How I stopped being at war with my body during my peri menopause transition….

Orrest Head viewing point

I’ve wanted to write about this for a while but I’ve been struggling with knowing where to start on this. Because this wasn’t a stop/ start thing. This definitely happened really gradually over quite a long period of time.

When I became a Trainer nearly 4 years ago, I thought I had a great relationship with my body. I was fit and strong, and I carefully monitored what I ate so that I could work hard in the gym and be the fittest and strongest I could be. That meant weighing and measuring food, and sticking to calorie and macro targets. At the time I did Crossfit, and I loved it. I loved being fit and strong, and ‘eating to perform’ was a very common approach to nutrition amongst my peers.

At the time I thought the ‘strong not skinny’ approach was really sound. Now I know better. What about the individuals who are genetically very thin? And was this not simply another way of controlling your body, albeit in the acceptable disguise of being fitter and strong? Surely just another distraction from actual body acceptance?

I tracked my food pretty religiously for around 4 years on and off. And on the whole it worked for me, until it didn’t. It was actually the start of my perimenopause journey that flagged up tracking as being an additional stressor, and as my training changed (due to my recovery and energy levels changing) it became apparent that I no longer needed to fuel my body for performance - I could ‘just’ eat for health.

Transitioning away from tracking was hard for me. I had to refamiliarise myself with my body’s hunger cues and stop reply on an app to tell me what food I needed. I found that without the ‘control’ of an app, I was emotionally eating more. There was a lot I had to get my head around. I knew, though, that tracking was totally unnecessary for me and what I needed to do was move away from it- however hard I found that. I pictured myself in a nursing home at 80 fiddling around with my fitness pal. I knew I needed to do the work on myself now before it got even harder.

At around the same time I had started therapy again for my grief- so I was feeling ALOT of feelings. Things were pretty uncomfortable. I was exploring myself in a way that I knew I wanted to and needed to… but my god it was hard.

One particular piece of research helped me get my head around my changing body at this time- and I had the findings on pretty much repeat in my head. 3 things are proven to improve your relationship with your body - wearing comfortable clothes, strength training and wearing SPF. These things became my mantra for improving my relationship with my body. I bought lots of joggers and enjoyed being comfortable.

I also thought a lot about my future self ( I read Bronnie Ware’s Top Five Regrets of the Dying), and knew that I didn’t want to spend my life being at war with my body and so I really leant in to the challenges I was facing.

My focus became my health as a whole as opposed to just my appearance or my strength and fitness. My stress, my energy, my boundaries all needed examining. My work- life balance was something I was exploring in detail with my therapist.

I did a huge amount of internal work on my worth. My absolute worth as a human being- independant of my appearance or my work. It was heavy going. I had to let a lot of things go, and confront a lot of things in my past. I used daily tools like journalling and meditation. I stopped trying to control my body. Instead I learnt to nourish and respect myself. I practiced fierce self compassion, forgiving myself like crazy for everything and also came to the radical and deeply sobering realisation that I am only a human being.

Coupled with this I decided to step into the power of my ageing. At 44, I’m getting older by the day and it really started to occur to me that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life worried about my body when there is a whole world out there I want to enjoy, contribute to, explore and respect. I didn’t want to waste my precious life being caught up in the size of my thighs.

I don’t love every part of my body- far from it. But I have a deep appreciation for what my body does for me. I do miss my leaner body on some days- but I don’t miss the control and sacrifice that it took to keep it there. My body image is far better now than when I was leaner. In fact, I’d say it’s the best it’s ever been. To misquote someone really famous whose name escapes me, ‘Looks fade, but your sense of self last forever’. It’s been the best work and investment of my time and energy that I’ve ever done.