When I started yoga, I never thought of myself as a fit or strong person. I always hated PE as a kid too – I was just lucky with a fast metabolism and very minimal body issues. However, after copious drinking and pastry eating in college, I gained some weight that my metabolism alone couldn't shake off. I didn't like the way my body looked or felt to be in. I started yoga after college entirely out of vanity – I wanted to lose weight and hated exercising so I was in the market for an exercise that didn't make me feel worse about myself and would tone my body. The first few months of yoga (not to mention drinking WAY less after moving home from college!) absolutely transformed my perception of myself. Suddenly, I was strong! I felt more confident trying other kinds of exercise and realized not all of it sucked.
When the pandemic hit, I stopped exercising in studios. I "microdosed" yoga with short videos while working from home, but I could feel my body changing again – not for the better. I also started drinking again and became depressed. For the first time in my life I started therapy. (I should note here: I was EXTREMELY resistant to starting therapy. The perfectionist in me refused to acknowledge anything was "wrong" with me for a very long time. I started therapy after more than a year of feeling depressed.) In therapy, I was surprised to hear my therapist talk a lot about exercising. Despite all my big mindset shifts in yoga, I never made the leap between exercise and mood. So I slowly began exercising more, which, along with continued therapy, journaling, and cutting down on alcohol got me out of my funk.
Now, when I say "out of my funk" I just mean it wasn't omnipresent anymore. Every month before my period I felt like an entirely different person – no energy, no motivation, irritable and so SO moody. Upset and angry for no good reason. I had always heard "yep, that's normal PMS" and just accepted that was my lot in life as a woman. But eventually I wanted to start a family, and began to research how to prepare my body to get pregnant. I had been off hormonal birth control for years at this point (I realized in college that had made me feel depressed and swore I'd never go back). I thought I'd mention my PMS symptoms to my doctor in case they could be related to any fertility issues. I also just had a small gut feeling that something was up and had been up with my hormones for a while.
After some bloodwork, in early 2025 I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, an autoimmune thyroid condition that was the first thing I've ever had "wrong" with me at the doctors. This was a scary diagnosis to get while trying to prepare my body to start a family, as it can cause fertility complications. I was also hesitant to start medication when it seemed there were so many lifestyle changes that could help. I made some diet changes per my doctor's recommendation and really got serious about eliminating stress. Just like how I never put two and two together about exercise and mental health, the food/mood connection was a huge A-HA! moment for me. My mantra became "Good food, good mood" and my relationship with food has completely blossomed around that. I cut out dairy, gluten, alcohol and caffeine and began to eat and exercise in sync with my cycle. I know – it doesn't sound good to cut out all the "fun" stuff, but it has been so worth it for me. My energy came back, my PMS symptoms got dramatically better and my mental health has never been better.
It wasn't one change alone that made the biggest difference to my health. It was the diet changes, stress management, therapy, and exercise that all worked together to give me back control of my life at this point. However, as grateful as I am to feel this way now, who knows what the future holds and chances are my current practices won't serve me forever. I am working on shifting my mindset to embrace that everything is cyclical and eventually I will reach the bottom again and need to discover new changes to climb back up. The journey itself is the victory. Being on your path is the reward.
But this current chapter of my health story has a happy ending – as I write this I am pregnant with my first baby, who is doing just fine! This pregnancy has been its own journey, and one I will write about at a later time, but for now I will just say I am grateful to be here and SO grateful to every version of me who was brave enough to make a change with her health. I look forward to meeting the version of you who is ready to make a change in coaching, and am sending big hugs to you, wherever you are on your journey.
