Avoiding the “Slippery Slope”
Bonus #5
Plenty of psychologists, mental health practitioners, authors, your average Joe’s, and athletes have opened up and discussed body dysmorphia, the mental struggle of obsessively fixating on specific aspects of appearances or the entire physical body. Sadly, this condition can quickly lead to various eating disorders, cosmetic procedures, or continual self-loathing of the individual affected by it. This is not an all-inclusive list, but for athletes in particular, body dysmorphia often occurs while training for competition, when goals are not reached, or performances are sub-optimal. Furthermore, some athletes deal with weight checks prior to competition, forcing them to be obsessive about their weight in order to even enter the arena! While I am lucky and have not experienced body dysmorphia in these ways, I am experiencing slight body dysmorphia post-competition.
After big competitions and training bouts, your body is begging for rest because of the intense wear and tear. The six-hour-a-day, six-days-a-week training regiment is unsustainable mentally and physically. However, your body grows accustomed to the training volume, intensity, and how you look in the mirror. When that volume and intensity diminish, your mind runs rampant surrounding your appearance (at least in my case). With the lull in training and competition after the Olympics, my body is naturally changing, despite my kicking and screaming. It may be a fraction of an inch or a couple of pounds here and there, but my mind plays tricks on me, making me believe I’ve gained 30 pounds, lost all my muscle, and ballooned in my midsection and thighs. Outsiders will say I look the same, but their external perception is divergent from my own. We are our own worst critics and we tend to berate and nitpick every little detail. Teammates I have talked to about this topic have confirmed they feel similarly about their bodies, giving me comfort in knowing I am not alone and I am not crazy.
There is a dichotomy between needing to exercise more to achieve this elusive “perfect” (there is none) body I experienced during peak moments last year while training, and the inclination to sit on the couch and veg out. In addition, there is also an enigma with wanting to restrict consumption to maintain a certain physique and a yearning to indulge in whatever tickles my fancy. With training as much as we did, there wasn’t a second thought about how much I consumed, a wonderful feeling. The only aspect of food I had to be aware of was timing so I didn’t vomit during workouts. I was a food vacuum - eating whatever I could get my hands on with the only caveat being it had to be healthy. I was actively trying to gain weight to perform to my highest potential but I kept losing weight because of how much we trained. It was incredibly frustrating when I was trying so hard to reach a certain weight during training but I couldn’t because of the volume. Now, I am at my goal weight for competition, but it’s two months too late and in all the wrong places. During this break period, I have noticed myself restricting on things I love, like chocolate croissants, or forcing myself to stop eating for fear of adding inches to my waistline. My current training volume doesn’t feel adequate enough to justify my indulgences. What happens when I retire and stop playing competitively altogether? Will I never allow myself to indulge without incredible guilt and shame?
I am not going to psychoanalyze myself - that is my therapist’s job. However, I do not believe I have a problem yet, but it is a slippery slope. The most important thing is awareness; I am aware of my mental patterns with food and I understand that many individuals go through mental struggles with body image. I begrudgingly acknowledge that peak shape is unsustainable and change is inevitable. Of course I will not maintain the same body composition as I did while training like a mad woman. I must accept that I can’t train as much as we did, and I also have no desire to do that right now.
To eliminate or at least combat the body dissatisfaction, I can actively practice body positivity and simply be kind to the person I see in the mirror. What I am doing now is enough and it is exactly what is needed at this moment in time. I can also make minor tweaks and adjustments to eating habits, not restricting and creating more of a balance in my food consumption (have the chocolate croissant, damn it). Lastly, I can provide self-love and grace during this process. My body inevitably changes and it will take time to adjust. Allow it to change and love the change!
