Training Motivations & Mistakes

Asides from enjoyment, there are a lot of reasons as to why you'll regularly find me in the gym. Recently I changed my motives behind working out and it's completely transformed my mindset when training. I wanted to touch on some of the training related mistakes I've made during the past year and how I've got to where I'm at now.

In the beginning...

As I said in my previous post about why I started training, there were some medical reasons motivating me to originally start out in the gym. However, I took a break from working out - unless you count clubbing - for the majority of 2017 after my local gym membership expired and university life began.

After this time off I started going to the gym again in January of 2018. In all honesty, at that time I was working out for all the wrong reasons. It was heavily motivated by the fact I wanted to lose the freshers fat that I'd gained from those past few months. Looking back now, I'm surprised I managed to stay so motivated considering my motives were purely aesthetic ones. I guess this is a common reason for someone to start out in the gym, usually people want to lose fat and feel healthier - which is all fine reasoning but it really should be about finding something you enjoy so that it's sustainable in the long term (luckily for me this was the case).

When I started working out again in 2018 I didn't really know an awful lot about resistance and hypertrophy training. I bought a guide to follow and just went into the gym with the intention of following the guide until I felt comfortable with it. I remember the first time I tried barbell squats, I picked up a 10kg bar from the rack, carried it all the way over to the mats (because I was intimidated by the men in the weights section) and struggled to lift the bar over my head. I think I managed the full set but I remember questioning how this was meant to be enjoyable. As time went on I continued to follow the guide as it challenged me to try new things - however at the time I never saw it as this. I'd complete the days within the guide but I saw going to the gym as a chore and it was all coming from a place of self-hatred. I wasn't in a great place during January - March last year and I definitely didn't help myself with how I was treating my body.

I wasn't feeling myself nor fuelling myself

I made the awful (and unfortunately common) mistake of drastically cutting my calorie intake. I'd recently bought myself a Fitbit in an attempt to get me moving more - nothing wrong with that and it definitely got me moving. However along with the app comes a nutritional section, allowing you to input your food and count your calories, without any prior knowledge as to how I should be fuelling my body, I plucked a random number out of nowhere (1000 calories) and set that as my daily target intake. Considering the recommended daily intake for women is 2000kcal, with 1,200kcal being the absolute minimum recommended intake in order to 'diet safely' this was incredibly dangerous for myself, especially as I was now training in the gym 6 times a week. Looking back I'm not surprised I felt depressed during these months as I was depriving myself of energy and on top of this I'd gone vegan, which stripped me of my usual proteins and vitamins. I remember always feeling tired and low - a combination of not eating and sleeping enough - as I continued to eat in this stupid deficit for a few more months.

Luckily for me March rolled around and I was back home for the Easter Holidays, too embarrassed to count my calories in front of my parents, I decided to let myself eat 'normally' for the time spent at home. After two weeks of eating enough, I returned to Falmouth and stopped tracking my calorie intake - instead I decided to focus on eating 'healthier' and moving (even) more. This meant getting 10,000 steps everyday (and feeling guilty when I didn't) and eating only foods that were labelled by diet culture as 'good'. Another stupid rookie error I learnt from diet culture which ultimately led me down a path of restricting my social life and my enjoyment of food. Don't get me wrong, I love eating nutritious foods but my goodness I was not allowing myself any kind of balance at all during this time. I was however starting to enjoy the gym more as I was starting to see a bit of muscle growth (because I'd actually started to fuel my body properly). I continued this way for nearly the whole of summer, I'd avoid 'unhealthy' foods as much as I could, I'd make sure to get my 10,000 steps in and I'd regularly workout.

Yet another bloody mistake...

Something that was also going on during this time was I'd started to lose my periods, I'd get one every other month and it took me a few months to actually become concerned about this. Originally I'd just put it down to the fact I'd made the dietary change to veganism, but knowing what I know now, it was possibly more to do with the fact I was under-fuelling my body for the amount of exercise I was doing. Training intensively 5-6 times a week, on top of obsessively getting my steps in AND attempting a calorie deficit was (not surprisingly) too much stress on my body, resulting in me not fuelling myself enough for hormonal functions. After some research I now know about the concept of 'energy availability', the idea that your body will prioritise energy towards exercise over hormonal processes - in short: I was fuelling myself enough to function but not enough for my hormones as well.

Where I'm at now...(and finally getting to the point of this post)

Since late last year I decided to change my motives behind my training from 'losing weight' to 'building muscle'. I'd been working out to lose weight for long enough that it was no longer a sustainable motivation. I was definitely enjoying training by summer last year but I hadn't learned balance - and arguably didn't learn it until very recently. The next mistake I made was not allowing myself to rest. Despite wanting to gain muscle (and I certainly managed it to start with), I was wrapped up in the idea that I had to constantly maintain a caloric deficit to lose the fat still (something that won't help you gain muscle). Knowing that I enjoyed food too much to cut my caloric intake again, I decided to up my physical activity even more in order to maintain the deficit and eat normally still. However, yet again not knowing at the time about energy availability, in doing so my periods completely disappeared and I hit a plateau in the gym because I didn't have the energy to push myself.

When it got to this point I decided that it was time to start listening to the signals my body was giving me and actually do some research into proper nutrition for training and how to regulate periods. During this time I came across fitness 'influencer' Natacha Océane, she'd previously suffered from an eating disorder, coupled with over-training, which resulted in her losing her period for six years. She spoke about how she regained her period due to building her metabolism up through hypertrophy training and increasing her caloric intake. She also filmed a video with performance and eating disorder dietitian Renee McGregor who explained the effects of under-eating/over-training on menstruation and how to regain your period. After watching her videos and doing a bit of research I decided to up my caloric intake (gradually) which ultimately left me training harder and feeling better. I no longer wear my fitbit, I give myself proper rest days and I care less about what kind of foods I'm eating - everything in moderation.

Leaving me with my new motives to workout: build my metabolism, build muscle, PERFORM and regain my periods.

The way in which I train now pushes me and challenges me in such exciting ways, I train to perform which ultimately means I try new exercises and challenge myself with heavier weights (which I do among the 'intimidating gym lads' now). I've upped my caloric intake in order to aid muscle growth and recovery from my training and in the long term more muscle mass means my resting metabolic rate is higher and therefore it's easier for me to burn fat. A higher muscle mass also means the need to eat lots too - a win win if you ask me. Looking back I can't fathom my reasoning for not fuelling myself after training, now it just doesn't make any sense but it's what I'd learnt (wrongly) from diet culture. The extra energy from eating more has really made a difference when it comes to my training sessions, I push myself, I'm lifting heavier and I'm enjoying my workouts SO much. I knew I enjoyed working out the whole time, I just wasn't giving myself enough energy to actually show myself what my body can do.

Now in this new mindset I've made some exercise related goals for the future, there are three exercises in particular I'm working hard towards being able to perform: pull ups, pistol squats (dear god) and handstands. I've also decided I really want to take up gymnastics again as I've always wanted to learn how to tumble and I remember enjoying it when I was little (I regret quitting, but come on, I wasn't old enough to make those kind of decisions). I've also learnt through all of this that I'm really interested in the science and psychology behind nutrition and training - and that I definitely prefer reading non-fiction to fiction.

What I'd like you to take from this...

If anything, I just want to share my mistakes so others don't have to go through them themselves. Time and time again I hear people around me labelling food as 'good' and 'bad' and how they should 'start being healthier' when really it is just as simple as balance. It's all so much easier when you strip away rules and restrictions, when you find a form of exercise you enjoy and do it because you enjoy it, not because you feel you have to in order to lose weight or be healthier. Diet culture unfortunately is easier than ever to access due to social media and it's very easy to get caught up in fad diets and silly restrictions. Be yourself, find something you enjoy and eat what makes you feel good, life is too short.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, just popping in to say that I won't be posting on my blog for the next few weeks as I have university deadlines fast approaching. I will however continue to post on my blog insta: @potatoemilywaffles - if you're interested in keeping up to date with my silly posts. Hope everyone has a lovely few weeks and I'll be back during Easter to continue to write on here,

Emily x