Episode #52: Rhonda’s Olympic weightlifting journey
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In this solo episode, Rhonda takes you behind the scenes of her journey into the sport of Olympic weightlifting. She will touch on 3 topics that have come up for her as she has started this new sport - and how she moves through them!
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LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN EPISODE
🔹 Shanté Cofield’s Action Academy Workshop
🔹 Where Rhonda trains - Power Academy out of Gym41
🔹 Brianna Battles Pregnancy and Postpartum Athleticism Course
🔹 To Birth and Beyond Podcast with Jessie Mundell and Anita Lambert
🔹 Episode #46: 7 reasons your pelvic floor symptoms may have changed recently
🔹 Episode #39: Healing your relationship with food with Jordana Edelstein
PODCAST LINKS & RESOURCES
🔹 Check out Rhonda’s FREE Resource Library
🔹 Pelvic Health and Fitness Podcast
🔹 Book with Dayna (Rebirth Wellness)
SHOW NOTES:
(0:52) - I have officially opened the doors to my Strong at Home membership!
(3:11) - What Rhonda is talking about today!
(4:19) - Where Rhonda started (and what IS Olympic weightlifting?)
(5:54) - On finding joy outside of business - and how Rhonda did it
(9:00) - Overview of topics we will touch on today’s episode
(10:00) - Rhonda’s prolapse journey - and what she learned through it
(20:17) - On struggling with body image
(41:05) - More on finding joyful activities outside of work life
(46:30) - Episode wrap up
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Episode #52: Rhonda’s Olympic weightlifting journey
We're excited to have you join us for this episode of Pelvic Health and Fitness. I'm Dayna Morellato, Mom, Orthopedic and Pelvic Health Physiotherapist. And I'm Rhonda Chamberlain, Mom, Orthopedic Physiotherapist and Pre Postnatal Fitness Coach. On this show, we have open and honest conversations about all phases of motherhood, including fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, menopause, and everything in between.
We also provide helpful education and information on fitness, the pelvic floor, and many aspects of women's health, including physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Please remember as you listen to this podcast that this is not meant to treat or diagnose any medical conditions. Please contact your medical provider if you have specific questions or concerns.
Thanks so much for joining us. Grab a cup of coffee. Or wine. And enjoy!
Everyone and welcome back to another episode of the pelvic health and fitness podcast. Rhonda here, and I will be doing a solo episode today, sharing a little bit of behind the scenes details about my journey into the sport of Olympic weightlifting. So if you follow me on Instagram, um, or if you're on my email list, Then you might have heard a few of these little stories that I'm going to tell.
Um, but I did put a story on Instagram after my latest Olympic weightlifting competition, my first one, I should say, and asking if some of you would like a little bit more behind the scenes stories. Story about my journey and, uh, thankfully, a lot of you said yes, which I'm grateful for and so here I will be sharing today.
I'm trying to keep it pretty conversational and candid. Um, I do have some notes more or less just to keep me on track and not venture off too far off the track. Um, but I would love to share this journey with you all. So yes, I come from a CrossFit background. I've shared on the podcast before that was my sport for a long time.
I worked, uh, as a physiotherapist at a CrossFit gym for almost 10 years. I loved the sport of CrossFit for a super long time. And part of the sport of CrossFit includes what's called Olympic weightlifting. So for those of you that don't know what Olympic weightlifting is, it's basically lifting a heavy barbell from the ground to overhead and you do two different lifts.
You do what's called a snatch, so it's a wide grip on the barbell, lifting it in one smooth motion from the ground to overhead. And then the clean and jerk is a narrow grip. You pull the bar close to you, land in a squat, and then press the bar up overhead to finish. And so when, after I had my two daughters, I, for, you know, three years, didn't really do anything other than my strong at home workouts, um, just using dumbbell weight, and that's.
served me so well for those three years. I still do one strong at home workout a week. In addition to Olympic weightlifting, but I actually took a workshop from my friend Shante Cofield, the movement maestro. If those of you that are listening, know who that is. And in that workshop, she basically was.
Teaching us all how to get out of our own way to get things done, you know, in our business. And one of the things she touched on was making sure that we were finding joy outside of our work lives and outside of our business. Because finding things that you enjoy outside of that actually helps you be more productive, helps you find more inspiration, um, and just helps you to realize that, you know, there's more to life than running a business.
Something about that talk, Really shifted something in me. And so at that time, the time of that talk, um, Teagan, I believe had just turned three, Sadie would have been four turning five. And for the first time I actually sat down with my husband and I thought, you know what, I think I'm ready to kind of find something for me.
Um, cause when I really, you know, thought about it during that workshop, um, other than like my business is so enjoyable to me and, you know, doing things with my kids and my husband is so enjoyable. But I truthfully didn't have something outside of that. That was just for me. And especially for me coming from kind of like a competitive sport background.
I started to clue in that I was missing that part of, you know, finding a competitive outlet, um, something to express my athleticism. I was missing that. So after talking to my husband, I, you know, pulled up the good old Google and I Googled Olympic weightlifting and I found power Academy, which is who I train with now coach Dave Earl shout out to you.
It's been an amazing experience. The gym is gym 41 that we train out of. And right from day one, I felt so welcomed so encouraged. I'm just a really great environment that Dave creates. And he really helped me kind of ease back in. So, you know, I've talked on this podcast before about athlete brain. I was nervous that I was going to just kind of, um, rush back into heavy weights and, you know, maybe hurt myself or just maybe not love it as much as I thought I would.
But he really helped me kind of ease back in and make sure I was doing it safely. So I've been thankful for that. And yeah, honestly, from that first intro class that I did with Dave, I have been obsessed and loving it and realizing this is something that I've been missing in my life. And so that was August of 2022 that I signed up.
So if you're listening to this live, this comes out in May of 2023. So I've been at it for almost a year and around eight months into it. So just, uh, this past weekend, I decided to sign up for my very first Olympic weightlifting competition. And that has been an interesting experience, um, getting back into the competitive world again.
Um, in a sport that's brand new to me. Um, it's been so, so awesome. And, um, yeah, it was a fun weekend, which I can touch on in a little bit as well. But basically the point of this podcast is I wanted to touch on sort of three topics that. have been coming up for me as I've started this new sport. The first one that I'm going to touch on is my prolapse journey.
So I've shared on the podcast before with Dana, we've both talked about our experience with prolapse. So I'll touch on that. I'm also going to touch on a little bit, uh, about body image, um, and just dive into a little bit of like the body struggles that I've had in general and how some things have come up now in Olympic weightlifting.
And then the last thing is just finding joy as a mom. I think, you know, it's kind of a universal thing that a lot of us struggle with when we become moms that we kind of lose who we are and lose what we actually find enjoyable. when we become moms. So I want to touch on that as well. So let's start with my prolapse journey.
So yeah, again, I've shared on the podcast before. So when I was pregnant with Tegan, I dealt with prolapse symptoms and I wasn't necessarily diagnosed with a prolapse, but I had that very telltale sort of symptom that people describe almost like a tampon falling out feeling. I would notice that when I was pregnant with Tegan anytime I went to the bathroom.
So it always felt like a heaviness feeling when I would go to the bathroom. Honestly, even with, you know, a little bit of knowledge about the pelvic floor at the time, not very much. Um, I chalked it up to, this is a pregnancy symptom and it's going to go away once I deliver. So fast forward to after having Teagan and I've shared about this on the podcast and on Instagram, rush back into exercise a little too quickly, um, went back to the CrossFit gym and to really challenging, over the top workouts that I, you know, now, now knowing what I know, it was way too much for my early postpartum body.
And after those two workouts, I had that same heaviness feeling, but it wasn't just going to the bathroom. It was kind of like a constant feeling for a few days. Um, just felt like a lot of heaviness and, um, that tampon falling out feeling. And yeah, it freaked me out. And so I think even that time, you know, I might've tried a couple squats and that heaviness just felt even worse.
So I panicked, I had no idea what to do. So even as a physiotherapist and longtime athlete at that time, I was so lost and so confused about what to do next. And so I've shared this before on the podcast. I basically learned all the things. I always say I went back to school in that time, learn from Instagram, learn from podcasts, all about the pelvic floor, all about how to rehab my body postpartum, which nobody teaches you that again, even as a physiotherapist, that's not something I had the knowledge to do.
And yeah, just slowly kind of ease back into movement. And so, um, I did a lot of my learning from Brianna Battles. I took her pregnancy postpartum athleticism course also through Jesse Mundell and Anita Lambert. I listened to their to birth and beyond podcast. So basically took a lot of their advice to create my own postpartum rehab program for myself.
And yeah, even then I remember being so terrified. To even lift up my 10 pound dumbbell. So I was starting to feel confident and comfortable, um, doing body weight workouts. My symptoms for my prolapse were feeling pretty good. Sorry, I would say the only time I would notice the heaviness was around my cycle.
And so either with ovulation or either around my period, I would start to still feel that heaviness feeling, but workouts were feeling not too bad. And that was with body weight. But yeah, I remember feeling super nervous to pick up my 10 pound dumbbells and do a workout. And so, yeah, eventually I kind of eased back into that and was feeling okay.
Again, ups and downs. I feel like that is part of the prolapse healing journey. Or healing in general is it's not going to be perfectly linear. It's going to be a bit of a roller coaster up and down. And that was definitely my experience. Part of my journey with prolapse was recognizing how much tension I held in my body in general.
So this is common for many of us, especially, um, those of us may be coming from a gymnastics dance, cheerleading background where we're taught to be like rigid and tight and squeeze everything all the time. Um, I definitely am someone that has the habit of constantly sucking in my belly, squeezing my bum, and that can lend itself to holding a lot of tension in your pelvic floor as well.
So for me, the light bulb moment was recognizing like I was really strong with doing kegels. I was assessed by pelvic floor physio diagnosed with a grade two prolapse. And yeah, she said my kegel strength was super strong. My endurance was pretty good. Um, but I had a really hard time relaxing my pelvic floor.
So I remember even in that assessment, you know, she would assess me and have me do a pelvic floor contraction or a kegel really good. Okay. So now relax. Okay, relax even more. And I'm like, I am relaxing. No, relax even more. So I had a hard time letting that Kegel pelvic floor contraction go. So for me, a lot of my prolapse journey was learning to do called like a reverse Kegel, Dana calls them.
So just doing that relaxation on my pelvic floor was a light bulb moment. And So as I started practicing that and incorporating that, I always bookend my workouts with pelvic floor relaxation. So doing like a zed line position, laying on my belly and relaxing my pelvic floor and then consciously working on that throughout the day.
That for me was what helps my symptoms the most. And yeah, so I think around. Six months postpartum. I worked my way back up to like my 20 pound dumbbells, my 25 pound dumbbells, not using them every single day, every single workout, but here and there I would do like a goblet squat. So just holding the dumbbell, um, at my chest and doing a squat.
Um, but honestly, I was happy lifting like 5, 10 or sorry, 10, 15 pounds for most of my workouts. And yeah, my prolapse symptoms again came and went, but overall we're starting to feel better. And a lot of my prolapse journey was just removing the fear of movement and exercise and recognizing that there are so many reasons that prolapse symptoms can come and go, and it's not.
Just about the workouts that we're doing hormonally, things can cause symptoms to ramp up. We've talked about this in our podcast before, which I can link into the show notes. Um, so many reasons to bring those symptoms up, lack of sleep, um, you know, uh, stress, if we're feeling stressed, if we're going back to work, um, if you're a returning mom to postpartum back to work.
And, uh, so anyways, I think just, You know, removing that fear that, okay, my workouts are causing my symptoms and recognizing I haven't, I didn't sleep well last night. I've been, you know, I'm a busy mom. I'm on my feet a lot. Perhaps that is also why my symptoms are worse. It's not the workout's fault necessarily.
So recognizing that was helpful. Um, so yeah, so, you know, fast forward. So again, I continue to do my strong at home workouts two to three days a week was always my goal. Um, you know, anywhere between 20 to 25 pound dumbbells is what I would use for my workouts. And yeah, so then, like I said, around three years postpartum is when I decided to sign up for Olympic weightlifting.
And honestly, at that point, I'm thankful to say that like prolapse was not even in. You know, my head when I signed up for heavy, heavier lifting. Um, yeah, I think I had just done the physical work and the mental work to understand that, yeah, my prolapse, I think was as healed as it was going to be and understanding, you know, symptoms might still come and go and that.
doesn't mean I'm doing damage. It's just part of my body and part of being a human in a female body or a male body too, where our organs can just lower down in our body. And that's just part of our experience. And yeah, I wasn't afraid. Um, so getting back into weightlifting has been interesting. Um, heavier lifting, I would say.
And, uh, Yeah, like there, there are times when I'm doing a heavy squat that I just, I find I just have to be really mindful of my breathing. And so I think back in my CrossFit days, I wouldn't necessarily think about my breathing and I was one to breath hold a lot. And yeah, breath holding can be a really valid tool when you're heavyweight lifting.
But for me, I know my body feels the best when I like exhale. Through the hardest part of the movement. So again, with a heavy squat, that's what I'm working on. Um, so yeah, when I'm lifting, if I'm working on my breathing symptom wise, I feel really good if anything, every so often I might feel some pressure like in my bum, and that's been a common, not necessarily prolapse symptom, but just a rehab, um, as my body rehab, I would get just some pressure in that area as well.
But, uh, again, usually if I just refocus on my breaths, um, I then that feels much better. So yeah, that's been sort of the prolapse side of things. Um, every experience is different. I'll kind of finish with that in this part of the talk. Um, so if you're somebody that is early on postpartum dealing with prolapse symptoms, terrified to exercise, terrified to lift weights, I hope this just is a message of hope for you all that you can get back to heavy lifting.
You might have to modify how you're doing it. Um, might have to work on some strategies of how you're doing your movements. Um, maybe work with a pelvic floor physiotherapist or a postpartum coach like myself to just help you work through the mindset shifts that are going to have to happen in terms of your prolapse as well.
But it is 100 percent possible if you're someone that is interested in wanting to start lifting weights, which I encourage all women to do if you are able to, and it's accessible to you. Um, yeah, I think it's just such a wonderful thing and it's totally possible even if you're someone that deals with prolapse.
Okay. So let's move on to the body image piece. So I've shared on this podcast before and I probably should just do like a solo episode on this at some point. Um, my struggles with body image coming from a background of competitive gymnastics, you know, that is a sport, you know, I, it fit the stereotypes when I was in it that.
just really encourages people to exist in a really small, small body. Um, I did deal with disordered eating through a lot of my life as a gymnast and even into my twenties and thirties. And before I kind of get into this topic, though, I do want to acknowledge my thin privilege. So I, my parents were both small people are both small people.
Um, I genetically exist in a small body and truthfully don't have to do a lot, I guess, in terms of, um, controlling what I eat to stay in a small body. Um, with that said, you know, I still have my body image struggles and, you know, even as a young gymnast, I always had some excess body fat on my belly. So still working through how I feel about my belly.
Um, but I think all the unlearning I've done in terms of diet culture and, you know, the thin ideal and its ties to racism, all of that has helped me really, um, unpack the stories that I tell myself about my body. And. about how my body looks in relation to my worth as a human being. And so, yeah, I would say, you know, in my, now I'm heading towards 40 years old, so I'm 38 turning 39 this year.
For the first time in my life, You know, the last two, three years, I feel the most like, I don't know if I would say confident about my body. I am confident about my body, but more so I just feel neutral about my body. My body just is what it is. It's the vehicle that gets me through life. And. Also a lot of gratitude for my body and just so grateful to, you know, be healthy and to be able to do sports and do activities with my body.
And that, you know, is privileged in and of itself that I have an able body to do these things. I'm able to, you know, play with my kids, keep up with my kids. That, you know, focusing on gratitude and thankfulness for my body has also been a really great thing. huge part of my journey. And so, yeah, so I also talked with, uh, when we had Jordana, um, Edelstein on the podcast, talked about my history with disordered eating, which I won't get into too much depth about that here.
I'll link that episode if you want to listen back. Um, But I have dealt with disordered eating off and on and it's interesting because, you know, in some of those moments I didn't necessarily label it as disordered eating because we live in a society where, um, a lot of the diets and things that we engage in are seen as quote unquote healthy and ways to make our body healthy.
But now knowing what I know and looking back to some of the behaviors that I engaged in definitely was disordered. And so yeah, so it's been interesting, you know, starting a competitive sport like Olympic weightlifting. I didn't really think that there would be body image sort of tests and things that I had to go through with it, but there have been little ones.
Um, so yeah, share those with you. So the first thing, so I will say that in terms of Um, so this is I guess a content warning I should say before I get into this. Um, talking a little bit about like using a scale to weigh ourselves and weight loss. Um, I, when I was postpartum after Tegan, this is when I sort of hit a rock bottom moment.
I was engaging in a diet to try to quote unquote lose the baby weight, which I hate that pressure that is put on women to immediately look like you didn't have a baby. Um, yeah, full on bought into that again. I thought I was doing it in the name of health, but it was, there was a lot of disordered behaviors there, hit sort of rock bottom, went on a diet that went terribly wrong.
And truly the next day had an awakening moment. And I looked at my husband Jay and I said, I am never doing this again. I am never going on another diet. I'm never counting calories. I'm just going to let my body be. Um, and that's when I sort of broke up with diet culture, I always say. And, um, so around that time too, I decided I wasn't going to focus on weighing myself.
I don't. I don't think I ever obsessively weighed myself, but I did definitely weigh myself here and there. Um, and there was, you know, some meaning attached to my body size. You know, in pregnancy, this is a whole other story, but in pregnancy we are weighed constantly. And I did have that pressure during pregnancy to like only gain a certain amount of weight, which is such BS as well.
Because we put on weight, you know, to support our body and to support our baby. Um, so side note, if you are pregnant and you are triggered by being weighed, it's totally okay to say to your midwife and your OB that you don't want to see the number and you don't want to hear the number. You can turn around backwards on the scale and not see that number.
So that's sort of a little side note there. But yeah, postpartum I decided I wasn't going to focus on weighing myself or focus on that number and just really start to consciously detach my meaning and my self worth from. My body size. And yeah, so really up until that point, when I signed up for Olympic weightlifting, I hadn't really used a scale.
Um, and I would say with the scale, so we do have a scale in our house because my husband Jay sometimes is in, uh, ventures where he wants to try to lose weight and I fully support him in that. That's the thing with, you know, even working with my clients, as much as I. Don't intentionally sell weight loss.
And I personally am not engaging in intentional weight loss. It's your body. So if you are somebody that is listening, that, you know, has a goal in mind to lose weight, that is it, that is your prerogative. It is your body. It's your life. I'm never going to say that that's wrong. So even with my husband, I support him in all his endeavors.
If that's what he wants to do, will I talk to him about like dieting and everything for myself? No, I'm not doing that anymore. But I'm going to support him. So we have a scale in our house for that reason. And yeah, I think, you know, I got to a point where I can step on a scale now and have it just be an objective number and not have it mean anything about me as a human and as a person.
And I really think that's important. So I have, you know, two daughters, um, turning six and turning four. I think that's important for them to kind of just see the scale as a neutral thing too. And so they, you know, step on it in the bathroom all the time too and say like, mommy, look how strong I'm getting and look how big I'm getting.
And I think that's awesome. And, you know, I want them to be able to see a mom that can step on the scale and be like, Oh wow, mommy, like you're so big, good job. And kind of just use it as it again. objective, meaningless measure. Um, so yeah, so as I got into Olympic weightlifting, um, I think one day it was one of those innocent, uh, moments where my girls weighed themselves and we, you know, see how big they're getting.
And they're like, oh, mommy, you do it too. So I stepped on and this was, you know, maybe, you know, Three, four months into Olympic weightlifting. And yeah, I think I was like five to seven pounds more than normal, quote, unquote, normal, normal for me. You know, now that I've been out of diet culture and out of dieting and kind of just letting my body be really learning to listen, listen to my body's cues and find peace with food, my body does tend to stay around a similar weight between like, I'm not going to say that the number.
But like a five to 10 pound difference. I kind of stay in that zone. Um, but yeah, it was, you know, five to seven pounds, maybe heavier than that, that normal for me. And yeah, the, the very first thought I was like, Oh, interesting. Um, which I was proud of myself in that moment of like, okay. So this, you know, used to mean something, this used to trigger me, this used to attach worth to who I was as a human.
And in that moment, it was like, okay, interesting. Um, you know, and then of course I started to like, try to justify it. Oh, it's because I'm putting on muscle mass, you know? Oh, it's because I'm eating more because I'm training more, which yes, for sure. You know, likely a lot of those things are true, but I was very proud of myself that I just did not, did not attach meaning.
To that number and attach that to my self worth. So that was kind of a cool experience. Um, and then part of my journey was deciding, like I said, to sign up for this Olympic weightlifting competition. So it's a master's competition, which is interesting as a 38 year old woman that I'm considered a master's athlete now, which is kind of cool.
Um, as part of competing in Olympic weightlifting. You have to pick a weight category. So they pair or they group women together of a similar body size just to make it fair. Um, because it is all about lifting heavy weight to make it fair that you're competing against people of a similar size. And so it's funny because I had, you know, when I decided to sign up, I had this feeling, I'm like, I feel like I'm going to be right on the borderline of a weight category.
And I'm going to have to like test myself about what I wanted to do about that. Sure enough, I go onto the page to sign myself up. And again, I'm not going to say numbers today, today, but, uh, you know, I was literally like half a kilogram to a kilogram over. The category that, you know, I could have picked, um, whereas the next category up was like 15 kilos more than what I weigh.
And so, yeah, it was just interesting. So you can't, so if you pick a certain category, even if you're 0. 1 kilograms over that category, they would bump you into the next one up. So you have to be that weight or below in order to fit into that category and compete with those same people. And so, yeah, so I saw, you know, I started the signup process.
figured that out. I knew that was going to happen, emailed my coach Dave, and I was so grateful for his response and his approach to the whole situation. So he basically emailed me back and said, you know, like the, the sport of weightlifting is a very, it tries to be a very inclusive sport in the sense that, you know, you can be any body size and compete.
Um, they don't obviously discriminate. Um, But it can lend itself to, um, disordered eating potentially if you are very focused on trying to fit into a certain size category. And so he asked me point blank in that email, do you have a history of disordered eating? Do you struggle with weighing yourself? Um, a few other questions, but basically just, you know, got right down to the nitty gritty of like, how do you feel about this?
And he did say in that email too, you know, I don't recommend for Those of you that are competing in your first competition, I don't recommend that you try to lose weight, you know, just focus on competing, focus on having fun and don't stress about that. So I, you know, I let that email kind of sit with me.
I let my thoughts kind of sit with me. I didn't pick a weight category right away. I told myself I'm going to wait a couple of days and kind of see how I feel because one side of me was like, okay, You're only, quote unquote, you're only, you know, half a kilogram to a kilogram more than that weight category.
If you compete in the higher weight category, you're going to be against larger girls. And you know, science tells us that if you are a larger human being, you, you likely will be able to lift heavier weight. So if I could be in a smaller weight category, I would be at the, like the highest of that smaller weight category and potentially be stronger in that week category.
So again, all of this to say now after competing, seeing the girls that would have been in that lower category. The one girl would have smoked me no matter what. So it's just funny now knowing what I know, but this was all the thought process that I went through. And so I, yeah, I had a talk with my husband and kind of told him about what I was feeling and thinking.
And he's like, well, yeah, like you could, you could probably lose like two or three pounds, right? Like, that's not that hard. And not to, he wasn't saying like, Oh, you should do that. No, it was more like you probably physically could do that. Right. And I'm like, I don't know, like, honestly, because I, you know, again, I haven't dieted for three years.
My body tends to stay around a similar set point. It actually is hard for me to lose two to three pounds. And for those of you listening, you know, that struggle with your body weight, I'm sure can relate that like two to three pounds, or even like two pounds is, is a hard thing. And so yeah, so we had that conversation and then what I started to notice myself doing was I started stepping on the scale every morning.
I think it was more out of curiosity of like, okay, you know, if I weigh myself every morning, maybe sometimes naturally in the mornings, I am below that weight category. So started doing that. So like two, three days in a row, I did that started just thinking like, Hmm, what could I cut out of my life? Could I.
Take away the creamer that I have in my coffee. Could I, you know, not have snacks after dinner? Could I maybe eat, you know, less for lunch? So started having these thoughts. I didn't act on any of them, but just started thinking about it. And then the other thought I was starting to have is, you know, maybe the weather is getting nicer.
Maybe I can start doing longer walks. Um, started thinking about that. And Yeah, so, and none of, none of these things were feeling good for me, I would say. The thought of cutting things out of my, you know, my eating felt blah. The thought of like forcing myself to walk more than I already was felt blah. The feeling that I had of stepping on a scale every morning felt blah.
Like everything just didn't feel good. So I went to bed, woke up the next morning, and woke up with such clarity that I don't need to do this. Why don't I just sign up for the larger weight category and just let it be what it is. So that's what I did. I signed up, picked the larger weight category, um, email my coach back and said, yeah, I'm just gonna not put that pressure on myself, be in the larger weight category and not have to stress.
And I felt so incredibly at peace about that. And I shared that in my email newsletter, which a few of you responded back, which I'm very grateful for. And yeah, that was, that was how I handled that. And I was very, you know, proud of myself for the growth that I've had and felt like a little bit, I don't know if it was like a test or just, uh, a moment where I could, you know, see how far I've come, but also see how.
It could be a slippery slope back into past habits. And I just didn't want to do that to myself. I was so happy with where I was in terms of my relationship with food and my body. I just didn't want to do that. So that was the decision. And I was very happy with that. Um, So that was that part of it. And then just, you know, fast forwarding to this competition that I did.
Um, so part of it is you do have to be weighed. So you're in a room with two strangers and, you know, you step on a scale. And again, probably a former version of myself would have felt so So horrible about that. And again, attached meaning to it, but I weighed in and I was exactly 0. 6 kilos over the, the weight category that I picked.
So I was, you know, I fit into that larger weight category, which was good. Um, yeah, they even made a comment, you know, you're really light for this category. I'm like, I know. And she's like, you can pick the lower one. And if you, you know, weigh heavier, then you can just enter into the next one. I said, I know I just didn't want to put that pressure on myself with a history of disordered eating.
I just wanted to pick the larger category and they're like, okay, yep. Sounds good. Um, so that was that. And just, you know, to touch a little bit, one more topic about sort of body image and body weight. What I love so far about the sport of Olympic weightlifting is it truly is a body diverse sport. Um, even if you just Google Olympic weightlifting, you can see men, women of all different body shapes and sizes.
And that to me is just really cool. Just to serve as that reminder that you don't have to be thin to be very athletic. You know, all body sizes can engage in sport and exercise and activity and be athletic. It's not, you know, something that is just limited to those with small lean bodies. So that's just been a really cool little aside.
Okay, so last thing I'm going to touch on, and this is, I realize I'm kind of talking longer than I thought, but the last one will be pretty quick. Um, and it's about finding joy as a mom. And so this So this is, you know, going back to what I mentioned about, uh, at the beginning where I took that workshop with Chante Caulfield and really realized what I was missing in my life was finding joy outside of being a mom and being a business owner.
Yes. You know, my kids and my husband and my, our family life brings me so much joy. Yes. Running this business that I have and I'm so grateful for brings me so much joy, but I realized I needed something just for me. And so that is what led me down the path of signing up for Olympic weightlifting. And so what I want to say about that is again, acknowledging privilege.
I want to acknowledge the fact that I have a very supportive husband. Jay has been fully on board with my journey and getting back into a sport from day one. You know, he is home a lot. He's a firefighter. So he's home a lot with the kids. Um, you know, my kids are both in school and daycare full time. So I have, you know, times in the day that I can go to the gym when I'm not looking after them.
I, you know, have the privilege of working for myself and working from home. So I am able to go to the gym when the kids are at school and daycare. So that is a privilege in and of itself. So I want to acknowledge all these things because I understand, you know, it might be triggering to people to hear some of these suggestions and say, well, it's easy for you.
You had this, this and this, and yes, you are right. So, you know, let's kind of talk about this from the lens of. You know, I'm going to offer a couple of little things that worked for me and you can take what serves you and leave the rest aside. So for me, finding joy, the first thing that I started to think about, because I don't know about you all, but when you become a mom, it's so all consuming that you forget what is fun.
I remember in that webinar, you know, Shante was like, okay, what's going to be a take home thing for all of you to find joy outside of work life? And yeah, I was like kind of stumped for a minute. Like, I don't know, you know, I, I am sort of having fun, but I don't know what else I enjoy. And so if this is you start to just think back to your life before kids.
So me personally, I've always been an athlete. I've always had a competitive side to me. Sport is just such a quick easy thing for me to think about that brings me so much joy and so much fun. So that was an easy leap for me. Um, so yeah, so think about life before kids, even think about yourself as a kid.
And so one thing that also brings me joy and I love doing this with my kids now is drawing. So we do art hub for kids where it's an, uh, YouTube channel, where they have step by step drawing instructions. That is so much fun for me. And why do we stop doing those things as adults? Right? So if you're someone that's artsy, think about, you know, things like that.
Um, my friend Surabhi, passionate physio, shout out to you. She joined up with an adult dance class, which looks like so much fun. Um, you know, if that's something that piques your interest, try that. My friend, Erica Webb, I'm going to link all these people too, because they're just awesome people that you should follow on Instagram.
If you want to, um, Erica Webb, her and I messaged back and forth after that workshop talking about holding each other accountable to find fun things in our life. And she joined an adult basketball league. She did that. And then she also signed up for, um, adult rollerblading or she got, or sorry, some roller skates started doing that.
Um, started coaching basketball. So, so many endless possibilities. Um, you know, it doesn't have to cost a lot of money either. Right. Even if you're someone that enjoys photography, get out for a walk, uh, here and there and take pictures. Um, you know, find things that in the past brought you joy and try to find a way to reintroduce them.
Again, in your life as a mom, as a business owner, if you are, um, try to find a way to fit those in. So part of that, again, I understand comes from privilege that I have support. So if you are able to, you know, talk to your partner about how you're feeling, talk to them about how, you know, you just need more fun things for you in your life and work as a team to figure that out.
You know, if it has to be an evening thing, when the kids are in bed. Give that a go. Um, if you have, you know, parents that can help you, if you can afford to pay for a babysitter to help out something to get yourself out of the, um, you know, day after day grind of being a mom can be so exhausting. So something to take you out of that.
Um, Yeah, and just to touch on that a little more. So I think what I find interesting is we put so much focus and so much attention on finding joyful activities for our kids. So like how many of us, you know, wait on the computer to sign our kids up for swimming lessons, you know, get them in right or we have them sign up for soccer, we have them sign up for hockey, gymnastics, we have.
Yeah. All these opportunities and fun activities for them to do, and we spend our weeks driving them to and from, um, you know, getting them excited to join in with all these things, but we don't, why don't we do that for ourselves, right? Why don't we prioritize our fun and our joy and our activities? Just as much as we do with our kids.
So this is something that, you know, our family has kind of done. Um, better at recently. So I signed up for Olympic weightlifting. My husband, Jay signed up at a local gym and he's been really liking that he's, you know, into, um, mountain biking. And so we just really prioritize that in our family too. Like, okay, what days can you make it to the gym?
What days can you, can I make it to lifting? We kind of slot those things in the same way we would with slotting our kids activities in. So just start to think about that for yourselves. Um, again, it doesn't have to be big. Doesn't have to be over the top little things that you can find in your day, in your week, in your month to bring you a little bit more joy outside of mom life or work life, um, I think it's just so important as moms, we have such societal pressure.
Put on us to put everybody first, but at the heart of that is us, right? At the heart of that is you as a human, and you deserve to take care of you and you deserve to do fun things you deserve to, you know, be outside of the house away from your kids, if that is something that you want to do. Um, so just, yeah, like.
The societal pressure is just a lot of BS and I think we all could deserve to just get out of the house and find a little bit more joy in our lives. So yeah, I think that wraps up everything with my talk. Um, thank you so much for the interest in this chat today. I hope you found it useful, helpful, hopeful.
Um, I would love to hear from you if you want to send me a DM on Instagram to let me know if any of this resonated with you. I would love to hear that. And thank you as always for being here and I will talk to you again soon.
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