Momsanity Sister Jessica Moorefield shares her very raw, very real journey with fitness…..

I grew up a runner.  I was a fairly “sporty” kid, tomboyish, I guess, played soccer on an otherwise all-boys team, loved to get involved in any physical challenge that presented itself.  My mom ran, my older brother ran – it was natural that I join those ranks.  And so, in middle school I started running with a team and competing in local races.  It was really in that vein that I discovered becoming uncomfortable for a moment (or many moments) was necessary to get better.  It didn’t matter how many times coaches told me to run faster or push harder – overcoming the discomfort I’m talking about is all about an internal driving force.  I’ll never forget the day I decided to push past the burning in my lungs and the heaviness of my legs and just keep going towards the finish.  That very moment was when I first realized I was capable– I really could be a good runner if I remained unintimidated by pain.  And since then, that mentality has served me well, but it has also been a thorn in my flesh.

I remained a fairly decent runner throughout my high school career, through college and now in my adult life.  To date, I’ve completed numerous 5ks, 10ks, half-marathons, a few 30ks, and four marathons.  But as I added years to my life, my focus shifted from subtracting minutes or seconds from my race times to subtracting pounds from the scale.  I’ve always been “beefy” (in fact, that was my nickname in high school), though never really heavy – just more than the average amount of muscle underneath some good insulation J  So, around my senior year of college I started my first “diet” that I can remember.  Which basically consisted or running a heck of a lot.  And eating not so much.  Honestly, I didn’t know any better.  What is it we all hear?  “Eat less, exercise more.” (Whoever wrote that doesn’t love chocolate.  Or wine. Or food, in general, probably.  I LOVE food, by the way.)  I also didn’t know WHAT foods to eat less of either.  So, I just decreased my regular foods, bought all of the low calorie items I could find and carefully measured out and journaled all of it.  If I ate a little too much for one meal or if I wanted an extra few cookies, I would just run more miles.  I relied completely on the exchange philosophy of calories in/calories out – no matter what those calories were contained in.  If I was too lazy to record it in my journal I just didn’t eat it.  (Sounds crazy, right!?)  Looking back, it was.  But again, it was all I knew.  I was miserable and hAngry ALL. THE. TIME. I talked about food way too much (because if you can’t eat it you can at least talk about it!) and seriously had hunger pains most of the day.  I even remember saying, “Oh, after a while you just get used to the hunger pains.”  What!?  Really, that is a problem.  BUT I DIDN’T EVEN REALIZE IT!  And THIS is what women do because they don’t know any better.  But you know what?  I lost weight. And I got skinny.  And people remarked about how great I looked.  And I was so happy that my clothes were a little loose.  And thus, my work ethic proved itself robust for a moment – I was capable of losing weight if I pushed past the pain and discomfort to get to the proverbial finish line.

The problem is: Where the heck is the finish line, really? And what happens after you get there?  In a race, you bend over with your hands on your knees, throw up a little (because you killed yourself that much out on the course), grab a water, then go eat doughnuts!  In the diet world, you remove the limitations that were causing all of that pain to get to the goal weight and start to live “normally” again.  Because the diet, just like the race, is not meant to be maintained forever – and it can’t be.  So, understandably, that lifestyle was not at all sustainable and as soon as I reached “goal weight” (i.e. proverbial finish line) and started eating normally again (read this, I didn’t go crazy and eat a ton of “bad” foods, I just went back to a regular American diet for a twenty-something active female) ALL of the weight came right back on.  And thus started the cycle of this diet.  On it for a while, off of it for a while.  After the first time though, I never cut my food intake quite as drastically, but would basically keep it low while still demanding 30+ miles a week from my body.  Each time, and very subtlety, my body became more and more stubborn in letting go of weight.

Finally, in 2010, I met a beautiful gal that altered this course and set me up for a healthier, happier existence.  This became my first encounter with clean eating, and my first time doing purposeful heavy weight workouts.  After a couple of months, I couldn’t believe it, but I actually started RESHAPING my body and losing weight.  And I wasn’t miserable – AT ALL!  Who knew!?

And since I like to take the toughest challenge head on, I decided to sign up for a competition in 2011.  That’s just what I do – I know not everyone operates that way, but I like to see how far I can push myself so a body-building competition was clearly the next step.  I went on a strict competition diet and weight training regimen for 12 weeks.  My body loves to hold on to cushion in all kinds of places so I really had to limit treats.  My cheat meal was steak and potato (FYI that is NOT my definition of a cheat meal!!).  I had to ask my coach for permission to use ketchup (what??).  I even had tilapia for breakfast some days!  I never truly believed I could have a stage-ready body, but the plan actually worked and I walked around on a stage with a tiny bikini on.  Never in my life did I imagine that would happen.

Things seem to be great, right?  I’ve finally got this perfect (in my mind) shape that I’ve been striving for ever since I started caring about how I looked.  But as you might have imagined, the same problem existed here as with my first diet adventures.  It’s not sustainable!  I imagined that I would get myself down to this bikini-ready body and just keep it there.  That once I lost the weight it would be super easy to just maintain.  NOT TRUE!  Post competition I ate everything in sight.  I had made it to my “finish line” of competition day, and then bent over, put my hands on my knees, grabbed some wine, and started shoveling in the doughnuts.  I had deprived myself of so many indulgences to get where I was (this is the part of the race where you push through the pain and discomfort), that the moment I removed the barriers, I lost all sense of control.  I gained more weight than I ever had before.  And when I got to the point where I said “enough is enough”, I jumped on my ‘eat clean, train hard’ routine but NOTHING HAPPENED!  I was eating cleanly, lifting weights and running, but definitely didn’t look like it. I was stuck at my heaviest weight.  What to do…

STOP everything!  My poor body needed a break.  Over the years, I had taken it through countless ups and downs, many stressful race training plans, and too many diet plans.  My thyroid tried its hardest to be there for me despite my torturing it, but I was relentless and so it finally threw in the towel and got really lazy.  Thanks to some wonderful integrative health physicians, I figured that part out.  A couple pills throughout the day in perpetuity are the toll for the years of disservice I’ve done to my body in my quest for “better”.  Let the fact that you can destroy the beautiful system that God so eloquently designed by treating your body with deprivation and discipline be an encourager to stop acting insanely and find balance in your journey RIGHT NOW!

Since then, I have been on what I refer to as my journey.  There is no “end goal”, no finish line.  It is my experience and my process of learning myself.  Somewhere along the way (after 2011) God taught me to love WHO I am regardless of what I look like.  He revealed to me that my identity is not in the image I see in the mirror or pictures, but rather His love that I reflect onto myself and others.  The satisfaction that comes from that is deeper than any finish line or goal we can dream up.  Even though we all know that and were taught that at an early age in church, it is something different to actually walk it out. With this mentality, I have slowly and methodically gotten to within five pounds of my competition weight.  I didn’t fret over it and it has taken at least two years to do, but I have not even once felt deprived, trapped, or impatient along the way.  I am simply on the journey to the healthiest me I can be.

I have a very supportive husband that helps me to be cognizant of maintaining balance.  Practically speaking, from a nutrition standpoint, we eat very cleanly with one cheat meal (sometimes two) on Saturday.  And we monitor HEC (hunger, energy, cravings) to keep up with any changes we should make to our eating.  We don’t ever go hungry, and we don’t ever feel deprived.  When we go on vacation, we allow ourselves to try new foods or have items we don’t normally incorporate into our lifestyle – like coffee creamer (don’t laugh, I like my black coffee perfectly well, but do enjoy the flavors of full on creamer sometimes).  Admittedly, I’m still learning how to do the vacation thing but have made more progress than I ever would have thought possible! From an exercise standpoint, I no longer “kill it” in the gym every time I go. (SN: I still know how to kill it and very much enjoy that now and again!)  In fact, with my third knee surgery just six weeks ago, I’ve had a break from running for almost this entire year. (another SN: my last marathon was October 2014 and I still maintained this balanced lifestyle throughout training – it can be done).  Listen ladies (and gents), you can still shape up WITHOUT doing cardio!  I thought I’d never survive without regular running and sprints (I am a runner after all!), but not only am I surviving, I’m thriving.  And I’m happy.

What I have learned from my own journey is this:

Don’t rush it. Just BE in it.  The faster you try to shed it, the more unhappy you will be. (WHY are you rushing it anyway??)
Be nice to your body. It’s okay to not be dripping sweat every time you finish a workout. You don’t need that extra stress every day and especially not multiple times a day.  If you have absolutely zero demands on you and no stress in your life, only THEN would I advise two workouts a day.  Just don’t.
Live with it. If you can’t imagine yourself living the way you are now for as long as you are alive, then change things.  Get to a process that you can live with.  Otherwise, your willpower will fail you and your body will too.
My theme: BALANCE. This really is what makes it sustainable.  Find yours and stay there.  Adjust your workout plan based on other stressors in your life.  For example: Did you get enough sleep last night?  No?  Then don’t do your 20 minute HIIT training today.    Too many of those types of bad choices will wreak havoc on even the most well-oiled machine. Not allowing yourself that workout will encourage you to turn in earlier the next night so that you CAN do that workout safely the next day.  Take care of yourself.