If You Think There is Something Wrong With Your Body, Read This.

Tree trunk legs, the hulk, and man arms were a few of the nicknames that I was used to being called as a young gymnast going to school with kids that were not used to athleticism apparently. Those names hurt, and it was the first time I ever started to question whether my body was wrong, and that questioned lingered for decades.

I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, a time where celebrities said things like "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels." Magazines were riddled with weight loss tips and how to not get "bulky" as a woman, promoting body weight exercises and running over things like strength training or sports. I didn't see many examples of strong women in media, and if I did, it was the body builder type that was being made fun of on tv for being "too manly."

I was short and strong. Like really strong. I became an athlete at the early age of four, starting with soccer and then moving onto gymnastics, both sports that require lots of power. And I took to them like a fish in water. Genetics that align with elite power athletes, as my 23andMe says. My legs definitely represented that. I even have a photo of me on my first day of Kindergarten with my dad, and my legs were buff there too!

Throughout gymnastics, the idea of my body began to surface. Not only was I learning to do tricks that performed incorrectly could break my neck, but there was a way that my body was meant to look when doing a beam routine. I say this because one time I got deducted on one of my best beam performances of my life and we didn't know why. My coach talked to the judges after, to which they responded, "The routine didn't fit well with her body. She should try to suck in her stomach more."

So then I was introduced to a tummy belt, which is basically a modern day waist trainer. So here I am, a 12-year-old girl, wearing something designed to remind me to "suck it in" five hours a day at gymnastics practice. Around that time, I wanted to quit altogether and live a more normal childhood, but there was something that stopped me.

My coaches sat me down to convince me not to quit. This may have been one of the most uncomfortable conversations I'd ever had in my life, and one that would continue to haunt me for years to come after. "Sydney, if you quit gymnastics, you're throwing your life away. You will get fat. Right now, you're training 25-30 hours per week! How are you not going to gain a bunch of weight?" They proceeded to give examples of gymnasts that have "lost their way." And then went on to remind me that all my friends were at the gym and that I wouldn't have any friends if I quit either. That conversation planted the seed that my value was tied to how my body looked and performed. I stayed in gymnastics two more years after that.

A little caveat to the last paragraph, this is how I remember the conversation. My old coach has definitely changed his ways over time and has apologized to me for the way I, among my teammates were treated back then.

So when I did go on to quit gymnastics at age 14, I did gain weight, but it wasn't as much as I was told it would be. Though I do remember trying to drink things like Slimfast (lol) in addition to my breakfast as I thought it was a magic drink that would help me stay in shape. I became aware of what calories were. I took up snowboarding, and ran a few times a week. But I ate whatever I wanted. And I mean lots of fast food, sweets and things that would be considered "bad." I would feel guilty, so I'd expend that energy in the way I knew how, by exercising as hard as I could so I could eat more.

Then I came across parkour and started to realize that if I wanted to be a better athlete, I needed to start lifting weights and properly fueling my body. An obsession began. The need to be the strongest woman in the room. I took up powerlifting competitions as well as crossfit comps to prove that I was a superior athlete. I pulled up 300lbs on a deadlift at age 19, and won my only ever crossfit competition that same year. I was focused less on controlling my diet, and more on how I could be the strongest ever.

As I became very involved in parkour competitions, I started becoming obsessed with winning. Because winning would mean that I was good enough right? And how might a winner behave? They would surely out-train everyone else and follow a strict diet. So down the rabbit hole I went of trying all sorts of different diets. And I mean all of them. Vegan, paleo, keto, vegetarian, pescatarian, high carb, low carb. The only one I didn't fall for was carnivore.

I really did start training all of the time. I would wake up, head to the gym for a HIIT class, drink a smoothie, train in the gym, and then train outside. I was putting in more hours than anyone I knew, and I was eating a lot, but honestly I knew nothing about proper nutrition back then. But I lost somewhere between 10-14 lbs and was so lean! I sat at about 13 percent body fat and felt like there was still so much more to lose. Looking back, I don't think this was very healthy, but it was often reinforced by people around me saying "Oh my goodness you look amazing!" There was this need to prove to myself that I could be doing more, always. The interesting thing is that this worked really well for awhile, I'd call it dirty fuel. It worked until it didn't.

When I turned 30, after I had done some of my last competitions, I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism. And suddenly the weight just came on. There wasn't anything I could do to stop it. So I did what I always did and tried to workout more and eat healthier. But my body became so inflamed and I actually put on more weight. Things I used to do in my 20s suddenly didn't work anymore and I was at a loss. I noticed myself falling down a hole, feeling out of control, and feeling like some washed up athlete, just like my coaches had predicted nearly 20 years prior.

The hypothyroid and weight gain was one of the best things that ever happened because I was forced to look much deeper. I started to realize that eating cleaner or training harder was going to get me nowhere. It was a much deeper identity that needed integration. The part of me that whispers, "I'm not good enough. I only deserve love if I'm the best. I don't matter. My needs don't matter." It hit like a ton of bricks, landed so strongly. This was how I was living my life, from a place of fear. Walking around, navigating the world, as if this is what's true about me.

Once I realized these are absolutely not true and they live in my mind, I was able to have so much compassion for that perfectionist part of me. The overtraining and diet control are compensations for feeling not good enough. The poor body image is a symptom or side effect of this. So I started listening to what I really needed, which was actually the opposite of what I was doing. I desperately was asking to slow down and accept myself fully. So that's what I did. I stopped judging myself. I even stopped judging myself for judging myself! That's a hard one sometimes.

I've come to understand that the fear of gaining weight is actually a fear of rejection in most cases. Because so many of us tie that value to how we look, we assume that we will be rejected by others if our body isn't "perfect." But the only person that can actually reject you is you! The thing that we are so afraid of, we are already secretly doing to ourselves.

So now, I praise my body everyday for the amazing things it does. Legs that can support me not only through walking where I want to go, but also being able to hike mountains or jump really far. A core that allows me to flip over my head as much as my heart desires. Arms that can hang from a bar or pick up heavy things. I love my body through all of its fluctuations, and believe me, there are many.

I hope this post helps you understand that you're not alone in your journey of thinking that there's something wrong with your body. It's a lie many of us have been conditioned to believe from such early ages. The truth is that your worth or value has nothing to do with the weight on the scale, how much you train, how little you eat, or what the mirror reflects back. Your body is the home that has carried you through every season of life, and it deserves your love.

As always, I'm sending you so much love.

-Sydney Olson