3 Things I'm Adding to my Fitness Routine

If you made it out of the past two years without any physical ailments, consider yourself lucky! Whether you dealt with an issue that resulted from the 2020 pandemic or worsened because of the pandemic, you’re not alone! I had both of those issues this year and I’m ready to prevent them from happening again!

I spent half of 2021 in physical therapy for two different issues. One of my issues - I got a pinched nerve in my back (from water aerobics), I know, I can’t believe it either. The pain was so restricting that I couldn’t empty the dishwasher. When I asked the doctor after a week or so when the symptoms didn’t subside, she gave me a script to see a physical therapist. The physical therapist mentioned that this probably didn’t happen during water aerobics alone - but from the 2020 pandemic when most stopped getting their routine movement in - as well as from sitting cross-legged on my couch, over-extending my legs, while sitting on the couch, and leaning forward at my desk - and I may have just moved in a way that caused the nerve to pinch.

The second issue was an old ankle injury more than 10 years ago that never fully healed itself - you know when “they” say once you injure your ankle, it never fully recovered? I tore a ligament in my right ankle and it’s never been the same. In 2014, I trained and ran a half marathon (which you can read about here) and because my ankle never healed correctly, my ankle muscles weren’t supporting my foot properly which caused my right middle toe to fall asleep during long runs. This pain didn’t bother me much as it didn’t stop me from completing the race, however, when I went to buy new shoes, I’d ask the sales people about my issue and was told that my shoes “were not wide enough.” I kept buying the widest shoes available. This foot pain worsened considerably during the pandemic and I wasn’t really sure why. I finally was able to see a podiatrist which then lead me to physical therapy.

Here are 3 things I’m adding to my fitness routine so I don’t have to endure another 6 months of physical therapy🤞 :

Stretch, Stretch, Stretch

This one is huge for me. During my half marathon training, I rarely stretched. I was in my 20’s, do you blame me? If I did stretch, I may have done a forward fold to my toes for a few seconds, foam rolled my thighs or when I went to yoga. NEVER paid any attention to my calves. When my physical therapist asked if I had tight calves when I ran, I never made the correlation that my tight calves could be causing my foot pain. The more you know!

Maintaining my Core Strength

I have been neglecting my core for so long because getting a six pack was completely out of the picture for me! But I learned this year that your “core” is not just your abs. Your core is actually a very large part of your body and everything is connected! There really needs to be a song similar to “head, shoulder, knees and toes” but about the muscle groups - like “your hip muscles are connected to your hamstrings which are connected to your calf muscles then to your Achilles tendon and to the muscles in your feet.” To maintain my core strength, I will continue to practice some form of the following: Pilates, yoga and walking (yes, walking helps strengthen your core muscles!)

Continuing my Mobility journey

Mobility exercises help keep you mobilized (get it??) They also help to keep you from getting injured in everyday life, working out, etc! If I had continued my mobility practice as the lockdowns extended in 2020, I could have prevented my pinched nerve (probably…).

A few of my favorite follows for stretching, mobility and more are:

Dr.Lisa.Dpt // David Carson // Reyna Cohan // Dr Jacob // Kanoa Greene // Size Diverse Pilates

Tips:

As a reminder, I’m not a doctor. If you are experiencing any sort of pain or limitation daily, I would ask your doctor as the pain could be a bigger problem than what you think.

Form is important with lifting, mobility and stretching. My advice to being taught correct form is: schedule a virtual appointment with a trainer, see a trainer or attend a class at your gym. If this intimidates you, make a request that the trainer is body positive, explain that you are plus size and want to learn the movements correctly to help prevent future injuries. The trainer should be able to provide you with proper instruction (if they can’t that is their problem, not yours!)

A positive body mindset only took 13.1 miles

Yep, you read that correctly. I had to sign up, train and run a half marathon (13.1 miles) in order to appreciate the size of my body. How, why did this happen, you ask?

Let me give you some background info: I had never considered myself a runner but always worked out with the goal to lose weight. When I lived in Washington, DC, I found a bootcamp style class with Ambitious Athletics and in the age of the couch to 5K, I also ran along Rock Creek Park. I ran alone, because I was embarrassed at my speed, something I had been blessed with when I was born into my family. In the summer of 2013, I decided to move back to the Midwest for various reasons. A few of my college friends coincidentally also transitioned back to the Midwest and we all decided to run a 5k fun run! As the race date came, I still hadn’t completed the 3 mile distance, but figured I’d be able to push through with the “adrenaline” of the race.

I ran about 2 of the 3.1 miles of the fun run. I was pissed, confused and embarrassed that even though I was taking this “fun run” seriously, I still couldn’t run the whole thing. Fast-forward to present day, I now know that its because the powder the race used contained something that affected my exercise-induced asthma that wasn’t physically noticeable until I started training for my half-marathon.

Now getting to the half marathon!

My high school friend, a marathoner, emailed a group of friends and asked if we wanted to have a fun memorial day weekend in 2014 that included running a marathon, half marathon or even a 10k. I kind of scoffed at the email (as a non-runner), but then looked at it again and appreciated the simple gesture of including me (whether she included me for the fun weekend, to be a cheerleader for the runners, or actually running it, I will never know).

Then I started thinking about it. First, I googled how many miles were in a half marathon. Then I thought, ok, 13.1 miles = 4 - 5k’s and some change, that’s doable. Since I didn’t complete the fun run, I thought, I’ll redeem myself with a half marathon!

Makes total sense, right?

But in the back of my head, like every other person who is unhappy with the way they look, was thinking that running this race will make me thin and beautiful.

About halfway through the half marathon training process, I realized:

• I really enjoyed the training schedule, knowing that there was a start and end date (instead of telling myself to workout 3x a week for 1 hour until forever).

• I have exercise-induced asthma! My mom, a nurse (yay, nurses!), noticed that I would wheeze and cough for a period of time after my long training runs. Like all good mothers do, she sent me to the doctor and the doctor told me almost word for word what my mom had and provided me proper medication.

• My body wasn’t changing that much.

I also learned that race day fashion is just as big of a deal as picture day at school?? I had no idea, but once I found this out, I had some fun. I splurged on nice black leggings from Athleta and a Nike shirt (1x). After all of my training, I was bummed about the number on the shirt; but that quickly changed when I found a coordinating Buff headband to complete my race day look. *please note this was before the now plethora of plus size activewear

Back to the race, which I finished on my time, for me. I ran all 13.1 miles, found running buddies along the way and got motivation from cheerleaders on the sidelines.

Running the half marathon did not make me thin, nor did it make me beautiful. About a week after the race, when the muscle soreness resided (pain no one tells you you will feel) I realized that even though I didn’t drop the pounds and sizes like I had hoped, I gained confidence, strength and so much more.

My relationship status with Food

I’ve finally broken up with the cyclical manipulation of diet culture. This has been a hard post to articulate because I don’t feel that I’ve had a terrible experience with diet culture as some, but I’ll share with you my journey.

Let’s start with genetics. (Yay, family!) You can’t control the family you were born into nor the genetic makeup of your body. There is a history of diabetes in my family which I’ve heard it is not fun to deal with. So yes, eating healthy and not getting diabetes are both important to me.

However, I’ve always thought, well, I eat healthy, why am I still this size? Enter in diet culture. People who promote diets are usually trustworthy sources (hello Oprah!) or friends and family members that show transformation pictures. Diet culture gets you to believe that you will be able to achieve the same results even though, your body wasn’t made for those results.

I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel when I lived in DC. Strong is the new skinny was starting to trend and macro counting was introduced me. This concept blew my mind! The idea that you had to eat MORE food to get better results was a total cluster f*ck for my mind. This was really when I learned about nutrient dense food, how to eat protein, fat and carbs for my own body’s needs.

Currently, I track macros for a week every 3-4 months to make sure I am giving my body what it needs. If I was really trying to tone myself I would probably be more religious about the macro tracking.

Please be aware that this is my experience.

1. Do not assume that all overweight people are at risk for diabetes. This is a generalization and largely dependent on genetics.

2. I’m not a trained professional on this topic and if you’re seeking advice, I would suggest reaching out to a dietitian or a clinical nutritionist - both have studied nutrition and health, just like you would seek a doctor for a physical illness or a therapist for a mental illness.