My Many Faces: Fat, Gym Junkie And Ultra-Runner
What I’ve learned from a life-changing journey
What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you lose some weight for a change? It was 8 years ago when I first heard these words. They pierced my body like a spear, leaving my brain everything but unscathed.
I was a teenager then. I wouldn’t say that I was obese. My health never raised any suspicion for something pathological. I wasn’t an underdog either, and I wish to make that clear. On the contrary, I was just a young individual filled with insecurities and a fragile ego. That’s why the criticism influenced me.
I guess you can imagine what came next.
I shut myself off from the outside world and decided to embark on a journey to make myself independent, strong, healthy, and prove everyone wrong.
My main objective was to transform into a person that I was proud of.
Hence, I changed my nutrition and offered sweat, blood, and tears in the altar of fitness, the gym.
After a few years of discipline and hard work, I saw changes. I began witnessing the fruits of my labor. My self-esteem elevated as my work was being recognized amongst my peers.
Meanwhile, I had also cultivated a special interest in nature.
During my first university years, I took part in multiple mountain expeditions and learned the why and hows of hiking. The feeling of solitude and presence was exhilarating. I’ve never felt more serene and focused. It was almost addicting, in a good sense, and nothing like my endless hours in the gym.
Then my mind clicked. A big bubble popped up in my head and illuminated a new path. My days in the gym had reached an inevitable saturation for a number of reasons, including the fakeness of the industry and the endless piles of anabolic drugs consumed in locker rooms, by my ‘role models’. But most importantly, I was feeling suffocated inside the pursuit of muscle building, impressions, and likes.
I wanted to turn inwards instead.
Nature provided just that. My love for freedom, flow, and vitality made me abandon the sounds of iron hitting the floor and embrace crunching leaves and chirping birds. Today, I’m spending a huge amount of time running, especially in the mountains.
I feel that my journey towards Ithaca has only just begun. Still, it has provided a number of important lessons about transformation, life, training, and nutrition.
Let me share some of them with you.
What’s Your Why?
I know guys. This phrase has become a cliché, almost an annoying one.
That’s why I don’t wish to be that guy who throws a bunch of motivational questions and quotes to get you fired up. Instead, I’d like to reinvent the meaning of that phrase.
Using this quote, I don’t want to speak about external appearances and goals like losing weight, building an ‘ideal’ body, or running an ultra-race. When I refer to your why, I mean your unconscious motivation that drives your sequence of actions.
As aforementioned, I got traumatized back when I was a teenager. I was deeply influenced by the criticism of my peers and thus I created a new goal.
To lose weight, become healthy, proud, and prove them wrong.
However, this was a superficial explanation. Deep down, I was running away from my insecurities and phobias. The gym became my sacred place.
It offered temporary protection from a judgemental outside world but it also changed me into a narcissist.
It was compensation, which sooner or later led me to pursue external validation and impressions. That’s why my gym days were numbered, once I become conscious of my unconscious longing for recognition.
Ultra-running transformed my attitude in a radical way.
It changed my ‘why’.
As a gym junkie, I unconsciously craved external impressions to compensate my insecurity. As an ultra-runner, today, I consciously aim at releasing myself from such bonds. I consciously look inwards.
Training As A Means Of Connection
Social media today are super-abundant in role models who idealize solitude and the lone-wolf mantra. They glorify discipline, grind, isolation, losing connections, and relatives, as sacrifices for the greater good. They don’t seem to reflect on the fact that these mantras can be toxic.
I was a victim of that culture, as a gym junkie.
I spent countless hours in the gym, convinced that my sacrifices are imperative to complete my goals. Strict nutrition, early mornings, counting macros. Whatever it takes to get closer to the ‘ideal’ body and further away from the human factor. My mind and body were consumed inside this loop.
I’m still an athlete. I participate in ultra-endurance sports. So, my goal here is not to undermine discipline and sacrifices. Nevertheless, right now, I’ll be the last person to include a human connection in those sacrifices. I try to respect boundaries and avoid toxicity.
I aim at having balance in my life, and I achieve that by using my sport as means of expression and connection with myself, other humans, and the universe. Although ultra-running is a quite lonely sport, and it also demands sacrifices (nutrition, rest, sleep), it has granted me a few remarkable friendships, significant insights, and wisdom that transformed me into a more wholehearted person.
Your journey might demand sacrifices, but be really careful before offering your ability for connection.
Your Body Keeps The Score
A lot of people feel that they are made of steel rather than bones.
They feel unbroken, especially when their mirror or watch exhibits the first signs of improvement.
Over-enthusiasm and arrogance, more often than not, result in injuries and dead-ends. Getting past the ‘no pain, no gain’ mantra is a matter of great urgency if we aspire to be healthy and strong in the long run.
Ultra-running, as a sport, doesn’t forgive impulsiveness and arrogance. It requires humbleness and awareness, and that’s something I learned the hard way.
Why’s that? It’s simple. Our bodies keep the score.
You may believe that you are unbreakable and that the more you push, the better the results you’ll get. Your body knows better. It probably doesn’t produce a supernova to tell you that you are overwhelmed and exhausted, but the signs are there.
You are easily irritated, your motivation is lacking, your cravings are on the roof. Or maybe you have sleep disturbances and you feel disconnected from yourself, others, and the world.
You don’t need a supernova, just a few moments of awareness.
Take a moment each day and reflect on your physical and psychological situation. The mind-body stress mechanisms are closely correlated. Practice mindfulness through meditation and breathwork. There are numerous ways to increase awareness and presence.
Your body keeps the score and sends signs every day. Listen to it. Don’t force.
Find Your Own Nutrition Anchor
The internet is dark and full of terrors, especially when it comes to nutrition and hydration. Most people embark on a voyage into the unknown realms of diet and nutrition, only to return filled with wounds and countless question marks.
Jokes asides, I’m not an expert, and thus I’ll derive my knowledge from personal research, experimentation, and experience.
Personally, I have tried many nutritions, such as vegetarian, vegan, paleo, and intermittent fasting. It doesn’t really matter where I ended up, but what I’ve learned from this endless adventure.
It’s nearly impossible to present a diet or nutrition that suits everybody.
I suggest that you take responsibility for your own body and mind.
Consult a physician who’s not prejudiced and do the necessary tests to check your needs scientifically. Create a program that fits your requirements and experiment with it. It’s like a game, and it should be pleasant, not excruciating.
Mindful eating is a beautiful and productive way to achieve just that.
Nutrition should be a means of rejuvenation, not an impediment that absorbs your vitality.
Embrace, But Strive
Nobody’s perfect. This imperfection is incredibly salient when we undergo our first attempts to lose weight or achieve a difficult goal. We look at the mirror and feel that we are not good enough. We walk outside and we feel that everybody’s a witness of our fragility.
And that’s okay.
I deeply appreciate it when people cultivate the courage to tell their story wholeheartedly, despite their imperfections. Being open-minded and vulnerable about your situation, something I talked about in a previous article, can be healing.
However, embracing shouldn’t be a motive for stagnation.
Acceptance doesn’t mean inaction. On the contrary, it shows a positive attitude towards our whole being, be it things we would like to change or keep the same.
Having persevered this roller-coaster countless times, I decided that I can simultaneously be grateful for my fragility and shortcomings, while also striving to achieve a higher goal, and transform.
Conclusion
This is still a tough process for me. I’m still trying to actualize and enact everything that I’ve learned from this journey. Sometimes I go astray, I flee from my responsibilities and regress back to where I was as an insecure individual.
The way I see it, my life will be a constant back and forth, a continuous ‘rivalry’ between a child that wants to stay in a safe place and a whole individual that aspires to expand and move forward.
Thankfully, day by day, I’m becoming more resilient. I’m growing into an individual that I’m proud of. Despite many shortcomings and regressions, I keep moving forward, armed with new knowledge and hopefully, wisdom.
Having awareness of our conscious and unconscious drives is of great importance if we seek to become more connected and mindful about our training, nutrition, and performance. I would say that this process is dynamic and it demands constant re-evaluation and experimentation. This was the most important lesson for me.
There’s no specific recipe for everybody.
After all, as humans, we are dynamic and ever-changing too.
Thank you for your time and attention
