The Skinny Standard

I was a competitive runner from 2008 until the fall of 2017, and within those nine years, I can count on one hand how many times I ran without a shirt on in just my sports bra. There were workouts in college when we were outside in 90-degree weather in the middle of the afternoon, and I kept my black shirt on because I was so self-conscious of taking it off. I rarely ever wore short spandex apart from racing. And once I finished the race, I would immediately put shorts on top again.

Looking back on it, I can make a connection between my lack of self-confidence and how I performed during races. The last time I felt truly confident in my own skin while working out or competing was during my junior year of high school at conference cross country (Fall of 2013). It was during my junior year that I started having adverse reactions to certain foods. My stomach would ache all the time, I had sharp pains in my stomach and intestines whenever I ran, and I was having overall digestive issues. The summer before my senior year was the hardest summer regarding my cross country training. This was because one of the doctors I had visited regarding my food intolerances had put me on an extremely restrictive diet, and I had lost almost 15 pounds. 15 pounds that I didn’t have to lose. I felt weak. I was ashen, and I was always exhausted. My dad said he has never been nervous for me while I was competing except for during the fall of that year.

Clearly, the diet the doctor had put me on was not healthy for a seventeen-year-old, competitive athlete, so we scheduled a meeting with a pediatric dietitian. Furious upon hearing about what diet I had been on she introduced me to the FODMAP diet which specifically avoids the various food groups that were causing me pain. The new diet plan worked and had an app that allowed me to quickly check what foods would hurt me. As I started using this diet, I slowly began gaining the weight that I had lost.

However, something inside me had changed. I had lost belief in my body and the things that it could accomplish. The competitive fire inside that once had motivated me to anchor the fastest 800 meter split of my career and break my 400 meter record (as a split) in a 4x800 meter just to beat a team that I didn’t like, had all but extinguished and no amount of physical training could light that passion inside. And trust me, I trained tirelessly. I was the workout queen. I could run my personal best repeated in practice but when it came time for racing my times never even came close to what I ran in practice. Now if that isn’t defeating enough, I was always comparing myself to the people around me.

Even though I had an incredible family and a boyfriend who loved me, I did not a strong support system within my classmates in high school. This caused me to have a large amount of anxiety surrounding everything from what I wore and how I looked to how I felt within my own skin. I doubted everything about myself. Always being on edge for six years greatly diminished my self-esteem and how I talked to myself. If people didn’t like me, I thought that it must be my fault. Maybe I was not pretty, skinny, fit enough for people, kind enough, or smart enough. Running was my one haven of peace that I use to turn to, but my senior year even that was taken away both by the people on the team and my body’s own capabilities. My lack of confidence with regards to my body’s own ability to process food and the impact it played on my athletic performance and my ever mounting insecurities brought on by continuous exclusion, paved an uneven foundation on which I wanted to build as I headed into college.

I had such high hopes coming to college. I thought that this would be a fresh start for me. I had learned how to balance training and eating by using the FODMAP diet, and I was so excited for a chance to make friends who could sparkle that competitive flame within me. I did find incredible friends. Some of the most influential women I know are from the track and field team. However, the pressure that I had felt in high school from not being accepted only mounted while apart of Division I athletics. I understand the stakes are higher being apart of a collegiate program, but that is not where I felt the pressure. The pressure came from the unspoken but ever-present, skinny standard. Middle to long-distance runners didn’t usually look like my body shape. For the most part, everyone is incredibly petite… everywhere. I, on the other hand, am not. I have a larger chest especially for a runner, and that was something that I was incredibly self-conscious about. Usually having my body shape would be cause for celebration but I felt so large all the time. I know that may sound dumb, as I am 5’4’’ and at the time was 120 pounds, but that is how I felt each and every day. I never ran in just a sports bra and shorts because of how I felt about my body, from the fact that I didn’t have a six pack to my chest. I would have rather passed out from heat exhaustion than taken my shirt off to run in a sports bra during a workout because of my overwhelming sense of embarrassment and humiliation.

I remember hearing a freshman on the team say, “I hope with more training I can get skinnier because the skinny people are the fastest.” For a long time after hearing that, I wanted to be the exception to that. I wanted to be a successful mid-distance runner with big boobs, no six pack, a healthy balance of food, and yet incredible abilities. However, that never happened. The constant, every present sense that my body would never live up to the expectations defined by the sport that I participated in caused me to develop extremely negative ways in which I would talk to myself both on and off the track.

During the fall of 2017, I found myself standing at a split in my road of life. To my right, was the healthy path filled with a balance of food and exercise. To my left, was the path of unhealthy decisions surrounding food and my health. I had taken a few strides down the left path. I wasn’t eating enough at the time, barely hitting 1000 calories a day while still running almost 50 miles a week and lifting for upwards of three hours a day. I was not healthy, both physically and mentally. It was in that moment that I knew I had to walk away. I was not quitting. To quit implies you are giving up. I wasn’t giving up, but I was choosing to walk away. I was walking away from every negative thought that entered my head when I stepped on the track. I was walking away from the false idea that I was not skinny, fast, or fit enough for the sport. I was walking away from the pressure that a specific size determined success. I was walking away for me.

After walking away, it felt like I had put noise canceling headphones on. All of a sudden, those negative thoughts and the pressure to be skinnier were muffled. Not gone. Just softened.

Yoga has softened the negative noise. In November of 2017, I started attending yoga classes at a studio in town called Prairie Soul. This was a tremendous turning point for me. In the beginning, I was horrible at yoga, I still am awful for that matter. But every time I step on my mat, I am excited, and I am challenged. Yoga is a beautiful balance of mental, physical and spiritual training and I fully embrace the practice. I bring who I am, the parts of love and the parts that I am still learning to love, onto my mat for each practice. Yes, some days my balance is laughable and my flexibility is almost non-existent. But that’s one of the aspects that I treasure most. I laugh, breathe, collect my focus, reset my pose and try again. I love the fact that with each practice I learn a new aspect of yoga, I find a new tiny part of my body that becomes sore, and I am continuously reminded to focus on my breathe. Coming from a runner, I thought I had massed breathing. It isn’t until you have to breathe deeply in for six excruciatingly long counts that you realize how poorly you breathe throughout the day. Yoga does not have a skinny standard, or an age standard, or an ability standard, or any standard you could set. To be successful in yoga you just have to bring who you are no standards attached.

Every instructor that I have gone to has deepened my thoughtfulness in yoga and my daily life. One instructor reminded me that it’s okay to not be able to do every pose and to embrace the aspects of yoga that you are most challenged by. Another instructor reminded me to enjoy discomfort on my mat because then I will be stronger facing it throughout life. Yet other instructor reminded me to leave my competitive and perfectionist personality at the door because that would only cause harm. During one of the first classes I attended the instructor read a passage about embracing and loving yourself and meeting your body where it is. That passage profoundly touched me. For so many years, I had been trying to force my body to match the unrealistic standards was set based on the pressures around me. Never once did I stop to fully bask in how incredible my body was just the way it was.

Since I started practicing yoga I have struggled most with the mediation portion. The mediation, or slowing of the thoughts and clearing of the mind, is an incredible way to overcome negative thoughts. However, I am a list person and when I try to mediate my mind goes to my to-do lists which leads to this new thought tangent which leads to my heart racing as I try to think about how I will possibly complete everything on my lists. It wasn’t until yesterday that I was able to quiet my thoughts and because I repeated the phrase:

I am incredible.

On my long inhale, in my mind, I would write in cursive with black ink the words “I am.” I would hold my breath for a moment before my exhale where I would write “incredible.” Anytime I had a new, distracting thought I would come back to my three simple words.

The negativity that was once like bellowing and overwhelming music is now just muffled white noise. It may always be a part of me and that’s fine. I still sometimes compare myself to other girls on Instagram. However, I have learned to control how I think about my body through yoga, mediation, journaling and the guidance of the EmpowerHer mentorship.

This fall, I worked through the EmpowerHer Mentorship Program for 12 weeks that was designed by Caryn, a health coach. With her assistance, I refocused on how I talked to and embraced my body. And at times, I felt like I was becoming kinder regarding how I spoke to my body, but I always relapsed back to my negative thoughts. As our trip to Hawaii grew closer, I had a mounting sense of anxiety surrounding the fact that I would have to wear a swimsuit. There is one photo from me in Hawaii in a swimsuit, and it’s from a great distance so you really can’t see me. I never wanted a picture of me taken in one because I didn’t want the world to see my body. My sister and I were discussing body image, and she said, “I don’t know what you’re worried about you are the skinniest you’ve ever been.” I stopped short because I didn’t see it that way.

Leading up to Hawaii, Jake and I were watching our sugar and carb consumption. I mentioned it in passing to one of my classmates, and she yelled at me saying, “Why!!??! You have an incredible body.” Her shock at how I thought of my body took me by surprise, as did my sister’s, and reminded me that even as I compare myself to others, I am the standard for some people.

It wasn’t until Monday, January 14th that I honestly felt a change and a shift in my mindset.

The mind is like any other muscle. It must be trained and strengthened. After 12 weeks, a year of yoga and a wonderful vacation, something clicked within me.

I had bought an outfit to wear to yoga on my birthday in May. I wore it once. Just for the session of yoga on May 21st. After that, I put it back in my closet. The reason why I hadn’t worn it again was that it showed my stomach. Even on my birthday, I had felt uncomfortable in the outfit despite how cute it was. I have worn other crop tops, but mostly because I have a shorter torso so rarely any of my stomach shows. On Monday, I decided I would wear that same outfit that I had only worn on my birthday to the gym to lift. Despite feeling apprehensive, I felt incredible. I felt so strong and confident. I was not self-conscious or at all embarrassed (it also helped that it was just me, my fiancé and one other person) but still, this was a monumental win for me. I took the photo attached with this post on January 14th in my birthday outfit with no makeup on, messy hair, sweaty from the gym, and happier and more confident than I’ve ever been.

After finishing my workout and getting back into our apartment, I burst into tears. I honestly felt a change in how I saw my body and how I felt within it. I never would have imagined that a year after walking away from running I could be this happy and confident within my own skin and truly love my body. My boobs will be what they always have been, and I may never have a six pack, but that is amazing because, for the first time in almost six years, I loved me again. How you think about yourself may not happen in one yoga practice, or 100, or through 12 weeks of mindfulness and positive conversations about your body but one day it will click and that moment will be monumental.

Throughout this whole process, my family, fiancé, close friends and yoga instructors have been an incredible support system, and I could not be more blessed to have them in my life. However, my heart aches to know that there are millions of other people out there who are feeling how I felt and some people who are feeling this way without a fantastic, loving base of supporters like the one I have.

The skinny standard is not just something that is a part of athletics, it is perpetuated every time you scroll through social media and in the way we talk about ourselves and others. “I want to be like ____.” or “If only I had a flatter stomach or weighted ___ pounds I would be happier.” it’s a vicious and unhealthy cycle when we think and strive to live within the skinny standard. It is also a cycle that will never, ever end in happiness because when these thoughts do not result in feelings of joy. This thinking results in emptiness, a continuous need to be thinner and fitter and a distortion of what you truly look like. You are absolutely incredible just the way you are and the aspects of your body that you see as “flaws” the next person sees as their “standard.” Embrace all of your awesomeness and avoid falling into setting standards for yourself or others.

Eating disorders are an issue that I have been very passionate about since junior high. As a teenager, I had hoped to one day find a way to spread positivity to athletes and confront the challenge of eating disorders head on. Over the years, my passion has only strengthened. One of the main purposes of my blog and my presence on social media is that I can be a positive force in the lives of other people especially those struggling with body image, insecurity or eating disorders. Additionally, I am planning on doing my thesis research on how eating disorders are discussed in society. (More on that to come.)

If you are struggling with any issue, please know that you are not alone. Many people have stood in your shoes and would love to support you through the process.

Be kind to yourself and eventually you will see yourself the way the world sees you…absolutely incredible.

*chills* So I wrote the majority of this blog last Tuesday after my monumental win. It wasn’t until Sunday when I was proofreading it again did I add the portion about my breathing/meditative technique. I edited and added to my thoughts while I was reading it through. I had forgotten that last Tuesday I had ended my thoughts with “Be kind to yourself and eventually you will see yourself the way the world sees you…absolutely incredible.” So when I reached the end and discovered that I had connected the idea that “I am incredible” entirely on accident, I was once again reminded of the fact that your thoughts are so much more impactful than we release and can carry a message throughout our day, week, year, or life.

You are incredible.

With Love,

Rachel Elizabeth