tw: disordered exercising and eating
in the past, january has been a month of new beginnings for me, especially in regard to fitness. i was incidentally one of those resolutioners you gym people love to hate, the focus on the ire of equinox’s stupid new years marketing campaign. i didn’t mean to be, but the period right after the sloth and indulgence of the holidays always meant one thing—an incredible amount of body dysmorphia-induced self loathing that led to me killing myself on a stairmaster, a treadmill, an elliptical during january’s grayest days, when the basement blink fitness had achieved 80% humidity due to the sheer volume of attendees and there was nothing else to do, anyway. i became beholden to and obsessive over the metrics programmed into the machines, especially the one counting the calories it told you that you were burning. i would spend 45 minutes, one hour, two hours on the elliptical, not stopping until the “calories” number neared four digits, and then i would will myself into eating foods that totalled less than that number throughout the day. (IMPORTANT NOTE: all of those numbers are, at best, fake and bullshit and based on estimates. don’t do this! don’t do anything the way i’ve done it, but especially not this.)
i have spent a lot of winters like this. it tends to have less to do with turning over a new leaf and becoming a different person because of the new year, and more to do with like, staving off the existential dread that accompanies the sky darkening at 4:45 every day, the indignity of not even being done with the workday before it’s nighttime outside. during one particularly bad year, the winter after i first moved to new york, my college boyfriend moved down to the city and moved in with me after the new year, and instead of just breaking up with him like i knew i should have months earlier, i let myself become overwhelmed by guilt, like i made him do this for me. i spent the months of february, march and april at the union square planet fitness every day before work, avoiding breaking up with him, avoiding our shared apartment in ridgewood that reeked of cigarettes, and losing something like 30 pounds. i looked great and i felt so, so bad. eventually i broke up with him. it got nice outside. i moved out of our apartment. i stopped working myself out to the point of exhaustion every morning at 6 am. i started enjoying life and stopped tracking every piece of food i put into my mouth.
this is the first winter that being at the gym doesn’t feel punishing, and i don’t feel like someone is imminently going to call me out for being in the way. i don’t feel anymore like i belong there less than anyone else, a nagging thought that’s plagued me for years. i’m…kind of a regular now?
my trainer fran is working with me on an endurance-based, high-volume powerlifting training regimen. for the past four weeks, i’ve been going through my barbell workouts — squats, deadlifts, bench — doing 3 to 5 sets of 10 reps at 60% of my calculated max out weight, as determined by my performance in last month’s mock powerlifting meet at my lifting gym. it’s so deceptive to train this way. doing a squat with 130 pounds??? that’s nothing. 10? sure! but in practice, by the time i get to number 8 or 9 in that first set my quads are begging for the sweet release of death, or just a foam roller, and by my third set i am seriously considering what would happen if i experienced failure in a squat for the first time. after one particularly discouraging set of deadlifts during this intensive 10-reps month stretch, i dropped the barbell on the ground and said “these suck and i hate them!” which is not exactly characteristic of my straight-A student, no complaints vibe at the gym. i have to be the best client at the strength training gym, for some reason. fran laughed and repeated what i said back to me, and then i laughed, and then i did 10 more deadlifts.
i didn’t realize how good i had it right before the mock powerlifting meet. i only had to do one or two reps at a very heavy weight, and then i could rack and rest. in total it felt like 10 seconds of work. doing 10 reps of a lighter weight makes you slow down. you can’t rush through it. your form actually matters. you have to do things like brace your core, which to be honest i used to think was just something people said they did. i understand its necessity now.
today we graduated to doing 8 reps of a slightly heavier weight. i picked up the barbell off the squat rack and nearly dropped it behind me on my third rep of my first set. sometimes when i lift a new (or just different) weight my brain actively works against my body, betraying it, casting doubt and causing panic in my muscles, which i know are strong enough to withstand heavier weights because i’ve spent months lifting them. we removed the two 45 pound metal plates, added on two 25 pound plates and worked our way back up. by the end of the session i had done 24 reps at 135. my legs were on fire but in a slow-simmering way that felt good. my quads were more like the stew-like japanese curry i made last night, say, and less like a frame-broiled turkey burger.
anyway, i feel so much better showing up to the gym now with a plan. i move through the space with a confidence that sometimes still feels foreign to me. i recognize the other people who are there on friday mornings and sunday afternoons alongside me. i don’t second guess myself. i even occasionally find myself frustrated by the guys (yes—it’s always guys) who hog the two squat racks, sharing an annoyed glance with the other girl who’s always trying to use the barbells when i am. being annoyed by someone in the company of another annoyed person is a form of community building, i think.
this week two somewhat perverse things happened to me, both gym related:
i found myself genuinely excited to walk to the gym and do my offweek programming of goblet squats, single-arm cable rows, dumbbell presses, and kettlebell deadlifts. one day, i was so happy to see that one of the bench press stations was empty that i did some extra credit in the form of barbell benching. this yet-undiagnosed mental disorder has not been categorized in the DSM-5.
i noticed something foreign on my hands—two callouses on the base of my fingers, presumably from weeks of deadlifting a lot. i don’t think they’re worth romanticizing but it does feel weirdly good to have a genuine physical result of time spent going to the gym to notice (i mean, beyond literally getting stronger, duh) that isn’t “being excited to lose 5 pounds” or “almost fainting in the shower because you didn’t eat enough food after spending hours on cardio equipment.”
those are all my jock updates for now. thank you for reading. i promise i will not talk about weight lifting in every newsletter.
I love using the word jock in a none high school related sentiment, just a neutral descriptor for anyone enjoying working out/sports.
Powerlifting is so fun! So glad you’re enjoying getting strong.