February 3, 2016 by Ana To Athlete

The Space Between

“When we ski the trees, the trick is to focus on the spaces between, not the trees themselves. The lines we choose are defined by our fears and our confidences, and when these are out of balance, when our fears outnumber our confidences, we lose the ability to find the spaces between the trees. We lose our rhythm. This goes for life, too.

My wife has anorexia. She’s struggled with this all her life, but recently – to keep the analogy rolling – she smacked into the trees. She’s struggling to find the spaces between. As her partner, I’ve struggled to keep her moving through the forest. At times, I’ve guided her into trees too dense for her to navigate. What appears to me as an open glade of old-growth aspen, to her is a tangled mess of icy deadfall.

But I must keep my partner from becoming lost completely. I’m responsible for her safety, and she for mine. I can point out the spaces, but I can’t expect her to ski them as I would.

Rhythm, when skiing the trees, is as important as finding the spaces between. The two are interlinked; one cannot exist without the other. At speed, it’s easy to decide which way to go, which space to pass by and which to pass through. With each turn is another decision in a rhythm that repeats itself over and over again; turn after turn, flowing from space to space. I struggle mightily to find good lines these days. Skiing much too slowly to find any rhythm, I’m forced to stop short – to hunt for a new space in woods that only seem to grow more dense.

Skiing the trees, there are no guarantees, no timelines: only expectations. It’s not certain; I only expect my partner and I will find our rhythm again, and we’ll flow from space to space as easily as we once did. Momentum is everything. We’ll gain momentum, and though it doesn’t always lead to the spaces between, stopping leaves us no choice but to stare at the trees”.

James Foukes, Backcountry Magazine

February 6, 2015 by Ana To Athlete

Weight Loss During Pregnancy

So it’s safe to say that pregnancy hasn’t been anything like what I expected it to be. I’m not going to harp on about the gory details of severe morning sickness that lasts for 40 weeks because it’s very rare and most people will never experience the ‘joy’ of it, at least for that length of time. What I will focus on, is how amazing the human body is. And how little control you have over this whole amazing journey of creating a human from scratch.

The Dude or Dudette’s room, finally ready to go.

In the first trimester, I lost weight. No surprises there, I was vomiting so much I was hospitalised. In the second trimester, my body really came into its own: I gained weight like a trooper, with an aim to eat as much nutritious food as I could get down and keep down, and my baby grew like a little champion. In the third trimester, the vomiting and nausea returned with a vengeance and I have been losing weight again. Remarkably, the baby continues to gain weight – proof that the human body is simply incredible in just “knowing” what to do throughout this whole process. It’s now officially “baby month” as the baby is due to arrive any day now….something which is extremely exciting and equally frustrating for a control freak like me!

WHEN is “D-Day?” Such a simple little question. Thoughts race through my head about when it could be, where I will be (hopefully not at work taking a Pilates class!), what it will be like. I can handle the excitement of not knowing the sex of our little bubba, but not knowing when it will arrive is a huge challenge for me. I feel like I’m in the final days of preparation for an Ironman, only I don’t know which day I’m actually going to have to pull it all together to perform….

Control freak aside, I know I will cope with whatever labour throws at me when the time does come; know after everything I’ve been through that I am strong enough for that. I can’t wait to become a “mother”, and to meet this little person who’s shared the toughest 9 months of my life with me.

Birthday Cake: despite my nausea, I couldn’t break my annual tradition of making myself a cake and eating some of it. It wasn’t much, but that’s a win!

What scares me is the presence of Ana, ever there perched on my shoulder and nattering away its useless voice. Every time you get weighed at the Obstetrician’s office. And you’ve lost weight. Or gained weight. Every time you think about life after pregnancy – returning to racing, eating (normally, without vomiting…), running. Breastfeeding. Every time you see your body in its ever-changing state (why aren’t there any stretch marks there? Is that even possible?!). And of course, all the unknowns about how you and your body will be afterward. I put a lot of the uncertainty down to being so sick for so long, which invariably makes you dread eating food but forcing yourself to do it anyway. In some ways, it’s like being in recovery all over again. And then when you LOSE weight despite all the effort to keep some nutrition down, it’s like an extra factor messing with your head.

I am all too aware that statistically, the postpartum period is a high risk one for ED relapse. And that those of us who have had ED’s are also at higher risk of postpartum depression and anxiety. I’m concerned that I hear the little voices of Ana already planning “when the baby is out we’ll….[insert damaging behaviour here]”. I guess I somehow thought that by being all-absorbed with the love for the little person inside of me, there would be no room left for those thoughts. I was wrong.

I feel like pregnancy does make you strong enough to fight those thoughts and do everything in your ability to nurture the child within; my question is, what happens to that force once you are no longer carrying the baby inside of your body?

My hope is that the strength will carry over. Ultimately, that little person, whether inside of me or out in the big wide world, is relying on me and only me to be its whole world – at least for the start of its life. It’s still me who has to feed it, love it, care for it. And I can’t do the best possible job of that if Ana is taking up any significant real estate in my head. I also like to tell myself that after everything I have been through in the past few years, if major relapse was going to happen, it would have happened already: if major foot surgery, 18 months away from my beloved running, and 3 miscarriages doesn’t push you over the edge I think you can stand tall and be proud of where you have gotten in your recovery.

I’m choosing to focus on my “strategies” and all the positive things to come, rather than the fear of relapse and Ana returning. Those strategies include having races pencilled in, so that I can feel like “myself” again in the not too distant future (it has been the longest time since I have raced an Ironman, fit and healthy, and I cannot wait to do it as a ‘Mum’ with my husband and baby cheering me on). And focusing on new friendships: up until this point in my life, I feel like I have friends who knew me as anorexic, then when we moved here 5 years ago, I formed a heap of new friendships with a clean slate – mostly triathlon-related friendships, and those people have no idea about how much of my life Ana took up. And I like it that way. But I have been missing spending time with a lot of those people with the reduced training that comes with surgery then pregnancy. I am excited to meet yet another bunch of friends through mother’s groups etc, and to start the next chapter in my life. I’m excited to blend that with my return to racing and hopefully have the best of both worlds: new mum, and Ironman comeback Queen. I’m blessed enough to have had a number of amazing women pave the way before me (see previous post on elite athletes and motherhood) and show me that not only can it be done, but you can actually come back even stronger.

Bring on 2015: New baby, new (stronger) body, and a long-awaited return to Ironman!

Happy Training,

K xoxo

My gluten-free Iced Vovos…presentation was a fail but I am assured they tasted amazing!

December 17, 2014 by Ana To Athlete

Pregnancy, Dual-Athlete Households and Ironmums

Yesterday marked a new low point in my Pregnancy: throwing up in the middle of the foodcourt of a very busy shopping centre. Yup, that happened. No warning and obviously no time to run to the bathroom. The running commentary in my head was quite comical, from the “Oh God this is actually happening” moment through to “thank God I actually look pregnant now, not just like some super prolific Bulimic…” (LOL). At 7 months, you’d think one would have stopped throwing up, but apparently this little bubba is a strong one on the hormonal front and having a laugh causing mum lots of embarrassment!

Top 6 female finishers at Ironman Western Australia, 2014…plus Wynne

In other news this week, my new hero Beth Gerdes – Professional Ironman athlete and baby-mumma to 6 month old Wynne – whipped around the Busselton Ironman course in a PB time of 9 hours and change, clocking one of the fastest marathons of the day in under 3 hours….all while dad Luke McKenzie (also a Pro Ironman athlete) and Wynne cheered her on. I’m not going to launch into the politics of Feminism, but I will say that as a member of a dual-athlete household where I am actually the better Ironman athlete of the two of us, this made my heart swell.

I get so sick of people assuming when we go away to Ironman races that I must be the “wife” that goes to dutifully cheer on my husband. And let’s not forget that he doesn’t get out of it scott-free either – the heckling from his mates when I beat him down the finish chute of an Ironman is ridiculous. But I’m lucky enough to have a husband who is both manly enough to not let that phase him, and who is also super proud of my athletic achievements and happy to defend me – like he says, if I’m in front of him then it means I’m having a great day and that makes him happy (he’s beaten me a few times too, but on the current score card I win…..and the last one I beat him on, I had a broken foot for the marathon, so he’s not living that down for a while….!).

Anyway back to Beth and her superhuman effort. I’m not advocating that the mere mortals among us who balance a day job with training loads shoot for the goal of an Ironman PB 6 months post-partum, but this is her career and it’s her “normal”, and I am hugely proud that her partner Luke is so publicly supportive of her getting her career back on track after Wynne’s arrival. They’re not the only example in the Ironman or distance running world either – thank goodness over the last 5 years we are finally starting to see a host of female professional athletes supported by their partners returning to full time sport, with happy healthy little bubbas to cheer them on. I have been a one-woman study nerd in following their blogs through pregnancy and beyond, and have used a lot of their guidance in deciding how much exercise I am happy safely doing throughout my pregnancy, and also in setting a realistic race goal post-partum for myself (which includes an Ironman one year post-baby arrival, not 6 months – I have a business to run and as it’s my first child, and Ironman is a great love but not my source of income, I want to prioritise enjoying my time with the baby and not to feel rushed with the training). If you are interested in more from these amazing ladies, my favourites include of course Beth’s blog (California Training), and the blogs of Clara Peterson, Lauren Fleshman, and Steph Rothstein (the latter two come complete with photos of what REALLY happens to your body after baby….fascinating stuff!).

As for my plans on returning to racing after the baby arrives, I’m finding that once again, reactions of those around me tend to reflect their own insecurities about things. My closest friends and family think it’s great and are super supportive; others are surprised and like to add a snide remark about “focusing on the baby” or “oh well, just see how you go with that” – with an added glint in their eye like they’re really trying to say ‘good luck finding the time/getting your body back to that level/you’re about to lose your whole identity because you’re becoming a “Mum”…..Of course my life is going to change, and I’m so excited about the next chapter with a new person front and centre and the added challenges that come with that. But I also want to set an example for my son or daughter that I am still an amazing, strong, independent woman and an athlete, as well as being a great Mum. Not to mention the travel experiences and awesome family atmosphere at triathlons in this country that our new addition will get to be a part of – seriously unreal!

The stunning Botanical Gardens in Queenstown, NZ.

On a deeper (ED) level, having a big Ironman race looming one year post-partum is also a protective thing for me. It’s long enough that I won’t feel rushed at all with preparation, but not too long in that it might interfere with when we try to fall pregnant with a sibling for this little one. But the biggest factor is it helps me to stay on track with eating and training once the baby is out, which is the “danger zone” of pregnancy for those of us who have had an ED from a relapse perspective. Even though I have maintained a healthy weight for 5 or so years now, I have still found the pregnancy body changes quite confronting, and have fears about the post-partum period. It’s hard to ignore the statistics on relapse rates. But I do know me, and I know that I have beaten the stats to recover after a decade of Ana; I also know how to pull my head out of a relapse phase in the earlier stages and in my case, it’s by focusing on running or triathlon (and in this case, producing breastmilk too) – which means being healthy, not skinny.

When I have a big race goal, I am focussed on being 100% healthy and strong – no nutrition short-cuts, and the focus is off weight and onto performance, which has in the past worked perfectly for me because the better you eat, the better you perform and the happier you are. I fear that if I don’t plan any big races, the focus will too easily slip back to losing all the baby weight or worse, the number on the scale….and it’s a slippery slope from there. On the flipside, I also feel as though if 100% of my focus is on the baby, then I will fall into the trap of having to be the ‘perfect’ Mum, and that’s a dangerous game to play as well – from a postnatal depression point of view.

The weekly baking for work – well fed Physios are happy Physios!

As always, balance is key….. with a side of preparation, and communication: these are things that I have spent many, many hours discussing with my psychologist, husband and to a lesser extent, dietician, in the hope that I can be as prepared as possible and to minimise the overwhelmed and isolated feelings that can come with motherhood. With less than 12 weeks of baby-growing to go, I’m feeling very ready for this next exciting stage of our lives!

Happy Training xo

October 16, 2014 by Ana To Athlete

Sesamoid Update – 1 year on

“At some point you need to stop making a comeback and start running towards who you are meant to be next” – Lauren Fleshman #womanup

Hoorah for beating the odds – once again!

Sesamoid fractures have a pretty serious reputation for not going well. There is little evidence-based research available for treating practitioners on best standard of care, and even when that has managed to be achieved, they tend to be slow to heal and long to recover from.

Being a Physiotherapist and knowing all of this information, I was shaking in my boots a little at what I was staring down the barrel of just over a year ago now. Compound that fear with the knowledge of what I had done to my foot (doing an Ironman on a stress fracture is not something I will ever do again…), along with my history of poor-ish bone density thanks to a decade of Anorexia, and I was pretty much crawling with my tail between my knees into that surgeon’s office and pleading with him to save my life. Ok, dramatic…but running IS my life, my first love, my sanity and makes my soul happy. So NOT running again was simply not an option.

I am happy to say that even with the odds seriously stacked against you, with a great medical team and some serious dedication to a long and conservative rehabilitation process one can come out the other side flying. Once I got to the point where surgery was the only option left – 8 months of conservative treatment already tried and failed – I had to make a choice. I had to put my big-girl panties on and suck up the situation; there was zero time for feeling sorry for myself and about 24 hours a day to dedicate to doing an awesome job of this rehab process. As discussed in previous posts this included everything from sleep to nutrition to Physio – and most importantly, a great medical team: a brilliant sports physician who understands my passion for running as well as my medical history; the best foot and ankle surgeon in Australia; and a sexy Physiotherapist (OK that was my husband so I may be biased….but it probably helped the treatment come along….!!).

Which brings me to the now. My surgeon was clear and stern with me from the start that it would be a 9-month rehab process before running would even begin, and 12 months before my foot would be adapted to what we had done to it: bone grafting the sesamoid plus breaking, elevating and plating the 1st metatarsal (dorsiflexion osteotomy) to take load off the sesamoid underneath it. 8 weeks in plaster non-weight-bearing was followed by another 8 weeks partial weight-bearing in a boot; then a very gradual increase in walking and loading the area. When I was in plaster I was doing a lot of Pilates, strength work and all-importantly, resting and eating well. My arms got pretty buff at this point – crutches plus strength work= guns!! As soon as I was out of plaster I was into the pool. Initially not allowed to deep water run, but I was allowed to swim if I used a pull-bouy and didn’t push off the wall with my right foot. This made me feel about 100% more human just being back in the sun and in the water again, even if it was limited. Towards the end of that 8 weeks in the boot, I was able to start deep water running and freestlye swimming (kicking). Then came the fun part.

The “real” rehab began once I was walking more and out of the boot. My right calf muscle was over 3cm smaller than my left at this point…I had a lot of work to do. Not to mention adapting to my new biomechanics – the first time I stood on my right foot, I felt like I had a marble under my 2nd metatarsal! Now a lot more of my weight would go through that bone rather than the 1st metatarsal/sesamoid complex, and so I had to go slow to allow the bone to adapt – it’s common at this stage to get stress fractures in the 2nd metatarsal if rehab is too aggressive, due to the increased load. I was allowed to start cycling (using carbon-soled bike shoes so the toe doesn’t bend) at this stage.

Due to my job being so physical – Physios are pretty much on their feet for 8+ hours a day – it would be another month or two before I could introduce any extra walking outside of work, which was frustrating. This was (mentally) probably the hardest part – not being ‘disabled’ any more, but feeling like you’re not actually working towards running either. My patience paid off and once I was able to walk for exercise, things moved quickly – at 7 months post-op, I was walking 30mins every other day with minimal swelling and less than 2/10 pain (ie. Acceptable pain levels given the surgery I had)….which meant I was allowed to jump on an Alter G treadmill and start running, 2 months ahead of schedule!

My surgeon was very strict with the Alter G protocol to follow. I started with 50% body weight for 20mins at just 10km/hr. This felt easy as my fitness was pretty good by now from the swim/bike/deep water running routine; that was a key part of this stage going so well. Over the next month I built the AlterG sessions up to 40 mins at 70% body weight including intervals, allowing me to build some speed and rhythm in. I had the luxury of having my husband and Physio accompany me and give me feedback on biomechanics and technique – it was like getting used to running on someone else’s foot! It felt very strange. I will be forever grateful to my sports physician for making access to an Alter G so available to me; not everyone has the luxury or the joy of this.

At 8 months I was given the green light to start my road running return program, which was also very conservative…it started with 30 minutes walking with 8 x 1 minute run throughout. But I was the happiest person on the planet! I kept up the Alter G sessions for a few more weeks just for my sanity more than anything else – it was still a novelty and better than drugs being able to push myself again (from a cardiovascular perspective), plus the fitness boost it gave me was invaluable and transferred beautifully onto road running.

I was slowly building week by week and up to running 5-10km, 3-4 times a week when we got pregnant this time around….and so I have maintained that level of running over the last 5 months, and will continue to for as long as I can into the pregnancy (I’m now 5 months along and 4kg up). Ironically, the extra relaxin hormone boost from the pregnancy has allowed me to get my full flexibility back in the foot post-op and so running feels better than ever! This could have taken a year or more to achieve without relaxin. I can honestly say now that I don’t even think about my foot anymore – it feels “normal”, strong and functional.

Of course, I am missing racing immensely – between the surgery and pregnancy, it’s been almost 2 years since I’ve raced an Ironman and I cannot wait to get back to it. I am hoping to do an Ironman about 10-12 months after the baby arrives; it would be nice to go back to Busselton where it all went down in the first place and get some unfinished business out of the way!

What I have learned about Sesamoid Stress/Fractures:

– Get a health care team on board that KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE DOING. Search for someone who has experience with treating sesamoids; if your GP/Sports Doc/Physio/Podiatrist does not, then call around until you find a team that does. Don’t be afraid to ask upfront.
– Use an MRI for diagnosis and follow-up progress scans. XRays are not sensitive enough and bone scans are not specific enough. The cost is worth it to know what you are dealing with.
– You need to be aggressive – from day dot. These are typically not super painful injures (well nowhere near a femur or sacral stress fracture – of which I’ve had both – hence being able to finish an Ironman on it without realising), and so they can be deceiving. But you need to take them very seriously, as hard as this can be early on,
– From the moment of diagnosis you should be in a boot; either partial-weight bearing or full weight-bearing if pain allows – needs to be <2/10 pain at all times.
– Use contrast bathing or ice/heat protocols – 20mins of each, 1-3 times a day, to flush swelling and increase blood nutrients to the area.
– Give it TIME. Prepare to be in the boot for 8-16 weeks. Yikes! I know….but trust me, this option is much better than having to go through surgery. Sesamoids have poor blood flow and don’t heal well, but if you treat them like gold from the start you will give it your best shot at healing conservatively.
– Statistically, following the above protocol, 50% of sesamoids will heal and 50% will not (at 12-16 weeks). It depends where the break is, what the blood flow is like, and how well you rest it during this time.
– If you are a serious athlete, love your sport, or have a job that requires you to be on your feet, think about getting a referral to a very experienced foot surgeon early in the process. They typically take a couple of months to get into, and it doesn’t mean that you will have to have surgery – but if it’s a slow healing fracture, they will give you an all-important educated opinion on your time frames, options and prognosis. You can always cancel the appointment if you’re going well, but it’s hard to get an urgent appointment if and when you do need it so plan ahead!
– If you do need to go ahead with surgery, ask the surgeon how many sesamoid stress fractures they have treated and how they have gone. You want the most experienced surgeon with good long-term outcomes ie. Return to full sport pain-free.
– Avoid removing the bone at all costs. Unless it is completely shattered, a good surgeon should be able to either bone graft, pin or shave off part of the bone to salvage it. A foot without one or both sesamoids is, biomechanically-speaking, a disaster zone for arthritis and injuries and is not very conducive with a future running career!
– Further, if you do need the surgery, plan it well and be prepared for a long haul. Be ready mentally and physically to put in the hard yards from a rehab perspective (exercises, pain and swelling management, and lots of rest…), but even more so be ready to be patient from a psychological perspective. There is no point going through major surgery only to rush it on the other side.
– Be rest assured that with a good surgeon, and an even better rehab protocol (think slow-and-steady), you CAN and WILL return to your old athletic self. It’s possible you may even come back stronger after all the time spent with rehab and core strength work, and in my case, biomechanically improved because he fixed the 1st metatarsal angle at the same time, decreasing my chances of getting the injury again.

Currently sesamoid injuries are highly misunderstood by the medical profession and usually by athletes as well, but over the next decade I believe there will be huge improvements in understanding and treatment from medical professionals. In the meantime, those of us who have walked this path beforehand can hopefully shed some light, advice and much-needed hope that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel!

Happy Training

K xoxo

September 3, 2014 by Ana To Athlete

FUNCTION OVER FORM. ALWAYS.

You never quite realise how much you take your mental cues from the physical body – that is, until you try to recover from an eating disorder. Or get pregnant. That glimpse of flat abs, outline of a six-pack, the toned and lean legs, tanned and glowing skin from hours in the sunshine; these things you take for granted at the time, but are all a daily reminder that you are fit, healthy and an athlete. Recovered.

Being so recovered, I thought of myself as being “above” all of that. Above needing physical clues – indeed, I didn’t even realise how much I relied on them until they went away. You do all this work on the mind during recovery, establishing yourself as a whole person being so much more meaningful than a weight on the scales or a dress size. But what I didn’t realise is that in my successful quest for recovery, I had replaced many of the anorexic cues with athlete cues – arguably, much more healthy for me, but nonetheless a crutch of sorts for self-esteem and self-worth.

This was a deliberate strategy to a large extent on the behalf of both my psychologist and my dietician: as being particularly resistant to treatment after 10+ years of anorexia, it was eventually discovered that I work best when we replace the focus of weight with the focus of athletic performance. Function over form. As I’ve discussed in previous posts, a key component to the success of this strategy was in allowing me to continue with my athletic and University endeavours during this treatment process. My incentive was as simple as this: If I don’t fuel my body correctly, I cannot perform athletically to my potential nor academically. And for me, my self-esteem and self-worth became more hinged over time on my identity as an athlete and a smart, successful woman. I fuelled my body and mind and discovered, in doing so, that my potential was far greater than I had ever dreamed of. I found my niche in Ironman and my passion in physiotherapy and succeeded in ~~recovery~~ life. Together we created visions of where I wanted to be – career-wise and athletically – and honed in on what I required of my body and mind in order to achieve these goals. Ana did not fit in with those dreams. Fuelling my body for hard training sessions, recovering well for my mind to work, and achieving some sort of balance in the way of sleep and relaxation were all imperative to the puzzle working.

I realise this strategy may not work and indeed may not be necessary for some ED sufferers. It worked for me primarily because physiologically I was, while underweight, stable enough to be allowed to keep exercising, albeit at a reduced load to my previous program. I was also at a key age: old enough to be independent and choosing to be in recovery; but also still studying at University and therefore able to easily manipulate where I wished my career pathway to go from here. You could call it “lucky”; I prefer to think it was my time – I had been in several treatment programs at younger ages and none had worked. So successful was the strategy that even now, when I’m having particularly challenging Ana thoughts that last more than a few days, I am able to trace it back to either work or training not going well for me. Focus has gone away from the things I’m most passionate about and my go-to backup is Ana. It happens subconsciously, only now I am so much better at recognising it and addressing it. Function over form. Recalibrate your life, sort it out….there we go.

The reason all of this is on my mind is that with the last 8 weeks of hell (being pregnant with the worse morning sickness ever) – there has been little training, time in the sun, intake of nutritious food, all-important sleep; even work has gone largely out the window (it’s difficult to treat patients when spontaneously vomiting). You’re growing a baby – possibly the ultimate function! – but you are so sick that it’s hard to comprehend this, and it’s also such a new identity: baby-grower. Person-manufacturer. Mum. So, day by day the Ana thoughts creep back and to make matters worse, all those lovely physical cues you didn’t even know you loved so much start slipping away – the stomach and boobs rounded, the skin grey and pale, dark circles under the eyes, muscle tone going….

But alas the solution lies in the past. Let’s get the focus back to my newest function: growing an awesome human. And yes, let’s remember that the morning sickness does not last forever. It is not Ana returning, just a transient loss of all the things that make me, me. Now that I am starting to get back outdoors, get into work, swimming and running, baking, and eating wonderful food again, sure enough the happiness grows too day by day. It might take me a while to get used to this new addition to my identity (“baby-grower”), but in time, it will come. It took a long time to see myself as an athlete, I can’t expect to click my fingers and have this happen overnight.

Chin up, stay strong, and remember that those thoughts aren’t you…..you, my friend, are far more beautiful than that.

K xoxoxo

April 20, 2014 by Ana To Athlete

Racing Weight

So yesterday I had a revelation. It’s only been, hhmmm, 18 years coming.

I was looking through some race results from a recent track meet and they had accompanying photos. One photo in particular really set me off – I felt a deep pang of ?yearning? to suddenly stop eating and to run a really long way. To look like that. ASAP.

I won’t put the triggering photo up for obvious reasons. Instead, here’s a bunch of awesome, fit healthy chicks at the New Balance Games.

Ever since I started restricting calories at age 12, I have always been very easily triggered by certain people – for me, mainly athletes of the very lean, tanned, blonde and hot description. I most definitely have a “type”. For the longest time it was Anna Kournikova. I remember as a 12 year old looking up her height (same as mine – I was tall at 12. Incidentally, I never grew after that….amazing what starvation can do to the human skeleton) and weight. That was ground zero. Only, once I got to her weight, of course the ED/Ana was in full flight and I couldn’t stop there. I may have had the long blonde hair, the sports trophies, the tan….but I didn’t look like Anna Kournikova, because, well….she looks healthy. She glows. I had some grey death staring out my eyes to match the grey shades under them, and a bony back to boot.

Anna Kournikova in full flight.

Over the years the role models have evolved, and as I’ve talked about in previous posts, I now tend to look up to healthier athletes as a matter of requirement. I am simply too easily set off by the former. And of course a swap to a sport that suits my genetic make-up to a tee has helped as well: as a distance runner, being lean and super light was always an uphill battle, whereas I build the endurance and strength needed for long course triathlon almost by mistake, it happens so easily.

Anyway back to the point. To give you some context, my body at the moment is not at racing fitness and after being “Ironman fit” for the preceding 3 years straight, that’s a hard thing to get used to. I was as fit as I’ve ever been going into my foot surgery in July last year. But 3 months in a cast and non-weight bearing on crutches, when all I could do was core and upper body gym work and then after that, swimming….well for someone who builds muscle easily, I suddenly developed upper body muscles. Throw into the mix a couple of pregnancies then miscarriages in that period and well, needless to say, my body has changed. So I’m in the prime target zone of being affected by such triggers and constantly fighting the urge to overexercise and undereat, when in reality my body needs to be loved in every way in order to repair right now.

Only yesterday, for the first time ever, a shocking thing happened. I’m not even sure it was my brain producing the thought process, so foreign was that thought process. I suspect perhaps my psychologist or dietician found a way of tapping into my brain waves and altering them. For when I saw the picture, I yearned to starve and go run 35km. But then the next thought that followed was astounding: “yeah, if you want to be skinny-fat and unhealthy. If you want to get back to that level of fitness, you know what you need to do. You need to commit to training hard, and eating. A lot. Of really high quality food.” Sigh. Wait – whoah!! What just happened?!!!! Was that my head talking?

New, healthier role models: Caroline Steffen aka “Xena”, 2nd fastest female Ironman athlete in the world. Machine.

After deep consideration, I’m fairly certain it was me. I’m impressed. And when I analyse it, it’s true – the only times in my life I have been super race-fit, lean, healthy and glowing (and incidentally injury-free) have been when I’ve been able to train well and at a high intensity, and when I’ve been able to eat a lot of food to support that. For many of the other times, I may have been clocking in at my desired “racing weight” – for distance running, not triathlon – but I was far from glowing, and the fake tan and smiles were barely hiding a very frail skeleton with 10+ stress fractures in their short history.

As we all know a little too well, it’s far easier for us to undereat and overexercise. It’s comfy, predictable, safe, not scary. Eating like an athlete is frightening, uncomfortable, requires planning, and a lot of mental strength – and not just for a day, but for months. But when all is said and done, it’s always more rewarding doing something challenging than sticking to the same well-worn path. I don’t want to be a skinny-fat distance runner anymore; I will stand proud as an athlete. Glowing, too.

Bring it.

xoxo

My hand-made Easter chocolates for the family. Happy Easter everyone! xoxo

March 10, 2014 by Ana To Athlete

When all else fails, Bake.

Hormones rule the World…ok I get it, I GET IT!

It’s been a pretty stressful last few months, which largely stems from the fact that I am once again faced with the ever-challenging issue of learning to trust my body.

After having a miscarriage 4 months ago, my body has decided that it’s going to do its own thing, regardless of whatever I am choosing to do. Despite zero change in my food or exercise, I have been battling an influx of hormones presumably stemming from the miscarriage. My previously flat stomach is now decidedly curved and my breasts have gone from a small B cup to a large C cup. Initially I thought that this would level off over time, but it seems they are here to stay – at least for the time being.

Tiffany’s-inspired Chocolate Cupcakes. I dare you not to feel uplifted!

It’s brought all those recovery memories flooding back. The overwhelming feeling that you are drowning in a sea of change and you don’t know when the wave is going to stop pummelling your body against the floor of the ocean. It’s also a bitter pill to swallow: that I would not only lose my baby, but that I would lose control over my body as well. My doctor reassures me that it’s a good thing, that my body is trying to set itself up to become pregnant again (which is what I want more than the world). My psychologist says that I should focus on the positives, like having amazing breasts – my husband has certainly had less trouble than me focussing on this one – and that this will not last forever. But for me, it’s all been downright confusing. Just when you think you truly know your body, know what it likes, know where its set point is, have come to accept a certain size as being healthy for your frame….it all gets thrown to the wayside. I can almost hear God laughing.

Once again it has reminded me that hormones do, in fact, control the world. Or at least our sleep, mood, emotions, fat deposition, curves, weight, fatigue and ultimately, fertility…. So what to do? The only thing I know how to do: make sure I am taking the best possible care of my body and mind and trust that it will settle into itself, wherever it is supposed to be. Which means, for me, cutting out caffeine and alcohol, eating A LOT of fruit, vegetables, good quality protein, nuts, seeds, good fats, and of course steering clear of gluten (I have Coeliac disease, as an aside, which does put me at a higher risk of miscarriage along with a history of Anorexia. Oh the joys.). It also means focussing on nourishing my body with activity that brings me joy and relaxation, namely running, dance, Pilates, group rides and swim sessions with my husband. Not because I have to do a set session or hit a predetermined interval; simply because my body can and it makes me happy. That is an important distinction. It means getting at least 8 hours of good quality sleep a night, and actively trying to relax during the day – deep breaths at work, 5 minutes of meditation when I get the chance, and laughing a lot. And of course, when all else fails, it means baking – the cheapest and best therapy of all.

Death by Chocolate: Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake with Chocolate Ganache

I’m not sure that I will ever be able to accept that I cannot control what is happening with my body. Ultimately, your body will change at various stages during your life, and there is very little that you can do to stop that – short of being unhealthy and falling back into eating disorders patterns, or conversely, saying “stuff it” and allowing yourself to become significantly overweight, which is not healthy either. It is well established in the research that your body has a “set point” – a range of about 5 kg, that it will defend at all odds. So just like in recovery, when you have to trust that you won’t keep gaining and gaining indefinitely; I too have to now trust that if I nourish my body and treat it well it will do what it needs to do to create the optimal environment for baby-making and health. I can’t change what that shape ends up looking like on me, but I can change how I react to it. I am faced with a choice – to reject the change and stick to everything I have known up to this point, or to embrace that I do not have control of what is happening and to learn to love my body, no matter what form it presents in. After all, I am still the same person inside.

It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m pretty good at overcoming those.
Keep on keeping on fighting the Good Fight. This one is going to be tough.

“When doubt seeps in, you got two roads, you can take either road. You can go to the left or you can go to the right and believe me, they’ll tell you failure is not an option. That is ridiculous. Failure is always an option. Failure is the most readily available option at all times, but it’s a choice. You can choose to fail or you can choose to succeed.” – Chael Sonnen

K xoxo

March 5, 2014 by Ana To Athlete

Show me how Big your Brave is

Reporters love asking celebrities what they would go back and tell their younger self. They reply with some warm fuzzy blurb along the lines of “things get better” or “be more confident”. If I could go back to my younger self – probably around age 15 – I would say: grow some balls and scream for help, scream so loud that no-one can ignore you, to hell with the fear….it may just save your life”.

Finally – the media doing something proactive towards body confidence

There is inevitably those fleeting moments in the eating disorder journey where the inner You is strong enough that you could probably ask for help. But these moments are so few and so far between, that the fear quickly envelops the soul and again sets you back down the path to Ana. I can still think of the few times during my decade with Ana – count them on one hand, actually – that I would have accepted help without too much of a fight. Those moments you remember, with clarity when it was just too hard to fight any more. Broken, at last. When I do think back on those few times, it still makes me feel physically violently ill to my stomach and sets my heart pounding, even all these years later. The extent of the fear of ratting Ana out is unlike anything else. To simply say the words “I need help”, comes with a plethora of assumed baggage weighing enough to drown anyone.

While eating disorders are rarely “silent” – those around you know there is something wrong – I would bet money on the fact that no one on this planet knows everything I did to myself during those years; the extent of the body abuse and the tricks that Ana played out. So while Ana may fool you into thinking “if it was that bad, someone would have intervened by now”; in reality, you and I both know that they have no idea what you are truly doing and what goes on in your mind. Looks can be incredibly deceiving.

My birthday cake. Made by me, and yes, also eaten by me (well, one piece! Baby steps)

But then the benefit of hindsight is that in all my wisdom, I can now look back with heartbreak, thinking “if only”. If only I had said to someone that I was unwell, and that I couldn’t stop myself. That I was so scared I wanted to vomit. That I thought I had control of this thing but that turns out to be the ultimate trickery. That I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t want to “act” like Me anymore; I want to find Me. If only….

There were many people in my life that I could have asked for help. My immediate family were a huge part of my problem and chose to be incredibly ignorant about my condition, so even as a 12 year old, I knew that was not an option. But my Aunty, my best friends, my boyfriend, my coach, and later my resident mentor at college, or my doctor…..any of these people would have given heart and soul to help me – and God knows how much they all tried at various times – if only I’d let them in. It would have taken a huge amount of guts and four words to change my life: “help me, I’m ready”.

Instead, I let Ana rule the world for a decade, pretending I was in control, but knowing full well for the latter years of my illness that I was not. In a final bid for freedom – of myself, not Ana – I jumped on a plane to Canada and set myself free in the world. I was going to get better. Only just 2 weeks in, failing miserably, alone in a backpackers in Vancouver, I collapse on the stairs from a near-lethal combination of starvation and a vomiting bug. For the record, I don’t count medical help that was not given by choice but rather by dire circumstance as “asking” for help. Clearly, this was not going to be a one-woman effort. By that stage, Ana was so strong that it was going to take a lot more than that to break her down.

On returning to Australia, this time as an adult, I checked myself into help for the first time ever. It was my choice. I was scared shitless and felt so out of control of my life, but it was what it came to. It took years of mess and emotional rollercoasters and a lot of help from my friends following that to find health and most importantly, Me. But I got there.

And yet the mind wanders at times…..How would things be different, if I’d gotten help so much sooner?

“Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is”

Help is scary, I know. But living alone with Ana is scarier. Just because it’s familiar, doesn’t mean it’s ok. Deep within every perfect little Anorexic is a voice that wants so desperately to stand up for You, for everything that should be yours and that you deserve just as much as everyone else in the world. Don’t let Ana fool you into thinking you don’t deserve it. Finding that inner voice and learning to use it is often the keystone to the mountain that is Recovery. It certainly was for me.

Be brave. Kick and Scream. Beg for help. I know You can do it.

“Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do
And they settle ‘neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave….

Don’t run, stop holding your tongue
Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is…

Honestly I wanna see you be brave”
– Sara Bareilles

K xoxo

February 26, 2014 by Ana To Athlete

United Nations of Ana

“Be Careful what you wish for; it may just come true”.

Wining and dining in beautiful Queenstown….that wish came true!

I’ve noticed over the years, that when I really visualise and wish for something to happen, more often than not it has come about. As a student of science – two university science-based degrees, in fact – I do understand the absurdity of this statement. But on the flipside, as a Physiotherapist who largely works with athletes, I am also hesitant to brush off the power of the mind and the power of intention in making things happen. An advocate of “hippie medicine” I am not; but a believer in the human mind, very much so.

Just last week a colleague and I gave a presentation to a group of runners about the power of visualisation, in terms of goal setting and forming one’s identity. What athletes do really well, that “normal” people do not, is to clearly establish an image in their minds’ eye of what their goals are, what their body looks and functions like, and how they will perform on race day. They stick posters on their bedroom walls, photos in their wallets and cars, have firm self-affirmations and use frequent visualisation to enable them to see the future they want to create and to assist in their pursuit of excellence.

Let’s flip that equation. How often do you see someone who has been overweight and inactive for their entire adult life, go ahead and lose 20kg, along the way learning how to maintain that loss, only to turn around and put it back on? Often, the new lifestyle has been achieved, but the person has failed in their mind’s eye to identify this new person in the mirror, who is “healthy” weight and active. They don’t recognise themselves. So they go back to their place of comfort.

Sound familiar? Nowhere is this phenomenon more important than with ED patients trying to recover. We are the ultimate masters of visualisation and affirmation – Ana makes damn sure that the little birdy on our shoulder never shuts up, providing an incessant stream of buzz words and “motivations” to become the ultimate weight loss machine. Do we recognize ourselves when we get there? Hell yes, we have been dreaming day and night of reaching that mystical land and no person on the planet is going to take it away. Hello Ana!

Only that is not you. That is Ana you are seeing in the mirror. Somewhere in the process, Ana takes over and the real You becomes a mute little birdy on the other shoulder.

During the long and arduous process of recovery, it becomes so important to bring that birdy back to life, for if you cannot see You in the mirror along the road to health, the risk is that Ana will pull you back to the land of “comfort”.

Easy to say, hard to do. How does one find a new sense of self – particularly for someone like me, who lost that sense of self at around 12 and then had to try to find an adult identity at age 22? We use the same tools that we learnt so well during the Ana years. Flip that bitch on it’s head. When it comes to the power of the mind, no-one – elite athletes included – does it better than an Anorexia sufferer.

The first thing that I did was to find images of athletes who I thought were realistically about the same size frame as me (height and muscularity etc), and had beautiful, fit, lean, muscular and healthy bodies. The more they look like you (a healthy version of you….), the better. Then I wrote out quotes and powerful affirmations for me, as simple as “I am an athlete”, “I am strong”, “I am beautiful”. I needed to be healthy to finish my first Ironman, so I included photos of glowing Ironman finishers as well. I plastered these words and images all around my mirror and through my training diary, as a constant reminder of where I wanted to head. I was creating an image of my future life in my all-important mind’s eye. So that when I got there I would recognise the person staring back at me in the mirror. I knew what Ana looked like; I just had to work out what I looked like.

Over the next months and years, the photos and words got updated and I started to build “me”. And then a funny thing happened. I finished my first Ironman, and the finisher photos get sent out a few weeks later. I stuck one of them up on my wall, then took a step back. It fit right in, amidst the photos I had put up there to visualise my future with. I had to smile.

The magical glow of the Ironman Finish Shute – Cairns 2012

The transformation didn’t happen overnight, and I still don’t love what I see in the mirror. I still spend countless hours talking to my Psychologist about the division between what I see, and what others in my world see (I get very confused when people tell me I’m attractive, stunning, slim etc as I do not see any of those things – it’s a work in progress). But the most important thing is I do see me in the mirror. It’s familiar, and it’s a body that can achieve amazing things, and a mind that spends most of its days helping people with their health, and that is a beautiful thing.

I will never stop doing this process, as it has bode me well during my recovery years and so long as I am doing my life’s dance on this epic planet, I will never stop trying to achieve amazing things. In the future the images will change as my life evolves, and I can’t wait to see how the rest of my life unfolds.

Bring it on.

K xo

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’.”

– Erma Bombeck

February 13, 2014 by Ana To Athlete

Insecurities

“Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog
Where no one notices the contrast of white on white

And in between the moon and you, angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right

Well, I walk in the air between the rain
Through myself and back again
Where? I don’t know”

– Round Here, Counting Crows

Please read the following scenarios and choose the most correct answer:

1) You are an elite female triathlete with the following stats to your name: two sub-9hour Ironman finishes, <12% body fat and arguably one of the fittest bodies on the planet. When asked your weight in an interview, would you:

a. Tell the truth – your body is a weapon, your job, and a beautiful machine and you are proud of it!
b. Take off 5kgs from the true amount; you think you are ‘heavy’ with the muscle on your frame and your height.
c. Refuse to answer.

2) You are an athlete who has had an eating disorder in the past, you are now recovered but do not know your weight. You haven’t been able to run for 6 months due to injury, but have the chance to run on an Alter G treadmill that your sports doctor has arranged. In order to use it, you and your doctor will find out your weight. Do you:

a. Get on it – to hell with my weight I am desperate to run!
b. Agree to use it as long as you don’t need to find out the weight, then proceed to have a meltdown about it anyway, fearing that your doctor will think you’re the most obese athlete on the planet;
c. Gracefully decline. You are desperate to run, but the trauma of going through being weighed is just too much.

What would you do?

WA Ironman 2009

Impossible scenarios like this face us day in, day out, when we have the tracks of a previous ED in our scar tissue. We may be doing well for the majority of life’s intricacies, but there will always be situations like the above that will either get our blood boiling, or mentally challenge us more than is desirable (I don’t think it’s considered “normal” to have a panic attack at the thought of someone else knowing your weight….).
The first scenario makes me so furious that it sends me searching for my soapbox – in fact, I did send a huge ranting email to my good friend and doctor about the exact situation. I have been in the fortunate scenario to be on a squad alongside professional Ironman athletes for the last few years, and some of the best female triathletes on the planet to that end. Our head coach boasted more sub-9hour females on his squad than any other coach worldwide. It has been incredibly insightful and for the most part beneficial for me to be able to access their wealth of experience and knowledge and to apply that to my own racing and training.

But it doesn’t come without some serious eye-opening of the bad kind. Over the years, as you get more “well”, your triggers become so much more obvious. Racing has always been one of my biggest triggers – lining up on the start line in little more than some loud flimsy lycra is one thing; having that then photographed and marketed back to you in the eschewing weeks is truly disconcerting. No-one looks good in lycra, just putting it out there. The males who don’t have eating disorders love the race photos because they look so buff and muscly; the females – ED or otherwise – hate the photos for the same reason. I continue to race because for the most part it heals my soul. I’m good at it, and so it builds my self-esteem and creates an identity other than “anorexic”; in short, the risk-reward ratio is in the right place for me.

What I have learnt, however, is that disordered eating is rife among these professional women. They are not immune to the pressures; in fact, they feel it more than most.

Which disgusts me. Here you have 5 of the fastest, fittest, most incredible female athletes on the planet, all with bodies which would make any human proud. Their bodies are their livelihood, and to that end are serving them very well. Their self-confidence should be oozing; success is practically their middle name. And yet, they feel the need to lie about their weights, ashamed by the number on the scale.

What does that mean for the rest of us?

What message does that send?

Fast forward to scenario II, where I get this amazing opportunity to start my return to run training 3 months ahead of schedule following my foot surgery, thanks to the Alter G treadmill purchased my sports doc…..and yet I baulk. Frozen. Panic sets in. I know it means being weighed, and for someone who has just had 6 months off normal training, that is paralyzing.

But why should it be? I weigh 5kg more than the average of those 5 elite females put together – their real weight, not the one they put down on our team bio page. I am healthy, lean, fit and carry as much muscle as a good Ironman athlete should. Yes, I’m a few kgs up from my race weight, but that is OK too – because I am not race-fit right now. My body is as it should be right now, and I would like to be able to “own” that.

In the end, I guess you could call me a hypocrite. It upsets me that those women feel the need to lie about their weights, and it saddens me that that will send a very wrong message to young impressionable athletes coming through. It’s as if we are expected to achieve the impossible: to have muscle and minimal fat, and good bone density, and yet to weigh in at featherweight. Consider who is setting these expectations, and whether it is a sad modern extension of the female bullying epidemic, insisting we be perfect and able to do-it-all and yet so ruthlessly judging one another for how we all look/dress/work/live/parent…..the list goes on. I can tell you that my doctor, who is a male, didn’t give two hoots about my weight. And you rarely hear males bitching about their fellow mates, judging how they live their lives. Food for thought.

My plea is for female athletes to start “owning” their beautiful bodies. Be proud that you weigh a little more than your unfit ~~skinny~~ counterparts because you actually have muscle tone. Be proud of what your body can do, and how far it has come. For those of us who have climbed from the dark depths of an eating disorder, also be kind and forgiving – for your body has been through so much more than you will ever know, and every day it wakes ready to heal a little more and to help you to keep fighting the good fight.

Never forget that. Own what you are, and be proud. Starting a revolution starts with one tiny step, and you just never know who you’re inspiring by how you live your life.