Fresh Start Fitness

My dear friend Emily is one of my oldest friends; she was having her bridal shower at the church on the day I was having my wedding, and she peeked in through the church doors to watch. We formally met a few weeks later through a mutual friend, and this year we celebrate our fifteen year “friend-aversary”. Our lives (and our bodies) have changed with pregnancies, loss of pregnancies, through job changes and life changes.

When we met, Emily was intimidatingly fit. She played soccer in college and was regularly exercising on her own in her twenties. She taught fitness classes for women and found success with her blog, “Running Across Ohio”, where she wrote about her training as she pursued running every half marathon in Ohio. She followed a plant-based diet. On the outside, she was healthy, strong, and disciplined.

When Emily pursued hip surgery in 2018 to repair hip dysplasia, her time in recovery was more than physical: she was forced to reconcile the reality that diet and exercise had begun to consume her. We always think of “healing” as being happy and comforting and serene, but it’s painful and brutal when it’s happening. Emily realized she has been a victim of disordered eating and using exercise to keep herself in a constant state of calorie deficit. She took time off from exercise to work on healing her soul. She did the hard, holy work needed to repair her relationship with food and ultimately, with herself and Jesus.

Six years later, Emily has returned to exercise with a new mindset. She runs for her health, not her weight. She works out to be strong, not skinny. She talks positively about her body to her children and positivity influences their relationship with food and exercise.

I cherish her as a friend because she is fiercely loyal to me. She isn’t just a fan of my fitness, she’s a fan of my life. She is always in my corner, when things are great or things are terrible. She inspires me because she did the hard work of healing her soul. Our bodies, mindset, and lives will continue to change, but our friendship has weathered the storms!