all ridiculous.
Being good at Crossfit is not my goal.
Qualifying for a competition is not my goal.
No-one is judging me.
The culture at +64 is all about putting in the mahi. Working hard, giving it your all, and being proud of what you can do. There are a lot of amazing, world class athletes there, but not once has my effort been compared to them. Not once have my accomplishments been belittled because someone else could lift more or do things I can’t. And in the nicest possible way, no-one cares about my results.
It’s one thing to know this in your mind, to think logically and objectively. It is quite another to feel it in your soul. At the moment my soul is making hard work of it, despite being surrounded by an amazing group of humans who are doing their best to pick me up, to support me, and letting me know I am not alone. I guess – as always – it comes down to me. To how I respond, to what I choose to take away from this. To me giving myself permission to acknowledge how I am feeling and to realize that it does not make me broken, it makes me human.
So, to inner me:
This way of thinking is ridiculous, but understandable. You aren’t inherently flawed, you just still have some things to work on. Your worth is not defined by how well you do at sport, or where you sit on a leader-board. People are not judging you based on your athletic ability, nor are they judging you for thinking this way. You have an army of people that have your back, that see your worth in how you treat people and in how you take up space in this world. You have an army of people who see you.
Have Fun: Enjoy the process and don’t worry about the outcome.
Be fiercely, fearlessly me: Be true to myself, be unapologetic about who I am, and embrace my weird.
This is me wearing leggings and a sports bra. This is me after a brutal workout with my 6am Crew the Dawn Raiders at Plus 64 Fitness. This is me with no makeup, no fake tan, no filter, no flattering pose.
It was confronting just getting this photo taken – I almost chickened out – there were other people there, they would see me and I don’t feel good about the body in the photo. So you can only imagine how terrifying it is for me to post it for the world to see.
My goal, what I am aspiring for, is to be truly happy when I see a photo of myself in a crop top – and in summer – maybe even booty shorts.
I don’t want to attempt to achieve this by changing the body in the photo – for one thing, I’m old enough to know that no amount of change in the body will allow me to reach this goal. Instead, I’m going to work on seeing this as the 42 year old body of a specific human.
The body of a specific human who is kind, healthy, fit, strong, and grounded. The body of a specific human who is open, and vulnerable, empowered and gentle. The body of a specific human who knows who she is, what is important to her and lives a life that is true to that. The body of a specific human that doesn’t agonize over food, who doesn’t judge her worth based on what her body looks like. The body of a specific human who finds joy in life, and brings joy to others.
Most of the time this is not what what I see. Most of the time I don’t like what I see. Most of the time I judge the human inside the body based on what it looks like – and mostly I see it as too fat, too pale, too blah.
I am posting this in the full knowledge that making this change is something that is 100% down to me – that it is hard, will take time, and there will be one step back for every two steps forward.
I am posting this in pursuit of my 2020 Goal – “Be Fiercely Fearlessly Me” – focusing on doing things that are important to me, not getting drawn into what is important to other people and being proud of who I am, as I am.
I am posting this to remind myself that I committed to work on things that feed my happiness, and that facing this and working through it will ultimately make me happier.
I am also posting this to break the illusion that those of us who think like this are alone. I know that I am not, and if being this open, this vulnerable, gives one person another perspective, a sense of not being alone, the understanding that not everyone has it “all together”, it is an added bonus as I move through this personal journey.
This is me.
This is me in the middle of a workout. This is me not thinking about what I look like, and being 100% in the moment.
This is the body of a specific human that can dig deep, that doesn’t take the easy route, that works hard. This is the body of a specific human that is constantly improving, that is supportive of and supported by, an inspiring group of people that get up early to push their own limits without judgement.
This is the body of a specific human who is committed to embracing being me.
The first few months of the year; and I’m really struggling with change at work, but finding my feet with Crossfit. I’m really focusing on my goals in the gym, including working on my headspace around competing – and feeling good about it. In contrast, I do not feel good about who I am at work, how I am reacting to some of the change, and feel as though I should be working more on me to be ‘better’.
I am running close to empty, but not recognizing it.
And then COVID-19 hit worldwide. In New Zealand, the government response was tough, and early. We went into country-wide lock-down at the end of March – working from home, gyms closed, everything apart from Supermarkets shut. Stay at home, isolate.
This was, for me, exactly what I needed. If this enforced period of slowing down hadn’t come along when it did, I imagine I would have fallen over. Instead of having the luxury of taking down-time in weekends, along with the rest of the country, it would have punched me in the face and floored me at the most inconvenient time.
This highlights the fact that I am still learning balance – I try to do all the things – but I can’t. I go all in, then crash. I focus on one thing, at the detriment of others, and I end up not liking where I am. I am in awe of the people who seem to be always improving, always learning, always achieving. I know that that’s not me, that I’m not wired to be able to do that without breaking, but it is tough to acknowledge that – and it leads to a feeling of not being enough. This is one of the aspects of my “Be fiercely, fearlessly me” goal – not only to embrace my weird but also to stop evaluating myself against others and learn that I am enough as I am.
Between the bombardment of ideas for personal growth so you don’t get bored with “all this spare time”, the expectations I put on myself around staying fit and active despite the gym being closed, and comparison against my workmates with how productive they are, and how hard they are working (while still learning a new language, and baking, and teaching their kids, and doing yoga, and renovating their house) – lock-down is giving me lots of opportunities to practice.
I’m not there yet, but I am becoming more aware and heading in the right direction.
I’m incredibly fortunate to still be working full time from home – it’s busy, and hard work, but I am certainly grateful that worrying about an income isn’t one of the things on my list.
I spend the first 6 weeks taking the weekends to sleep, to stretch, to Netflix and Chill. I distinctly plan to not do anything, and I need it. I start to slow down, to actually relax, and I begin to realise how wound up I was and how much I need this. I rebel against the idea I have to be productive, that I have to achieve, and I embrace the idea that I’m allowed to recharge and am enough exactly as I am.
It’s not plain sailing though, my brain keeps getting dragged back into “I should’s”. I see people spending time training in their back-yards, putting in extra time into skills, and strength, and mobility and feel guilty for not doing the same. I see amazing home gym setups and get caught up in thinking I need to buy gear and setting up my home space. Then, I manage to catch myself and think “Why?” I revisit my goals – Have fun, Move Well, Be Me.
The key to me having fun with Crossfit is going to classes, being part of something that is bigger than just my effort, the relaxed social aspect when people are milling about stretching, playing with skills, the banter, and the connection with other people that have surprisingly similar mental challenges. I don’t need a fancy home gym with all the equipment for this, I do need a connection to like minded people – a chat group fits the bill. It’s not quite the same, but it still hits those key points, and its pretty cool what you can do if you are prepared to think differently. I ran 1km time trials ‘with’ a buddy – totally remotely, all via messenger – and the boost I got from sending a 3-2-1 GO and knowing I had to share my time when I got back was real.
Goal Two – Move Well
That doesn’t mean be stronger, or fitter, or spend hours trying to hit some target – that means focusing on the process, making sure that what I do I do with purpose, and consideration, and form. My language changed from trying to continue to train during lock-down, to keeping moving. Wherever that left me in terms of “getting back” once the box was open again is fine, because even then it is about the process – having fun, moving well. If I am less fit. weaker and have to rebuild my skills, it is all just a bigger opportunity to enjoy the process and I already know how to get there.
As I’ve said before, living these goals is an ongoing process. Its not as easy as ‘deciding’ and then expecting that you will automatically get it right from then on out. Its about awareness, taking the time to notice where you are and whether or not you need to reset, refocus. At times, I feel really solid in how I am, in who I am and others I get drawn into other people’s drive and lose the “me”. I am learning not to dwell on those times, or to chide myself for losing my focus, but to identify them, to try and understand what the trigger was, and to then move forward with being me, with growing towards my goals and doing what is important to this specific human.
Well that’s interesting…2 weeks in, and the negative spiral has already started.
Let me start back a bit.
At the end of last year, I decided I would jump on the macro counting bandwagon – I was training hard and wanted to make sure I was maximising my gains by fueling my body better.
I did some research, talked to my coach, and quizzed friends who were macro counting and performing well (and looking ripped!). I found an App, calculated my numbers and set about meal prepping. It wasn’t about losing weight (but I wasn’t going to be disappointed if some of the extra padding shifted), it was about being a better crossfitter. I weighed, and counted, ate and recorded…. and was hungry – really hungry.
The app flashed up angry red warnings if I went over my carbs or fat numbers. It showed me everything; daily breakdown of the macros, per meal, average over the week, pretty green graphs when I was under the calorie count, alarming red graphs for went I was over, predictions of what I’d weigh in 5 weeks.
And then I started trying to win – not just staying in the green, but beating it – by eating less and making sure the prediction of how much I would weigh kept decreasing. I was weighing myself daily, aiming for a lower and lower number. My partner would find me standing, almost paralyzed by angst, in the middle of the kitchen trying to meal prep; trying to plan an entire weeks worth of food, that hit all the numbers less a bit. It wasn’t an eating disorder. I was still eating sufficient calories, I was losing weight, but slowly, sensibly. I was still able to train five times a week, I wasn’t losing strength. I was fine…
Luckily I’m just self aware enough to know that that was a bit of a lie, something wasn’t right. It might not be an eating disorder, but it was definitely disordered eating. Even luckier – I have some amazing friends I could turn to for help. One in particular read the tumble of thoughts I’d sent her, and responded immediately with “I think we should talk – come over for coffee”. She dropped what she was doing to listen, to help me rationalise my thoughts, and to help me come up with a plan.
Stop.
Just stop; stop counting, stop tracking, stop weighing, uninstall the app, and then, start just eating. If I’m hungry, eat. Enjoy food.
I wasn’t in a head-space where I could work though the root causes and try to fix them. I was broken, and just needed to get back to a place where I was OK. We talked at length, through tears, and established that to get there – to OK – I needed to trust myself. I know how to eat generally well, I exercise, and the worst that was going to happen if I just ate, was (realistically for me) I’d put on a few kilo’s and have to buy some new clothes. Not the end of the world, and certainly nothing that couldn’t be managed when, or if, it happened.
So I did – I stopped. I stopped the obsessing, I went back to just eating food. I uninstalled the app and put away the scales. It took some mental strength, it wasn’t easy, I still had to fight against the pull of feeling in control, but I had support. I shared what I was doing, and why, with my partner, my friends and my coach. There was not one negative comment or glance. Not one thing said to suggest I was “being silly”, or that there was any reason for me to not trust myself. And it worked. I was happier, and less hungry, and it was OK.
The plan was to get to a better headspace, and then, when I had some emotional reserves, I should tackle this big, scary, emotional trigger and unpack it, depower it. But that’s hard, and while I was going along ‘just eating’, there was no need. I was good; nothing to see here.
Fast forward a few months, factor in an upheaval of routine, sense of place and belonging, and introduce new opportunities for my inner critic to make ‘not good enough’ comparisons and then re-introduce Macro counting. In hindsight, perhaps not the cleverest of plans.
It was going to be different this time though, I was going to approach it differently – review it as an afterthought rather than plan out a day, a week.
Yeah, Right.
Two weeks in, and I realise the negative spiral has started again. Not only am I obsessing, hungry, focused on my weight, and trying to win at eating, I am not eating well. I eat junk – under the guise of “see, I’m fine, I’m not obsessing, it’s not controlling me” – but then punish myself by skipping meals. I feel awful, my inner critic is constantly telling me I need to lose weight, that I’m fat, and useless and not good enough.
Turns out, if you don’t actually address the root cause of problems, if you don’t break triggering behaviours down and understand them, nothing changes. The triggers still trigger, and the outcomes are the same. Who knew?
For now, I am going back to ‘just eating’. I don’t like the fact that my head is broken when it comes to food and my sense of self worth, but it is, and not putting myself in a situation where that causes problems isn’t coping out – it’s looking after myself. If I injure myself, I stop doing the thing that makes it hurt – and this is exactly the same. Whether or not it is sensible to think I will be able to avoid it for ever, and therefore don’t need to work out what injured it in the first place is another matter, but not one I need to tackle right now. It’s going to take some time to get back to being OK, but the voice inside my head telling me that my weight “means” something, and that the number on the scales needs to get smaller, and that it somehow reflects my worth as a human, is already getting quieter, and more infrequent. I will get better, and it will be OK.
Some disclaimers – this is my reality, not yours. I have seen Macro counting work amazingly in others, and RP, and Zone, and Paleo and Atkins, and a plethora of other diets. Just ‘eating’ for you might be a really bad idea. It might be the exact opposite of what being healthy means for you. Eating disorders are very real, and very damaging, and truly life threatening. If this is you, I hope you get the support you need and have the courage to talk to someone about it. But this is not that, and I am not trying to make light of those issues, or suggest that having one coffee with a friend will make everything better. What I am trying to do is explain that everyone has their ‘thing’. This is one of mine. Maybe, sharing this might help you to reflect on your own relationship with food, maybe it’ll mean someone realises they are not alone, perhaps it’ll just give you a different perspective.
At no point did my coach, or my friends, or my Crossfit community suggest I had to change my diet and start counting Macros. In fact, one of the genuinely enlightening thing I find about Crossfit is the complete absence of focus on what you look like or how much you weigh. The only thing that ‘matters’ is how you move and the effort you put in. Any celebration is focused on the awesome things your body is able to do, the only weights discussed are those that you are lifting, and there is no pressure to do anything other than what works for and is right for you as an individually amazing human.
Friday, week three of the open, training has been going well but I am feeling emotionally exhausted. It has been a big week at work with a lot of ‘peopleing’ and, contrary to popular belief, I am quite the introvert. I simply haven’t had the chance to recharge and that means I am taking everything personally and feel that I am doing everything wrong. By the time lunchtime rolls round, I am almost in tears and feeling overwhelmed by life. This does not bode well for Saturday, although at this point, I don’t really care.
I’m in a meeting, feeling as though all of my decisions are being questioned, when 19.3 gets announced. I check the CrossFit site as a distraction from my negative thoughts. The workout is actually pretty good for me, a case of getting on and getting as much of it done as I can. I’m excited, there is no reason why I can’t do well. The negativity gets pushed aside for a bit, although I’m still feeling shattered and can’t wait to get home, where I’m glad to be able to be silent and alone for a while.
Saturday morning, and, compared to the previous weeks, I am feeling grounded, determined, centered. By articulating what has been going on in my head in this blog, I have been forced to truly reflect and analyse my thoughts, their impact on me and my performance. I have grown a lot, and understand more about myself than before.
Today, all my goals are process based, I don’t even think about an end objective. I think about how it’s going to feel, when it’s going to hurt, and what I’m going to do when it does – just keep going! A brief message from my coach to enjoy, along with a simple rep plan, sets me up with the right strategy and a reminder that I’m doing this for fun.
Waiting for the “3,2,1 Go” I’m relaxed, smiling, enjoying the atmosphere. The timer starts and I get into my work. When my brain starts to wander to ‘what’s next’, I refocus on the rep I’m doing, I breathe. I’m immensely grateful to my judge, who has read my blog, and helps me out by repeating “Every Rep” – keeping me grounded. I make every move, including stepping back to gasp for air, deliberate, measured, controlled.
Time is called – I’m elated. I have stuck to my plan, followed through with the lessons I’ve learnt the previous weeks, and feel as though I couldn’t have done anything any better. I am surrounded by a group of amazing athletes; high fives, smiles, pats on the back. I’m not sure they realise just how much this means to me, to belong, to be part of something that is so selfless, so supportive, so genuine. This community, this ‘cult’, builds people up in a way I haven’t experienced anywhere before.
Today is a good day. This is a good feeling. This is my why.
But, like everything, it is only temporary. In just the same way as one bad day doesn’t necessarily mean that the next day will be a bad day, today being a good day does not guarantee that tomorrow will be too. I am going to enjoy it, relish it, appreciate it, but then put it in the Hell-yeah bucket and move on. It is a case of continuing to be mindful, of focusing on what is important, of being grounded in the moment and always learning, moving forward. I can’t wait to see what next week brings.
Average Crossfit Junkie 