A Little Bit About My Personal Fitness Journey

Hello! However you happen to come across this this page, I hope you enjoy reading about a little insight into my life, my opinions on fitness, health and life in general, and hopefully you can even learn a little bit of information. I’m just going to start with a little bit about me and my personal fitness journey, so here we go…

As a little kiddo, I loved playing any and all sports. I dabbled in volleyball, basketball, softball, soccer, and – if you count stealing my brother’s lacrosse stick and trying to teach myself how to cradle a ball while running around the basement before he caught me – lacrosse. I took on the title of ‘athlete’ as my entire identity. I ended up getting into competitive soccer around the age of seven, and for about seven years that was my entire life. Soccer was all that I really cared about. My coach was a lot like a father figure to me, and I wanted to be the best little soccer player in the world. I put all other relationships in my life on the back burner – I yelled at my mom if we were running late (and by late, I mean not-30-minutes-early) to practice, I didn’t have much of a relationship with my dad, and my two older brothers did their things while I did mine. Basically, I was a bratty preteen and teenager in my own little soccer-filled world.

Fast forward to about 14 years old. For years, I had practice three or four nights a week, games or tournaments on the weekends, and I was pretty decent player. I left all of my heart and soul out on the field every single time. BUT if I made just one mistake during a game, I beat myself up for way too long. I was harder on myself for simple mistakes than any human should be in any aspect of their life. On top of my hard self-criticism, my coach threw a wrench into my self-esteem and self-worth as an athlete. He benched me. He not only benched me, but he benched me in the tournament that our team trained for every year. We ended up not placing in the tournament (which he was not expecting) and the season was over. I was a wreck. Tryouts for the next season came up quick and rather than participating in tryouts, I told him that I was quitting. I was crying my eyes out as I told him that I basically felt broken and useless. He gave me a huge hug, apologized, and said that he had been testing me. He had been planning on starting me at nationals (had we actually won regionals) and knew that I would have been chomping at the bit to play. He would have been right, but that didn’t happen. I had given up. I hugged him back like a kid hugs their parents before leaving for long trip and walked away. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.

I decided to play for my high school soccer team, but after one season I felt completely direction-less. I had been the only freshman to start and play as much as anyone else. I was still a really good player, but high school soccer just didn’t cut it for me. I needed to feel like I was useful and I needed something to focus on. I decided to tryout for a different club because they weren’t quite as intense an the original one and I wasn’t ready to jump back in head first. This team’s coach had offered me a position in his starting line up even if I didn’t want to come to tryouts or all of the practices throughout the season. I didn’t want to look like an asshole and I wasn’t the type to not put in my time, so I went to the tryout. That’s where (excuse my language) shit really hit the fan. During a scrimmage, I cut to my left and “POP” went my knee. I got up, tried to run, fell over, got up tried to run again, fell over again, and then I just laid there with my mind spinning. People came running over, I tried to act like I was fine, but they told me to go to the ER. My mom drove me there, we saw a friend’s dad who was on call and he told me that he thought that I would be okay. Sadly, he was wrong. I found out a couple weeks and few falls-on-my-face later that I had torn my ACL and meniscus.

For eight weeks after surgery, I couldn’t put any weight on my leg. By the time I could start to walk, my right leg looked like it was just skin and bones – my leg had atrophied like it was nobody’s business. I did my time in physical therapy and got to the point where I could run again, but I didn’t even consider going back to any sports competitively. I was terrified that I would hurt myself again. Nobody had even touched me when I had torn it. It was only MY body giving out. It was MY muscles and tendons saying, “Nope, you’re done.” So, I listened to what I thought my body was telling me and I gave up. Identity – gone.

Now I’m going to skip some personal details for now – I’ll tell you all about it at another time. Let’s fast forward another couple years, about 30 pounds of weight gain and whole bunch of therapy later… senior year of high school here I come! I decided to play high school soccer again because I missed it – even though it wasn’t my one and only passion anymore. I was still a decent player and I even managed to have a community college coach offer me a scholarship to play for him. As tempting as that was, I decided that I wanted to ‘enjoy the college experience’ rather than devote my life to soccer again. Throughout the next few years of being a college kid, I just kind of did life as it came. While being in some unhealthy relationships and participating in some unhealthy habits, I lost that 30 pounds that I had gained plus some. I was too skinny. I always struggled with my body image and not being very active made it easy for me to not worry about being “healthy”. At 5’4″ I was about 110 pounds at one point. It definitely could have been a lot worse, but that was enough of that for me.

I decided that I needed a sport or something to do. Not only was my weight a problem, but my life had spiraled down a path that I didn’t want to stay on. I met a girl who played roller derby and I was hooked (on the sport, I mean, obviously). I bought a pair of skates, taught myself how to do the basics, went to tryouts, and there I was… back at it. I could be an athlete again. Now why I chose such a violent sport after years of being terrified that I would hurt my knee, I don’t know. All I know is that skating gave me confidence again. It gave me something to do day in and day out and to devote my time to. I put on some muscle, started to feel better about myself, and made a few friends (and enemies) along the way. About a year into it, I was hit high from in front of me. My head slammed into the ground behind me as my feet managed to stay flat on the ground. I basically looked like an upside down V before collapsing to the ground. I ended up with a concussion and an injured back. The doctor told me that if I kept playing, I could permanently injure my back. So there went that. That ‘athlete’ identity of mine was lost again.

Learning how to cope with any injury can be a really hard thing to do. I went through countless therapy sessions, talking about how useless or how helpless I felt. I talked about how every time I found something physical that I really loved, my body seemed to reject it and force me quit. I didn’t think that I would ever really be able to trust my body to be strong and healthy. It’s funny how helpful therapy can be though. I eventually figured out that yes, my body hadn’t necessarily held up when I thought it should have – but that didn’t mean that I had to give up mentally. Not having a sport to play and not being an athlete wasn’t the end of the world. As a matter of fact, it’s what allowed me move past my injuries, move past my self-doubt, and get on with my life. Had I never gotten hurt, maybe I would still be playing soccer. Maybe I would have been able to go pro (a girl can dream, right?), but then I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. I’ve been able to pick up new active hobbies like rock climbing, hiking, yoga, lifting weights, playing on obstacles, and running. None of those things make me an ‘athlete’ but all of them make me an active and healthy individual and, at this point in my life, that’s what really matters. I’m happier allowing myself to have active hobbies and enjoy my life without feeling that need to have that one and only passion. Putting too much of yourself into one thing can be dangerous because if you lose that single passion, you lose yourself. I’ve learned to allow myself to be active in some ways and lazy in others. Life is all about balance – and I’m not only talking about health and fitness here. Finding balance in every aspect of our lives is what allows us to enjoy the big things, the little things, and everything in between.

Have a beautiful day, humans.