the “how” when it comes to exercise. Read along as Louise shows us how to defy stereotypes, embrace our bodies, and squash our own limitations.
Your body, heart, and mind will thank you for it.
Yours in empowerment,
JESS WEINER
INTRODUCTION
Finding My Way to Limitless
IN MY EARLY twenties, this was my life: I drank alcohol excessively, smoked cigarettes, and regularly ate greasy Chinese food from the mall food court. I was mostly sedentary: I worked a desk job, and my evenings revolved around my couch and several glasses of wine. The only time I exercised was in fleeting three-day bursts in an attempt to fix my unhealthy lifestyle.
No matter how hard I tried to change, I would fall off the wagon and revert to my old habits. I promised myself every single night that the next day would be different. It never was. What was I doing wrong? My sporadic and extreme attempts to incorporate fitness and healthy eating into my life were accompanied by a heavy dose of self-loathing, and I became trapped in a vicious cycle of indulgence and self-denial.
Most days I woke up hung over. As I pulled myself out of bed, my body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I would take a long shower to try to wash it all away—the nicotine that lingered on my skin, the feelings of self-hatred, the fatigue. Standing in front of the mirror, I would ask myself: “How did I get here?”
I felt a great deal of anxiety due to my lack of self-control and the impact my unhealthy habits had on my body. I felt trapped and unfulfilled, a long way from the “ideal” woman I imagined I could be. During my days working a job I didn’t love, I projected the image of a happy, normal young woman. I would push down my internal upheaval and put on a smile. I hung out with friends, attended office functions, and spent time with my boyfriend. On the outside, things looked fairly normal. On the inside, I was full of sadness and turmoil.
At the time, I worked at a downtown law firm. Each morning on my way to work I walked past high-end fashion stores, windows glistening with shiny, large-scale posters of long, lean supermodels. Athletic apparel stores displayed photos of tanned, toned women wearing nearly nothing over their perfect skin. The women in these pictures seemed to have it together. I did not.
I lived this way for nearly a decade. I consumed junk food, alcohol, and cigarettes to smother my bad feelings. This only made me more resentful and self-blaming because I could never reach my ideal self. My life was limited in every way. I thought the way out was to lose weight and shape myself into the feminine ideal that bombarded me from every direction: if only I too could be a size 4, happiness would shine down on me.
I tried counting calories, fat grams, and points. I avoided carbs, ate nothing but cabbage soup, survived on protein shakes, and consumed only pre-packaged diet foods. I restricted my food intake and then binged from white-knuckled deprivation. None of it worked. It only made me feel worse.
I felt alone, broken, and full of shame. I didn’t yet know that I was one among countless women in this spin cycle of diet routines. Maybe you can relate. Maybe that is why you picked up this book.
In 2012, a report by ABC News revealed that 108 million Americans were actively dieting at the time.1 These dieters, roughly a third of the U.S. population, 85 percent of whom are women, will make four to five attempts each year to lose weight. These women are real people, just like you and me. They have hopes and dreams. They feel stuck, just like I did, and perhaps just like you do now.
Dieting will likely never be the thing that makes us happy and free.
To triumph, we need to resolve what might be broken inside us and shine a light on what drives us to believe that our value depends on our dress size. It all comes back to our cultural perceptions of weight. The diet industry reaps approximately 20 billion dollars off the weight-loss efforts of dieters. Statistics show that only 5 percent of dieters will make it to their ideal weight and maintain it for five or more years. The diet industry’s profit model depends on the failure of people like you and me.
Why do we continue to buy in? Why did I starve myself, binge from deprivation, and succumb to every gimmick on the market? I was desperate to fit in. Perhaps you feel this way too. We live in a culture obsessed with a feminine ideal that is extremely thin. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame me. This is not our fault. Our society imposes these beliefs on us and at the root of all our insecurities is the weight-loss industry’s money-making machine.
I FANTASIZED ABOUT being the slim, athletic woman in the fitness store windows. I signed on the dotted line for a gym membership many times. I paid the fee every month but found gym culture intimidating and never went. Sometimes I went so far as to drive to the track before work. I smoked on the way over, trying to stifle the negative chatter in my head. I would attempt to run a few laps, breathing heavily and exhaling boozy breath, only to call it a day and light another cigarette. In those moments I remembered my athletic childhood, and as I smoked while the sun rose, I wondered what had happened to me.
Change came only when I hit rock bottom. Maybe you feel like you are there right now. It is a desperate and lonely place to be, but it is a position from which the only direction is up. From rock bottom, you can rise and build something new. At the age of twenty-nine, I made a conscious decision to change my life: to throw out the habits that were preventing me from being healthy and happy. I decided to adopt new, positive habits.
I had always dreamed of being a runner, even though I had never witnessed a woman like me achieving athletic feats. I found a local running program and resolved to reach for my athletic dreams, no matter what it took. This was the first step. Though I didn’t have a role model for an athlete in a bigger body I was determined to find her—or to create her. I didn’t have to wait long; I only had to look in the right place.
I signed up for a “Learn to Run 5K” group offered by my local running store. My desire to change my life had become stronger than my desire to stay in my comfort zone, and a new identity was brewing. There was a reckless fitness girl emerging who had finished with wallowing at rock bottom. She was ready to go to any lengths to pursue her athletic dreams. Reckless fitness girl was trying to break free while my old self was trying to take cover. As my two identities grappled, I was gripped by a tug of war between fear and excitement for change—but eventually reckless fitness girl triumphed and began to occupy my being.
As the start date for 5K training drew near, my anxiety mounted. My heart raced, my breathing was labored, and the tension in my shoulders was almost unbearable. What if I was the biggest? The slowest? What if I couldn’t keep up? But reckless fitness girl wouldn’t listen to the negative voice desperately trying to convince her to stay home. She pushed through, and I arrived there that first night, determined to try even if I felt like an imposter in my running clothes. I tried to look self-assured among the “real” runners. I’m sure I reeked of fear and self-consciousness, but it was all secondary to the churning emotions I felt about my debut at my new run club.
JUST AS I was about to take my seat among the runners crowding the store, a woman stood up in front of us and introduced herself as our run leader. When I turned my gaze toward her, I was shocked to see a plus-size woman decked out in running gear. Her name was Chris. When I looked at her, I saw an icon, a rock star, and a total game-changer. My crippling fear melted away; I was not alone. That night, as we hit the streets for our first run, I caught a glimpse of what was possible. Not only did I make it through the run (and not die!), but on the way home I couldn’t stop smiling. Chris never mentioned body size or weight loss. We were all athletes to her, on a mission to run hard, run strong, and run for healthy outcomes. Her passion for running was inspiring, and she taught me that by showing up and being there that first day, I was the only thing holding me back. I am here to share that message with you now.
You are capable of anything you set your mind to.
I started to find other examples of plus-size women accomplishing kick-ass feats in fitness who, along with Chris, fed my sense of belonging and helped me stay motivated. Jayne Williams, author of Slow Fat Triathlete, was