FREE

It is the most feared and sought after of things--freedom. Those who have it long for ties and those who live without it's embrace sacrifice to touch it. Though it is intangible, it is well felt. The weight of it can be both heavy and light as air. Freedom. I have just recently found this thing, for all my searching. It is an elusive beast. Freedom, though, is not the same for any two people. For me, this freedom was from myself.

I competed in fitness for some years. This lifestyle is rigid and exact; it is a world of planning and managing the spontaneous, by scheduling it. Though I never saw my proficiency here, I became a master dieter. For literally years, I lived on 1500 calories a day. I trained anywhere from 4-7 days a week, usually for at least an hour. My goal was to bring my 5'9 frame to around 130lbs. Yes, really, 130lbs (just so you know, Heidi Klum weighs 137lbs…Tyra Banks: 141). For a while I sat around 15 per cent body fat and life was good, until it became harder. My body got to a place where my now 1500 calorie "cutting" diet was required to maintain weight. I also struggled independently with carb intolerance and fat intolerance, as my digestion was so poor I wasn't able to use any of the good stuff I was eating. I began taking stomach acid (betaine hcl) to aid this. It was a solution, but not for the long term.

In 2013, I found some amazing people. Lori Mork of Team Energy, and Layne Norton. I would sit and watch Layne's podcasts for hours on end. He talked about fixing the metabolism through reverse dieting, and getting back to a healthy state which was sustainable and flexible. Imagine, life like back in the day before you knew what a macro was when you ate peanut butter on toast and a glass of milk and looked like Adonis. Wouldn't it be nice to have that metabolism back? Lori put this into motion for me with her diet advice. The first month I worked with her was a "building" or "bulking" phase. I was terrified about bulking in the summer, but I trusted it. The first training plan I received from her was via email. Under the "diet" section was "eat food!". No, 4 ounces of boiled chicken and 5 asparagus spears…just work hard and eat stuff. Seems simple enough. Admittedly though, it wasn't.

I still tracked my meals online and obsessed over the amount of carbs I was eating. My life was hectic between work, training, and lacrosse and it took me to a breaking point where I just couldn't anymore. I fell back into old habits of overworking and under-eating, hoping that the old methodologies that had worked in the past would magically start to work again, despite the utter exhaustion of every cell of my being. It was a cycle, until a little over a week ago.

I have prescribed to a Paleo diet for 4-5 years now. As the time has passed, I have wavered between various styles of this plan: primal (dairy allowed), perfect health (rice allowed), keto (very low-carb), and "bacon". Along with this ideology of eating, I generally abstain from alcohol etc. Mainly because I dislike hangovers and vomit, and also because it's a lot of empty calories and it's not good for testosterone levels, immunity, life in general. Not to worry, though, I can sober-dance like a champ. While this diet is ideal (seriously, read some books), it can become restrictive and "cult" like. Not that paleo dieters are a cult, but when you're constantly worrying about if you "can" eat something on a restaurant menu, it seems a bit elitist.

So, last week I decided to set myself free. I unfollowed nearly all fitness oriented Instagram accounts, unless I sincerely liked the message that person or company conveyed. I stopped tracking my meals and macros (including IIFYM), and worrying about macros. I let my body decide what it wanted to eat. Last weekend, I ate risotto, and guess what, fucking delicious. Am I planning to rice it up every day from here on in? No. I also drank wine, three times! That is more wine than I ingested in the whole of 2013. I did a bike ride last June during which I bought 5 bottles of wine. I gave away 2 bottles, and still had two, just sitting in my house. What the hell?! Finally, I eased up on my training. I started spending 30-45 mins MAX in the gym. I stopped doing cardio and started living outside with my boyfriend and dogs. Disc golf, tough mudder, random adventuring? Sure, count me in!

What have the results of this freedom been? Nothing but fantastic. I feel great. My digestion has improved immensely (probably because I'm not so stressed out all the time), my body is responding WAY better to the training, I sleep soundly, I am super strong (for real…try me), and my native skin is back to its bronze glory. Not to mention, I had a mega fun week with friends and family which didn't have to fit in amongst my training schedule and meal timing. To top it off, I went a week without checking my emails or watching TV, and guess what? It was the best week I have had all year.

So, I give this gift to you, fellow fitness enthusiasts and athletes: when a healthy lifestyle becomes a burden on your life, it is no longer healthy. I'm not saying "fuck it, let's all go to Dairy Queen, cause it's easier than doing squats and eating chicken," I'm saying, if you don't live a balanced life, it's not a life worth living. Don't sacrifice happiness for aesthetics, because in the end, being unhappy will only hinder you.

Word.