I hope this is okay as a standalone post, I've never made one about my own experience - but if it's not, sorry, please take it down!
Progress pictures:
June '23 (top) vs Oct '22 (bottom)
July '23 (left) vs Aug '22 (right) https://imgur.com/a/LhhaAmQ
Current stats: 23F, 158cm/5'2, 45kg/100lbs
TW: disordered eating
My history with fitness + AS diagnosis:
I used to do sports in school, and loved running as a hobby - being agile and having good "lungs" were athletic strengths I was proud of. After graduating high school, I maintained my cardio fitness with running and was happy with that, until I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) at 18.
Won't bore you too much (the Internet explains it 100x better)... but it's a chronic condition, autoinflammatory arthritis, body attacks itself (joints) basically for fun. I get flares mainly in my back, that on occasion have made me physically unable to get out of bed. Running (pounding my body into the pavement) has shown to trigger flares for me. My favorite activity, gone. Slowly lost all my fitness, and spiralled mentally.
I've dealt with some extent of disordered eating since I was a young teen, but fitness felt like the one thing that helped me to push back against those thoughts in a way that I actually believed in. You know how people say to focus on what your body can do, rather than what it looks like? I found a lot of meaning in that. Until I started feeling like my body COULDN'T do much. Suddenly, all the things I took for granted (running, being active in general, being pain-free) were luxuries or simply out of reach. It felt like my body was defective, almost.
Still, a year after my diagnosis, I found a treatment (that I'm still on) that put me into a solid remission for a few months, which let me play sports in college, yay! Until I completely tore an ACL and had to have surgery and a long recovery lol, nevermind.
2021 - mid 2022
During another period of remission, I started running, followed a Caroline Girvan program, got my first pull up and got up to 5 reps. Until flares and life started getting in the way, and I threw it all away again (a recurring pattern). Steadily lost weight, and at the end of 1.5 years I was in a bad place. I don't know why a switch flipped exactly then, but I started to think a lot about the cycle I was in - of feeling helpless in my body. And increasingly wanted to gtfo of that cycle.
July '22 - present
I got a gym membership for the first time in July '22, with a new crazy resolution to gain weight and gain fitness. Started lifting very cautiously, especially at first, because my doctor had been advising me against weightlifting for years (I don't recommend going against doctors' advice... I updated her regularly and she gave me the go-ahead).
Managing my chronic condition: MAGIC - my symptoms generally got MUCH better rather than worse, with minimal flares, after I started lifting. Ok not magic, possibly due in part to the strengthening of surrounding muscles. And I train with caution, especially with lower body work that puts heavy loads on my spine (back squats, deadlifts). I overload much more slowly on those, and am extra careful with form. My training in general is slightly skewed towards upper body, and if I feel the inkling of a flare coming on, I lay off further on lower body. This has resulted in me being top-heavy in terms of muscle mass lol, but I really don't mind (and I'm working on it, slowly).
Nutrition: I didn't track calories, only occasionally guesstimating a day's total intake to "calibrate" in case I wasn't eating enough, and monitoring weight trends over time. Since my goal was to gain weight and muscle, I was consciously eating more and trying to include more protein sources (within a plant-based diet since I'm vegan). Beyond that I tried not to restrict "food types" - if I was craving something, I ate it.
1 year of training: Spent the first 1-2 months just flopping around in the gym, because I had BAD gym anxiety. Felt out of place, like I didn't belong there (especially with it being such a testosterone-dominated space). Literally gave myself an "orientation period" where I'd research online how to do certain exercises or use certain machines, and then push myself to try any 2 new things every time I went to the gym. The first time I dared to lift a barbell (squatting the empty bar) was almost 2 months after I joined the gym. But following that, I've tried a few programs: Jeremy Ethier's push pull legs, Jeff Nippard's Fundamentals Hypertrophy, GZCL. It's hard for me to compare them directly because newbie gains were raging in the beginning before tapering off, but I enjoyed GZCL and its flexibility, especially given my considerations with going ham on lower body. On average I've been training 3-4x a week, barring injuries/sickness/travelling. I did explore some gyms while on a long holiday, which was lots of fun.
A brief summary of progress!!!
I feel very self-absorbed typing all this out, it's a whole autobiography. But I'm proud of what I've done this past year and wanted to share it somewhere. It might not be anything crazy for a whole year of training, but past me would NOT have believed that I'd be lifting regularly, actually enjoying it, and not being in a lot of self-inflicted pain.
Progress pictures:
June '23 (top) vs Oct '22 (bottom)
July '23 (left) vs Aug '22 (right) https://imgur.com/a/LhhaAmQ
Current stats: 23F, 158cm/5'2, 45kg/100lbs
TW: disordered eating
My history with fitness + AS diagnosis:
I used to do sports in school, and loved running as a hobby - being agile and having good "lungs" were athletic strengths I was proud of. After graduating high school, I maintained my cardio fitness with running and was happy with that, until I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) at 18.
Won't bore you too much (the Internet explains it 100x better)... but it's a chronic condition, autoinflammatory arthritis, body attacks itself (joints) basically for fun. I get flares mainly in my back, that on occasion have made me physically unable to get out of bed. Running (pounding my body into the pavement) has shown to trigger flares for me. My favorite activity, gone. Slowly lost all my fitness, and spiralled mentally.
I've dealt with some extent of disordered eating since I was a young teen, but fitness felt like the one thing that helped me to push back against those thoughts in a way that I actually believed in. You know how people say to focus on what your body can do, rather than what it looks like? I found a lot of meaning in that. Until I started feeling like my body COULDN'T do much. Suddenly, all the things I took for granted (running, being active in general, being pain-free) were luxuries or simply out of reach. It felt like my body was defective, almost.
Still, a year after my diagnosis, I found a treatment (that I'm still on) that put me into a solid remission for a few months, which let me play sports in college, yay! Until I completely tore an ACL and had to have surgery and a long recovery lol, nevermind.
2021 - mid 2022
During another period of remission, I started running, followed a Caroline Girvan program, got my first pull up and got up to 5 reps. Until flares and life started getting in the way, and I threw it all away again (a recurring pattern). Steadily lost weight, and at the end of 1.5 years I was in a bad place. I don't know why a switch flipped exactly then, but I started to think a lot about the cycle I was in - of feeling helpless in my body. And increasingly wanted to gtfo of that cycle.
July '22 - present
I got a gym membership for the first time in July '22, with a new crazy resolution to gain weight and gain fitness. Started lifting very cautiously, especially at first, because my doctor had been advising me against weightlifting for years (I don't recommend going against doctors' advice... I updated her regularly and she gave me the go-ahead).
Managing my chronic condition: MAGIC - my symptoms generally got MUCH better rather than worse, with minimal flares, after I started lifting. Ok not magic, possibly due in part to the strengthening of surrounding muscles. And I train with caution, especially with lower body work that puts heavy loads on my spine (back squats, deadlifts). I overload much more slowly on those, and am extra careful with form. My training in general is slightly skewed towards upper body, and if I feel the inkling of a flare coming on, I lay off further on lower body. This has resulted in me being top-heavy in terms of muscle mass lol, but I really don't mind (and I'm working on it, slowly).
Nutrition: I didn't track calories, only occasionally guesstimating a day's total intake to "calibrate" in case I wasn't eating enough, and monitoring weight trends over time. Since my goal was to gain weight and muscle, I was consciously eating more and trying to include more protein sources (within a plant-based diet since I'm vegan). Beyond that I tried not to restrict "food types" - if I was craving something, I ate it.
1 year of training: Spent the first 1-2 months just flopping around in the gym, because I had BAD gym anxiety. Felt out of place, like I didn't belong there (especially with it being such a testosterone-dominated space). Literally gave myself an "orientation period" where I'd research online how to do certain exercises or use certain machines, and then push myself to try any 2 new things every time I went to the gym. The first time I dared to lift a barbell (squatting the empty bar) was almost 2 months after I joined the gym. But following that, I've tried a few programs: Jeremy Ethier's push pull legs, Jeff Nippard's Fundamentals Hypertrophy, GZCL. It's hard for me to compare them directly because newbie gains were raging in the beginning before tapering off, but I enjoyed GZCL and its flexibility, especially given my considerations with going ham on lower body. On average I've been training 3-4x a week, barring injuries/sickness/travelling. I did explore some gyms while on a long holiday, which was lots of fun.
A brief summary of progress!!!
- Learning to manage my chronic condition without just throwing fitness out the window with the all-or-nothing mindset I used to have. I'm SO thankful that I get to be active (while still on treatment of course).
- No longer an anxious mess at the gym - being there clears my mind now
- No longer hung up on "regaining" lost fitness when it doesn't serve me (running, which is more likely to cause flares), but improving myself in other new ways that my body takes to better (lifting). And I run once in a while!
- 0 pullups --> 11 pullups (more than double my old max in 2021!)
- 0 pushups --> 20 pushups
- Couldn't bench the bar for the first few months --> 32.5kg for reps
- Could barely squat the bar --> 52.5kg for reps
- Didn't dare to deadlift --> 55kg for reps
- Weight gain - looking to gain more!!
I feel very self-absorbed typing all this out, it's a whole autobiography. But I'm proud of what I've done this past year and wanted to share it somewhere. It might not be anything crazy for a whole year of training, but past me would NOT have believed that I'd be lifting regularly, actually enjoying it, and not being in a lot of self-inflicted pain.
