As time progressed, I saw more progress in my body, but my fear of strength training and becoming too bulky diminished. I started adding light weights into the video workouts I had been doing, and progressed into harder, weighted videos. (This may be a good time to address working out solely with videos as well. Due to being 13 & 14 years old in the first year of my, what was at the time, weight loss journey, driving to the gym every morning was not an option, and I have always been independent, so I did not like the idea of relying on others to drive me to the gym before daylight and therefore rely on others for my personal progress. I knew this was my journey alone to better myself physically and Spiritually with God.) 

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COVID hit closely after reaching one year in my journey. I was unaffected by the gyms closing unlike others, so I used the opportunity to workout for even longer. I had been working out every day for a year for 30 minutes to an hour. Now I was working out every day for an hour-and-a-half. I had already noticed my joints squeaking throughout my workouts and my muscles were in severe pain regularly, not just soreness. My parents knew I needed to visit the chiropractor, so I did, and he suggested I have a couple rest days a week. To me and my fear of gaining all of my weight back, this was unthinkable. I kept going, but sometimes took Sundays off. I spent most of my days in quarantine focused on my goals. I would wake up at 8am, workout for 60-90 minutes, eat breakfast (which I had thought for over a year now could never be over 300 calories) and do my Bible study, stretch, work on my recipes and cookbook, eat lunch, do schoolwork, research health and fitness, play piano, eat dinner, and THEN spend time with family. All of the research I was doing, along with major push from my dad, convinced me that I COULD and needed to take a couple days off in the week. It was summer around this time, so I would swim in my grandparents' house (with them socially distanced on the porch) on some of my rest days. I remember the specific conversation with my dad that, looking back, changed things for me. I showed him the workout plan that I had been doing, and he said that the workouts I was doing were very hard. That gave me the credibility I felt I needed to take breaks. I had made progress and I was no longer the weak one. I was getting stronger, and I wanted to keep getting stronger. I knew that meant allowing myself to recover.

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Another thing that convinced me that it was time to allow myself to recover was that my body was telling me I had to stop in more ways than just pain. I have debated typing this even to this moment, but I have decided that it is far too important for girls to hear to leave out. I lost my period from 6 months into my journey to a year and 7 months into my journey. 13 months of my body stopping what it is meant to do because it didn't have the care and fuel it needed. I was at risk of losing the ability to have children in the future all over what was at the time solely about weight loss, how I looked in the mirror, and how people perceived me. To try and regain my period, I decided to eat anything my body craved, while still eating the fueling foods I was used to but in larger portions and moving my body because I wanted to. After a couple months of this, gaining a little bit of weight, spending time with family, spending a lot of time in prayer, and nurturing myself and my body, I got my period back. It has taken time for my cycle to be normal again, and to be honest, I have more pain during my period now than before losing it, but I remind myself each time that it truly is a blessing to have one. It is an answered prayer and it is my body doing what it was created to do! Girls, it's not worth it to lose the weight. The mental toll that losing your period can have on you hormonally and through fear is too rough. Take care of your body! It is taking care of you, and one day you will want it to take care of a child as you carry it. 

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To sum up time since then, I tried tracking macros (not calories!) and had good results, but it had me focusing too much on food--I was constantly thinking about my next meal and logging it--so I stopped. I started watching Autumn Bates on Youtube during my health research, and was convinced to try intermittent fasting. I had tried not eating after 6pm before, but that didn't work with my schedule. This time, I "ate until I was satiated, not satisfied," 2-3 meals a day with about 4 hours in between each meal. This worked well for me as it solved two of my main problems: I wasn't hungry all of the time, so I stopped thinking constantly about food, and the 4 hours between each meal allowed for 3 hours and 45 minutes to digest food--the perfect amount for the body--so my bloating decreased drastically. This was also aided by drinking hot tea at nighttime. I still do these things to this day; however, for my mental health and in listening to my body, am a lot more lax on it. Also around this time, eating until satiated allowed me to build muscle, and I did gain some body fat back at first as well, but that fluctuated and allowed me to grow and appear stronger and healthier. This feels like a good time to mention two things: If you are feeling hungry all of the time, that is NOT good, and if not stopped can take a very long time to overcome. Your body is craving nutrients, so listen to it. You will be glad you did. {For more information on this you can check out Stephanie Buttermore's channel on youtube and hear her story and perspective now.} Also, GUT HEALTH. It is more important than you would probably ever image and is a key factor in so many bodily functions, so always make sure you are getting enough probiotics and prebiotics such as bananas, fermented foods, yogurt, greens, and onions. To continue summarizing time, I have done a 90 day journaling experiment on my body, tracking everything I ate, how I felt each day, the amount of sleep I got the night before, and many other things that I wanted to track. I have found that journaling and writing down the foods I eat are really helpful, and I can still do them without my mental health suffering. The only reason I don't still do them is time and the importance of sleep.

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I used to train full body every day, wherever I could. Now, my ideal training week looks something like this: 5-10 minutes of stretching and warming up each morning, hypertrophy training upper body and abs one day, hypertrophy training lower body and abs one day, performance training one day, incline walking before breakfast a few times a week, and one to two good stretch sessions. Dance is also a daily activity for me during the school year. Any of my strength and performance training is still done in my growing home-gym; I am constantly finding new ways to train, and a paid gym membership and driving alone to the gym in the dark is unnecessary. It also allows me to workout whenever I have a few minutes and want to move my body or kickstart my day well. My training time spans from 20 minutes for stretching or on a rushed morning, to an-hour and-a-half strength session, to a 2 or 3 hour dance practice. Sometimes dance, stretching, and/or strength training overlap days, so I still have complete rest days. I have been at maintenance, intuitively eating, for over a year now, and my goal has just been to get stronger and improve performance during this time. I eat what makes me feel good; I don't track anything, just try and eat high protein, low processed foods (least ingredients the better), high complex carbs, and very low added sugar.

 

I surround myself with people and fitness influencers who encourage me in my health journey and in the journey with God. The two for me are completely intertwined. God created my body and allows it to move and function like it does! I can worship Him for the food he allowed to grow and make it to my plate! I can worship Him even during my workouts, thanking Him for allowing me to move in ways that I never thought I would be able to! Even though I still have pains, still do some rehab, still wear knee braces, and still have to know when to stop due to injuries I suffered in the first year of my journey, I am blessed to be able to do the workouts that make me feel powerful and eat the foods that make my body thrive.

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My adopted motto this year is "do it whenever you can because you love it."

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