Why I’ve Quit the Gym.

I’ve had the rather bizarre but also, as it turns out, quite incredible experience of taking a holiday from my life recently. Not in the conventional sense where you pack up a case, head somewhere different and put your life on pause, but a holiday from my life within my life. Let me explain…

A few weeks ago, I had gum graft surgery (more to come on that) and for the two weeks immediately following the op I had two unbreachable rules; I wasn’t to exercise and I could only eat soft foods.

Before the procedure I was actually less concerned about the pain of having part of my soft palate removed and sewn to my lower jaw and more occupied with how I’d manage without my regular strength training sessions and how I’d hit my protein goals if I was on a liquid diet of meal replacement shakes.

As someone who has struggled, since childhood, with body image issues, managing their weight and disordered eating, exercising and being specific about how I eat are two of my non-negotables. Especially now when, as a woman in her 40s, the advice everywhere is to lift heavy and eat a lot of protein, or risk crumbling into a pile of dust and bone.

I strength train regularly (at the time of the surgery I was seven months into a programme of heavy lifting) and my diet is one where I focus on volume eating (great for someone who defaults to over-eating) and hitting protein and fibre goals daily.

So, for those two things to be on pause, felt incredibly strange. I honestly thought it’d be like that scene from Trainspotting where Renton goes cold turkey from heroin and I’d be taunted by hallucinations of rotisserie chickens dancing across the ceiling, bowls of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in my peripheral vision and dreams of Wingstop and pints of Ranch dressing.

When my periodontist, Dr Reena Wadia, told me I’d need to take a break from exercise, I think I said something like, ‘Well, I suppose I could factor in a de-load week.’ but even that made me nervous. Seven months of heavy lifting had been hard and I didn’t want to completely undo it but, as I explained here, I hadn’t felt great about the progress I’d made hitting the gym as hard as I had.

Post-surgery, I didn’t want to exercise. I treated that gum graft like a Tamagotchi - I needed it to take, and if that meant not talking, not chewing and not exercising then fine by me.

And this is where it gets interesting. After four days of gentle strolls, protein shakes, bone broths and soups, I started to feel my body change. The volume on the persistent pain in my hip went down considerably, the constant solid feeling of heaviness in my legs started to drain away and my bloated stomach felt as though it was deflating. Despite not eating as normal, I was still at pains to get an appropriate amount of calories in, not least so my body had enough energy to heal itself, but the physical shift was undeniable.

Only a few weeks earlier, I’d been chatting to my friend and coach Emma Storey-Gordon at one of our training sessions, saying how I was committed to the heavy lifting but I didn’t feel as confident in my body as I did before I trained that way. I’d said how my weight had gone up by seven pounds and that, even though I didn’t love it, I would accept it if the result was a stronger, more metabolically efficient body.

As the days passed on this recovery though, my body felt as though it was returning to ‘normal’ not regressing. I started to look into what overdoing strength training could look and feel like.

Heavy limbs. Check.

Lingering aches. Check.

Poor sleep. Check.

Low mood. Check.

Bloated feeling. Check.