CW: this post contains detailed accounts of dieting and eating disorders.
Should I be surprised that it’s hard to find shorts with built-in crotch pads for under $100? I haven’t bought any athletic gear in years, aside from running shoes which I also wear to work because I can’t justify shoes for just one activity.
But I need the crotch pad. I’m doing the Chicago Triathlon in 2 days and everyone on the internet says I need the “tri shorts with the crotch pad” and they better be quick drying. But do I need them, really?
I signed up exactly two months before the race. I found an eight-week beginner training plan and figured I could more or less stick to it. I’m doing the “sprint”, which is a .5 mile swim in Lake Michigan, followed by a 15 mile bike ride on Lake Shore Drive, and topped off with a 5k run around the Shedd aquarium.
The further I dive into reddit, the more underprepared I suddenly become. I don’t know the race etiquette, I don’t have fancy equipment (what’s a race belt??), or a wet suit. So what motivated me, a budgeting goddess,to hand over 225 us dollars to participate in dislocating myhip and chafing myself raw? I guess why anyone does anything unnecessary and hard: a desire to overcome a challenge, maybe even sacrifice something in the process. To drink from some inner well of discipline.
Discipline is uneven ground for me. I love some self-generated momentum, but it tends to have an aggressive and forceful flavor.
Swimming will be the hardest part.
Over a decade ago, I nannied for a family of four kids of two wealthy, hot, athletic parents. The mom had done several iron mans, and triathlons galore - she won a major golf tournament while 7 months pregnant (8 months sounded too insane, but I actually think she was 8 months). I took it for granted at age 20 that I would eventually do “stuff” like that myself.
That same summer I had started my own course in discipline, forcing myself to eat less than 1100 calories a day - just enough to stay awake for a 12 hour work day and still run a 5k every night. My body offered every signal of protest against this. But I stuck with it — it being a constant gnawing pain of my tissues squeezing out every last calorie — because that was less painful than a gnawing, oh I don’t know, metaphorical emptiness.
Restricting and obsessing over food gave me focus, purpose, escape. I didn’t have to worry so much about life becoming a pile of bills, the confusion about my desire and fear of sex, a persistent hunch that I was inherently bad… I could get skinny!
I wonder sometimes how it got so bad so fast.What started as a few more exercise classes at the campusgym and a few less snacks throughout the day became screaming at my dad for putting too much olive oil on the grilled mushrooms. It took only months.
Biking will be the hardest part.
One more mile and you can have a sandwich with two pieces of bread. One of many lies I told myself back then. I’d run the extra mile and have plain non-fat yogurt.
Of course, I would never have used the word anorexic, or eating disorder todescribe these rituals of depriving, isolating, and teasing myself or throwing away food before I could finish it. I still have a hard time naming it as such. Those words were for those really sick girls. Girls on 60 Minutes specials, with IVs and hospital gowns. Girls with parents desperate for them to eat. The person I remember expressing concern was a woman I didn't know very well. She pulled me aside at the kids’ swim practice and said she was worried about my weight loss that summer. I laughed. Bitch, ever heard of discipline?
I eagerly offered my body up to everyone else's impression of it in those days - there was no shortage of comments, mostly approval of my shrinking mass. But I even welcomed the shameful comments, like the doctor who, not looking up from her computer screen, declared “I know you’re not doing something stupid like starving yourself”.
Ahh stupid. That’s what this is. That’s what I am.
Running will be the hardest part.
Anorexia Nervosa. It sounds like an extinct plant species or a harry potter spell that makes your tongue numb. In my case, it was size 10 courier font on a diagnosis line of an insurance form, years after the worst of it. A few more years in and out of therapy and my own messy efforts to reprogram my brain later, I started allowing myself food without earning it first.
In the process, I developed a severe mistrust of exercise and anyone who did it or promoted it. To me, it was an obvious trap. I looked back on that first college kickboxing class, taught by Pinky, as the gateway drug to avoiding eating around other people. The square root of wasted years = getting healthy.
This was never about health. But everyone had to believe it was. The only way to inflict that kind of harm on my own body was in the name of wellness and betterment. You wouldn’t look at me and see a hemoglobin count of 7.5, or the clumps of hair that fell out in my fingers, or my average of four hours of sleep. Some of those sleepless nights, my teeth chattering in July, I’d get scared that I was doing something dangerous, and I’d reassure myself, if they bring you to the hospital, then you’ll stop.
On an academic level, you could trace this co-opted wellness mentality I adopted to some truly awful dehumanizing, fat phobic, anti-poor, racist white supremacy sh*t. On a personal level, you could trace it to undigested quinoa in my actual sh*t. And the raw broccoli stuck in my teeth as I smugly watched theundisciplinedaround me eat unnecessary calories via condiments.
I would not go back to that.
It feels meaningful now to do a triathlon simply because I might be strong enough. Because my brain enjoys swimming until thoughts become still. Because my goal is no longer visible hip bones, or fitting my whole thigh within one leather panel of the driver's seat. Perfection to me now would be good snacks in the athlete merch bag and a hazy IPA in the sun after the finish.
It’s meaningful for me to tell you about my body. That I have pretty big boobs that don’t look that big because I have a big rib cage. That you can map out most of the constellations between the moles on my body. That I have my mom’s shoulders and back, Grandad’s legs and leg hair growth pattern, a big toe gap like my dad, upper arms that I was always going to fix, but in my last conversation with her before she died, Aunt Maudy said looked “fine and healthy”.
I'm very nervous for Sunday. I’m afraid of causing an accident and hurting someone or cramping up in the water and inconveniencing the rescue workers. I’m scared because I will have no control. I will be just one of thousands of bodies.
This one is fed, fine and healthy - maybe the hardest part is over.
Here is some of the excellent work I’ve come across on this topic - by smart, honest people I admire. Especially helpful for wading through the murk of wellness noise.
Maintenance Phase - (podcast)Aubrey Gordon (the BMI and Ozempic eps are great)
The Body is Not an Apology - Sonya Rene Taylor
Hunger - Roxane Gay
Heavy - Kiese Laymon
Burnt Toast - (substack) by Virginia Sole Smith
I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jeanette McCurdy
Anything by Che Che Luna
Any recommendations?
We'll Laugh About This is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
