Last fall, I got back into weightlifting. Since then, my exercise regime has become pretty consistent. So much so that I now plan my weeks around my exercise routine. Tuesday evenings are for yoga, Sunday mornings are for spin class, and four other days of the week are reserved for my weightlifting split: glutes and hamstrings, back and biceps, chest and triceps, and quads and calves. But, although my fitness has massively improved since I started this journey, I can’t help but sometimes get frustrated with the limitations my body has placed on me.
When I got back into weightlifting, so did my roommate and her friend. When we went to the gym together, we all used the same weights for most exercises. I felt like, for the most part, I was keeping up with them. Now? Not so much. While they keep progressing and moving up to heavier weights, I feel like I’m being left behind.
My first thought was: is it my diet? I’ve come to the conclusion that my diet has likely contributed to my plateau, but maybe not in the way you’d expect. It’s not that I eat poorly. I meal prep most of my meals, and I rarely eat fast food or dessert. I stopped buying my one cup of daily coffee at cafes and started making it at home. I focus heavily on consuming lots of protein, by eating scrambled eggs, drinking high-protein milk and using it in my cooking, and eating some form of protein (mostly salmon, chicken, or beef) every day. To manage my ulcerative colitis, I also follow a low-FODMAP, lactose-free, and gluten-limited diet. The only things I feel my diet lacks are in fibre intake, diversity of foods, and protein supplementation. However, these dietary weaknesses are largely not by choice.
My ulcerative colitis places limitations on what I can eat. Due to my ulcerative colitis, fibre has never sat well with me. While some people with inflammatory bowel disease (i.e., Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis*) find certain types of fibre (like soluble fibres) beneficial, fibre has always caused me indigestion. Additionally, like many other people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), any food I have not previously identified as a “safe food” has the potential to knock me out of remission and back into active disease or worsen my symptoms when I have active disease. “Safe foods” vary from person to person, so while guides like the low-FODMAP diet can help identify foods that are often safe for people with IBD, the only real way to determine safe foods is through trial and error. Since deviating from my regular diet and trying new foods carries significant risks, I tend to stick with foods I know I can eat. Furthermore, I have yet to find a protein powder that doesn’t make me sick, so my protein intake is smaller than it could be. Every protein powder I’ve tried thus far has caused me bloating and stomach upset.
Aside from my restricted diet, fatigue is another factor I think has dampened my progress in the gym. And I don’t mean the fatigue you feel when you don’t get enough sleep. I mean the kind of fatigue that can result from chronic illness. From your body attacking itself and then having to repair the damage it made. From being on medication that blocks your immune system. From nutritional deficiencies caused by your body being physically incapable of absorbing the nutrients it needs. From having to get up multiple times in the night to use the bathroom. From extreme blood loss and being anemic. From your body being systemically inflamed. From the mental toll that having a chronic and culturally taboo illness takes on you.
This fatigue influences many aspects of my life but especially impacts my physical capabilities. Before my illness, when I used to fail a repetition while weightlifting, I knew it was because my muscles were too sore and tired to complete the movement. But now, it’s often because my body can’t afford to spare any more energy for a task that isn’t paramount to my survival. This lack of energy prevents me from reaching actual muscle failure during repetitions, which, as most gym rats would tell you, is critical for maximizing muscle gains.
Sometimes, I can’t help but mourn what my body could do before my immune system went rogue and started attacking my large intestine. However, I remind myself to be grateful for what it can still do. At my sickest, lifting weights wasn’t even in the question. I was lucky if I got out of bed for more than an hour. I am in awe of how far I’ve come when I remember that. With this progress in mind, I look forward to tomorrow through the lens of who I could become. So, I keep showing up for myself, loving myself, and giving my body extra care and attention. Because that’s what the me of tomorrow needs, and like Billie Eilish said, “I’m in love with my future. [I] can’t wait to meet her.”
Please feel free to share any ways you’ve found to balance your fitness and fatigue below. I’m always looking to learn from others!
*There are other types of IBD as well.
Song Lyrics: My Future by Billie Eilish