Cautious Optimism
I tend to forget I have this website, not least because it’s so much “easier” to draft an Instagram post. The character limit keeps me honest (“what am I really trying to say here?”), and the visual engagement tends to be more gratifying on that platform. But whenever I take the time to sit down and really summarize, I’m always glad I did, if only for my own ability to look back in the future.
I’m already so grateful that I wrote this post two months ago as something of a “starting line” — because, knock on wood, I am slowly feeling better and better and better. As ever, I had adapted so thoroughly to my prior state of being that I genuinely didn’t realize how much better things could be. I’m writing this after a night of wholly uninterrupted sleep (who am I?!?), on day one of a period that (so far) is minimally symptomatic (again, WHAT), and really wishing today weren’t a rest day… because I kinda feel like a million bucks!
Several things are contributing to this progress, and they all interplay with one another.
As above, I started Prozac at the end of March, and that has continued to be a pretty fantastic experience. I don’t know what I was so afraid of — I think I was worried that it would make me “not feel like myself”; instead, it’s more like it returned me to myself. After some experimentation, it turns out that adjusting the dose to my cycle (10mg in follicular phase, 20mg in luteal phase) works wonderfully in terms of keeping me “steady”. I figured this out on my own, but I knew I’d seen it in several of my patients, and when I mentioned it to my GYN, she confirmed that this is common and a perfectly acceptable strategy.
Granted, I’ve been cycle-tracking for a LONG time and am pretty tuned in to my body, but I still find it pretty neat how I intuitively “know” when to go up or down. When I woke up yesterday morning, I could “feel” that my head was steadier and that I could go ahead and drop back down to 10mg, and sure enough, my period showed up twelve hours later. Bodies are pretty nifty.
About a month after starting medication, I took another big leap and started working with M2 Performance Nutrition. I have a lot of experience managing macros for body composition, but I had never tried to eat specifically for performance, and had certainly never tried to do that inside a perimenopausal body that isn’t always predictable with regard to its chemistry. Last summer, my “canary in the coal mine” that hormones and insulin were going funky was an abrupt 7-8# abdominal weight gain despite no changes to nutrition or training. After the holidays, I did a successful cut that got me back to a strong, fast, comfortable “performance size” — but (as with anything) it’s easier to maintain a desirable state than to repeatedly fight your way back to one, so I decided to be proactive.
So far, hiring M2 has been a great decision for several reasons:
It has validated a lot of what I was already doing. I truly do need more calories than most athletes my age, my intra-training fueling strategy is perfect, and my intuition about needing more food on high-activity days is generally spot-on.
Regular check-ins with a second set of eyes can sometimes reveal patterns that I miss. I had not recognized the fact that Thursdays were consistently my worst-feeling training sessions or that I invariably woke up hungry at 2:00am on Tuesday nights. Turns out, a little extra food on Tuesdays (which, in my weekly programming, tend to be demanding training days) solves both of these problems.
One consistent set of macros for both rest days and training days definitely feels better for performance. One of my leftover habits from my Renaissance Periodization days was that I had been allowing myself to fluctuate up and down (2700ish calories on rest days with a larger percentage from fats, 3200ish on heavy training days with a larger percentage from carbs). Turns out the legends are true: keeping a steady 3000ish calories with lots of carbs every day does seem to work better, not just to support the current day’s training, but to recover as fully and promptly as possible for the next day’s training.
Some of M2’s “accessory” suggestions have also proven noticeably helpful — eating immediately after training (not waiting until I get home); supplementing inositol (for insulin resistance) and DIM (to help remove excess estrogen). And a daily cold water with electrolytes sounds so simple as to be potentially unnecessary, but adding this in to my training session has actually helped me feel MUCH better (this is the Southeast, after all; we sweat a lot down here!).
But mostly — it has given me the peace of mind to stop second-guessing myself long enough to actually start to reap some benefits. Frankly, 375g carbs is a lot (one of my friends, also a nutrition coach, stopped in her tracks and said, “THREE SEVENTY-FIVE?! I’m not even jealous; that’s HARD!”) — and, predictably, the scale runs 1-2# higher with this style of intake (because water follows glycogen). On my own, I can imagine that I could panic and jump ship back to my old ‘safe’ pattern of excessive protein. But with someone telling me to do it this way consistently, I’ve been able to stick with it long enough to notice how much better I FEEL.
And a third contributor is that, with the improvement in COVID rates, I was finally able to visit Philadelphia for the first time in two years. This matters enormously on a mental health level, especially as it relates to training — I love being a remote athlete, but there is NO substitution for being coached in person; furthermore, being surrounded by good movers who are working with equal intention makes ME move more efficiently. I had passively fallen into the habit of often taking 3-4 hours to complete a session, partly because (before Prozac) it would legitimately take me a couple of extra minutes to “feel ready” for the next heavy set of something, but also because I didn’t typically have much incentive to move quickly. I have the time and space; I love what I’m doing; why not move leisurely?
However, a huge takeaway from this trip was that my foot-dragging isn’t without consequences. Turns out, I can get my training done in just over two hours when I deliberately work with efficiency — and when I do, I actually have a lot more energy left over to finish a metcon strong. And feeling fresher at the end of a session also lends itself to better recovery for the next session. (The more you know!)
We’re still early in this game, but between the nine weeks of Prozac, the five weeks of nutritional changes, and the motivational kick in the pants from Philly, here’s what I notice so far:
I seldom struggle with low appetite anymore. (This was a big issue this past spring, and was one of the ways I knew I needed to start an antidepressant.) I know how much food I need in a day, and am proactive about ‘forcing’ it if appetite seems suppressed in a given moment — which means it doesn’t STAY suppressed.
I’m sleeping much better. I seldom have trouble falling asleep, but even the tiniest calorie deficit (intentional or otherwise) typically has me awake at 2:00am staring at the ceiling for an hour. This used to happen several times a week; so far, we’ve cut it down by probably 60-70%. Last night I actually slept uninterrupted (as in, didn’t even wake to pee!) for the first time in many months.
My glucose is better-regulated. I know this objectively (A1c was 5.5% in February, corresponding to an average blood sugar of 111; by May it had come down to 5.1%, or an average of 100!) as well as subjectively; I no longer get waves of anxiety/anger when I need to eat, and I haven’t “crashed'“ during training in ages.
Performance feels So. Much. Better! Not every day is a great day (that will never be true) — but in general, I’m bringing much more fire and consistency to my sessions. I’m resting much less, motivation is high, and I’m seeing lots of small encouraging signs of progress (more below).
Recovery is also better. My average monthly Garmin strain score dropped five points as soon as I started the SSRI, and although the medicine did cause some disrupted sleep in the beginning, I seem to have adjusted to it now (hallelujah).
Also — a legit health marker that I had forgotten about until it reappeared — libido had been fully MIA for like… two years?… and just within the past couple weeks, feels pretty normal again. That’s a super positive sign as far as hormones and overall stress burden.
Performance-wise, I’m feeling an odd, tantalizing mix of impatience and optimism.
Impatience because, mentally, I have been giving my 100% effort every single day for a very long time now without much numerical progress — however, as I said here, there are times when our brain chemistry acts as a physical governor. I truly didn’t realize I was underperforming, because I was mentally giving all I had; the problem was that I (unwittingly) didn’t HAVE as much to GIVE as I should have. In other words, throughout 2020, my full mental effort wasn’t enough to move the physical needle.
But, also optimism because — NOW it is. I haven’t PRed any of my barbell 1RMs yet (hence the impatience — it’s been a long time!) — but in looking back at my training log over the past two months, I can clearly see that we are truly moving forward again now:
got a bar muscle-up in an Open workout
new PR of 34” box jump (and so close to 36”!)
50 unbroken wallballs
restored ability to mentally ‘lean into’ the sticking point under a heavy bar
new 4RM front squat (165#)
15 unbroken S2O at 100#
fearlessly crushing 30” box jumps in metcons
10 unbroken OHS at 115# during AGOQ
bar-facing burpees with proper, efficient footwork
4 wall walks in 30 seconds
crushed two metcons combining rowing + big sets of heavy squats
4x15 unbroken DB thrusters with 30#s
massively increased pistol efficiency
and absolutely smashed my Murph time (in a mask!) by 18 minutes and 23 seconds.
I’ve been waiting a really long time to feel like this, and it’s still a little hard to believe. There have been literally dozens of moments over the past 18 months where I’ve told myself, “okay, this time you’re really turning a corner, NOW things are going to get better.” Every time, I was proven wrong.
But this time, I think it might be real.
I’m so excited for what’s to come.