The morning rush flooded the gym. Shallow Pop tunes babbled through the ceiling speakers. Standing with my feet together inside a metallic gray Torque power rack, an eighty-five pound barbell rested atop my upper traps. My left foot stepped back. I slowly collapsed my left knee to a count of three. I felt the muscles and tendons elongate along the descent. A slight tap of my left patella on a black rubber mat cued me to drive up forcefully. I stood up. Left foot next to right. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Faded black Viouri hat. Black dri-fit t-shirt. Gray knit shorts. White Saucony Kirvana’s.
I was only one repetition into my first set of three, but I did not believe I could continue. It was not the load on the bar which was too much to bear, but the load of intrusive thoughts in my mind.
Beginning in high school, I became fanatical about working out. Its purpose, I told myself, was to aid in my development as a basketball player. I lifted weights, ran miles, and performed innumerable agility exercises. However, what became interwoven with the drive to excel on the basketball court was a desire to have an impeccable physique. By the time I graduated high school, the incessant need to always be in peak physical shape and look like Captain America dominated my way of life.
During college, I spent more time in the weight room than at frat parties or in bars. At one point, I took a cycle of prohormones—synthetic precursors to hormones, chemicals converted through an enzymatic process to anabolic hormones in the body—to transform my slim 165-170 pound frame into a 190-195 pound brick.
Interwoven with this fanatical workout approach was an obsession with what I put into my body and when. I did not drink alcohol, even on my 21st birthday. Desserts were not to be delighted in, regardless of the occasion. If missing a meal was a possibility, then I made sure to bring my own nutrients, just in case. I believed skipping a meal would render my body frail. I snuck food into movie theaters on numerous occasions; not candy or salty snacks most people hid in their purse or pockets, but scrambled eggs in tupperware, mixed nuts with an apple, or Chipotle bowls. Once I stuffed two to-go bowls down my shorts only for the tomatillo-green chili salsa to leak and douse my underwear. Despite smelling like salsa, I remained to watch the movies and eat my burrito bowls in the dark.
My habit of sneaking food followed me from school to work. I would excuse myself and say I had to visit the bathroom. Making a detour to the fridge to pocket peanut butter and an apple or a protein bar, I’d scarf down the snacks in a half-bathroom. When I tossed the trash into the garbage bin, I made sure to cover it in toilet paper to hide my tracks as if I was burying a dead body as opposed to an apple core or Quest bar.
Regardless of my work schedule, my workouts were mandatory. If this meant a 5 a.m. weight workout or a 2 p.m. outdoor sprint workout during the Texas summer, so be it. Plans with friends and family had to fit around my workouts. If they could not, then I said I couldn’t attend, crafting an excuse or giving none. No matter the request, there would be no missed workouts.
In spite of my calculated attempts to maintain an impeccable workout and eating schedule, the demands of adulthood eventually interfered. When this occurred, I believed all the gains in strength and fitness earned vanished overnight. My ideal body image—lean, muscular, and vascular—disappeared instantly. I spent days languishing in the damage of a failed workout plan, a fattening frame. Everytime I would visit the bathroom, I lifted my shirt to peer at my midsection, my failure. I would pinch my stomach incessantly throughout the day to assess the damage. In this enveloping fear and self-loathing, I began restricting calories. The only antidote to this obsession was a return to the gym, but it had to be a new routine, a more rigorous one, without a day missed. A regimen would then be commenced and adhered to for weeks or months at a time until I was forced to skip a session. Then, the cycle commenced once more.
I spent the bulk of my early twenties in this ceaseless circuit. One day I would deadlift over 400 pounds or run a sub-six minute mile. The next day, week, or month I would be sobbing up against a wall because I was unable to workout.
The bachelor party of a high school friend—and roommate at the time—to New Orleans in March of 2016 showcased what my fanaticism had cost me though. I decided on that trip to partake in what I had deemed forbidden for years.
Upon returning to Houston, I chose to continue the pursuit of these pleasures. I joined my buddies for Saturday nights at the bars out on Main Street or in Midtown. We drank like anyone else would drink, then crushed Whataburger at 2 a.m. I began to date. I ate with friends and first dates food which had not crossed my lips in years: hamburgers, fried chicken, pasta, and ice cream. Although it appeared as if I was no longer regimented to the nth degree to both diet and exercise to those around me, I still was. Following the weekend’s escapades, I would spend days exercising excessively—perhaps two hours a day— and eating as clean as possible. I was attempting to offset what occurred over the weekend. To redeem myself one squat, one sprint, one salad at a time.
In spite of this dissonance, one of those dates I went on grew to a significant relationship. We moved in together. Yet, in spite of living under the same roof, we each ate different food during the week. If she wanted a cheese plate for dinner, I still had my pound of protein and piles of roasted vegetables. She never pushed me to alter the way I ate—if she had—I would have struggled to comply. Only by remaining faithful to my safe foods during the week would I allow myself to indulge on our dates, typically in huge portions, as I felt the necessity to make up for lost time.
All of this—the exercise obsession, nutritional regimen, and body dysmorphia—all came
to an inflection point in my late twenties.
One day, my professional and personal life both had to be rebuilt due to burnout from the former and a heart wrenching break-up and mental health collapse in the latter. Only in the time I spent wiping counters and mopping floors behind a coffee bar and eating alone nightly did I begin to question the worth of prioritizing precise exercise and flawless nutrition over everything else in life.
During this rebuild, I experienced a new circuit. One between my old self—the exercise fanatic and body image obsessed—and the new self I was discovering—the burgeoning cook, baker, and writer. These hobbies fulfilled me in a way exercise and a six-pack or 300 pound front squat never did.
My newself would flourish for a time. However, intrusive thoughts would invade, telling me an unfit physique made me unattractive, incapable of being loved. I found myself returning to the gym like a drug addict. After a few weeks of strenuous exercise and immaculate nutrition, the intrusive thoughts would subside. Eventually I found it burdensome to visit the gym everyday. I found respite in my non gym life. I craved time with my new hobbies, the ones I found so gratifying. I started leaving in the middle of a workout, sleeping past my alarm, and skipping it altogether. I spent my newfound hours in the kitchen or at my writing desk for weeks at a time. Eventually though, I’d fall victim to the intrusive thoughts of my old self once more.
I not only completed the set of reverse lunges inside the Torque power rack that morning, but the entirety of the workout. A week later though, I racked an angled leg press in the middle of a set and sat there for minutes, staring at black rubber. I knew another abandoned workout—and routine—was about to occur. I did not desire to be at the gym.
A few weeks on followed by a few weeks off. This is the interval workout I have performed for years now. A workout I am unsure I’ll ever be able to finish.
***
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