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Jun 15

I Had to Gain 15 Pounds to Get My Period Backand It’s Not as Fun as It Sounds – Glamour

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If you had told me a year ago thaton purposeI'd gain 15 pounds in two months, I wouldn't have believed you. But that's exactly what I did.

A year ago, I was a professional runner who had just competed in the World Half Marathon Championships for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In December 2016, I ran a 2:36 marathon, and from the outside, it looked like even more success was coming. I was constantly improving, and my body was at the peak of physical perfection.

Or so it seemed, anyway.

Despite my athletic achievements, I couldn't see what others saw when I looked at my body. I knew I was lean, but I still felt like I was bigger than the other professional runners I was racing against. I also was hiding a secret that not only made me feel like a fraud when I claimed to be honest and real: I hadnt had a period in nine years. For someone who was meant to be a picture of health, why was I broken? Why was my body not working correctly, and not giving me the opportunity to reproduce? I wasn't exactly ready to try for a family, but it wasnt far off. How was I ever going to do that if I couldnt ovulate?

So about three months ago, I decided I was going to do the one thing doctors had always told me I should to get my cycles to return: stop running.

But there was more. I didn't just need to stop running, I needed to let go of my extreme training regimen to focus on rest and recovery. I also needed to gain weight, to bring my BMI of 19 up to at least a 22. That was how I was going to get my cycle back.

Quitting running was actually the easiest part of the three. I was surprised how quickly I settled into a life without 90 miles a week. I enjoyed straightening my hair, wearing dresses, and actually taking time to get ready in the morning. Before, it had seemed pointless to do those things when I was going to run again in just a few hours.

The part I was terrified of, though, was the weight gain. I knew all the right things to say to myself: The people who love you will do so no matter what you look like; it's for the better, you're becoming healthier; it'll be worth it when you give birth to your first child. I really tried to psych myself up.

At first, it was fun. I indulged in every food I craved. Peanut butter chocolate chip banana pancakes for breakfast, giant bowls of ice cream every night. How could you not love this life?

But once the weight started actually started to come, so did the negative voices, and I had to fight hard to remind them that I was doing this for the right reasons. Interestingly, for the most part, society seemed to celebrate my body changes. As I saw a cushion developing around my body for my future child, everyone around me told me about how great I looked. How I was glowing; how I appeared healthier, happier, younger.

Looking back, I'm not sure if friends and family were using those words knowing that this would be a difficult emotional time, and were careful to select words that would suggest beauty and strength. Maybe it was that I really was too thin before, and they were happy to see me reaching a normal body weight. Or was it that I was doing the one thing that they knew society encourages women not to do, and I needed all the support I could get?

Whatever it was, it meant that the greatest negativity I experienced was my own, when I looked in the mirror.

I started to notice that weight talk happens around us all the time. I'd turn on the radio and hear commercials about losing weight quickly. I would hear multiple daily conversations between friends about ways to drop a few quick pounds. I noticed how people judged themselves based on where they were in relation to their goal weight. How nasty and cruel we are to ourselves because it's physically impossible to naturally look like the airbrushed models we see in magazines, billboards, and on social media.

It made me feel sick. Here I was, trying to make my body healthier, trying to reassure it that it was safe and doing the right thing by gaining weight and resting, yet I was surrounded by a world that only shows women trying to lose it.

As someone who had what some might consider an ideal figure, it now makes me angry. I would hear ab goals, you look so fit, or you look amazing when I would post a picture a few days before a race. All positive, supportive words, but definitely underlining the idea that looking skinny and lean is the "best" way to be attractive. When I was at my leanest, though, I still didn't feel confident; I still felt like I wasn't enough.

My body is now fully functioning againit's found its happy placeand I know I made the right choice. Initially, it wasn't easy to shut down the critical self-talk, even though almost everyone I spoke to would take the time to tell me how great I looked. I thought they were just telling me what I wanted to hear. I found writing in a journal helped to transition my thoughts. Often an entry would start insecure and fearful of what was happening, but I would almost give myself a pep talk while writing, which would leave me with a clear, confident, content outlook on what I was doing.

After my weight stabilized at the place it wanted to be, and I got used to my new body, those negative voices just seemed to fade away. Whenever someone paid me a compliment, I would make myself acknowledge it, and trust that they were saying it because they meant to.

I may be in a good place, but now my mission has been set. We need to show our daughters, sisters, and friends that body-shaming is not okay, the women on the TV do not look like that in real life, and being at a weight where your body is fully functioning is really all you can strive for.

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I Had to Gain 15 Pounds to Get My Period Backand It's Not as Fun as It Sounds - Glamour

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