CAN EXERCISE HEAL A BROKEN HEART?
SUDDENLY SINGLE, Amy Grier FOUND THE ONLY WAY TO RE-ESTABLISH HER INNER STRENGTH WAS BY REBUILDING HER OUTER STRENGTH. HERE, SHE EXPLAINS HOW CARVING A NEW BODY HELPED TO GIVE HER A NEW OUTLOOK ON LIFE
After a break-up, one writer turned to the gym to strengthen her body – and mind
”THERE WAS ONE RELATIONSHIP that predated him: THE GYM. THERE, EVERYONE ONLY KNEW ME AS AN ‘I’, RATHER THAN A‘WE’”
Tummy in. Glutes tight. Tuck your hips under. Squeeze your bum. Don’t flare the ribcage. Palms flat. Elbows turned in. Remember to breathe. That’s it. Hold it. You’ve got this. It’s a relief to have these words flooding my mind, crashing loudly over the other thoughts, the ones I really need to drown out. Thoughts such as: Why did he leave me? What was it about me that wasn’t good enough? Will I ever find a love like that again? Will all the things that were so important to me – trust, a family, an equal to grow old with – be possible now? Will I end up alone? That last one is the real kicker. The one that wakes you up in the middle of the night like a loud bang in a dark room. The homing device your inner being returns to, even when you try to divert its course with shiny treats or fun distractions.
My ex and I were together for five years. We met in a flurry of lust and serendipity when we were both 28 and built something kind of wonderful together. But over the years, small cracks appeared. Fissures, really. Nothing to worry about. All relationships have their ups and downs. Being an optimist (and a woman in her early thirties who wanted children), I chose to ignore those cracks. After all, the house looked so pretty from the outside. It was gorgeous inside, too: full of laughter, sun-dappled holiday photos, family gatherings and nights curled around one other on the sofa. We would be OK. We were in love. But eventually, those cracks became impossible to ignore. They pulled at our attention – at his attention, really – and, when he stopped to interrogate them, the entire house came crashing down. He packed his stuff and moved out, and I sat in the rubble for a very, very long time.
In the few months that followed, all of my normal routines went out of the window. Usually obsessed with food, I stopped cooking properly, surviving on small snacks, pre-prepared stuff, wine, coffee and adrenaline. Instead of going out four nights a week with friends or for work, I limited my social circle only to those in the inner sanctum. My huge life, one that had felt full of people and dinner parties and all the promise of the future, suddenly became very small.
There was one constant, though. One relationship that predated him. A place where I could go where everyone only knew me as an ‘I’, rather than a ‘we’. That place? My gym. When I met my ex, fitness was a huge part of my life. I loved it, and he loved it too. He loved that I loved it, and we became one of those insufferable couples that ran together and went to the gym on holiday. He got me into Parkrun, and most Saturdays we would do the weekly 5km, then go for brunch. On my birthday one year, he surprised me by adding in a trip to a local boutique jeweller he’d found. I snapped a picture of the stacking rings he’d got me as we walked home, as the sweat from our run turned cold against my neck.
I didn’t go back to Parkrun for five months after we broke up. But the gym? The gym was my space. I eased back in. I wasn’t eating much, and I knew not to push too hard: the odd weights class here, a morning yoga session there, lots of swimming.
”EXERCISE HAD FILLED THE VOID, BUT I HAD LET IT GET TOO POWERFUL. BEING INJURED WAS the wake-up call I NEEDED”
Gradually, as the weeks passed and winter turned into spring, I built myself back up.
I tried new classes and, instead of having my headphones in, I smiled and spoke to people around me. I became part of a community. While I felt fragile inside, it was good to have a daily reminder that my physical body was strong. It was resilient. It could lift things, withstand huge pressure and not crumble.
When I was exercising, I didn’t feel alone. When you’re single, weekends can be tough. Exercise gave me a much-needed sense of purpose and routine at a time when I really had neither. If I was feeling down, I’d put on my kit, do a class, then cry it out in the steam room. I’d put on my trainers and do a huge three-hour walk, or swim in the outdoor ponds on Hampstead Heath. The endorphins helped, naturally, but exercising also made me ravenous, forcing me to cook and nurture myself properly, as I’d always done before.
My body changed, too. I had visible upper abs for the first time in five years. My bum lifted. I had defined bicep muscles. I started wearing crop tops to work out in. I started taking gym selfies.
I know it’s narcissistic, but when your self-esteem has taken the mother of all knocks, you’ve got to take your kicks where you can get them. That little rush of dopamine when the ‘fire’ emojis racked up on a gym pic was mine.
It wasn’t all plain sailing. I learned the hard way, for example, that putting a crop top gym selfie on your dating profiles attracts a world of filth that even 11 years in journalism can’t prepare you for. I also became semi-dependent on the routine I’d carved out for myself, and felt hugely guilty if I didn’t go to the gym every weekday.
When I started dating again, I’d regularly find myself out until gone midnight a few nights a week, and still forced myself to get up for a 7.3Oam gym class. I was exhausted, running on empty a lot of the time and so focused on showing the world I was ‘fine’, I didn’t think to check if was true or not. My Instagram shimmered with bronzed pictures of me hiking in LA or posing in a neon bikini on holiday. I was definitely happier. But I still wasn’t happy.
Then, one October morning last year, so early that the moon still hung in the sky, I bent down to tie my trainers for the gym and my lower back went. I was in agony. Determined to still exercise, I went for a swim instead. I took a load of ibruprofen, went out after work and drank four double gin and tonics, then booty-called Tom*, a guy I was seeing. I was on autopilot, hurtling away from a crash at full speed.
In the middle of the night, I woke up in a cold sweat. The adrenaline and booze draining from my body, shock set in. I lay down on my bedroom floor, the only place it didn’t hurt to be, and asked Tom to leave immediately. I’d compressed the lumbar muscle in my lower back. Too much time spent flinging weights around, trying to prove my own strength and not enough time working on my core and looking after my spine. It was the wake-up call I needed. ‘You can still train,’ said the osteopath who put me back together. ‘You just need to be kinder to yourself.’
Exercise had filled the void left by the end of my relationship. It had created a positive feedback loop of physical prowess and superficial aesthetics that had me hooked. But I had let it get too powerful. Being injured for the first time in my life was the wakeup call I needed. Now, I still work out most days. The gym is still my haven from the stress and strain of the outside world. But I am mindful. I warm up and down very carefully. I know my limits. I work more on the muscles that no one can see. Most of all, I am kind to myself. And that, I’ve realised, is the biggest strength of all.