My word for 2025 is trust.

Trusting that the work I am doing to fulfill my dreams will lead to those dreams coming true. Trusting that everything I’m building is going to pay off in the end.

Part of that is also trusting my body.

When I started having panic attacks ten years ago, I stopped trusting my body because I was terrified of her. My first panic attack came out of nowhere, or so it seemed. And after that I became hypervigilant of my body, worried when my heart rate increased.

I had always enjoyed going to the gym. Spin. Zumba. Pilates. A run/walk on the treadmill. But after my first few panic attacks, I was terrified of purposefully increasing my heart rate, afraid I’d throw myself into another panic spiral. So, I stopped going. Cancelled my membership. And after a while I tried to find gentler ways of working out at home. Online Barre classes. A tour of the Richard Simmons workout videos courtesy of YouTube. Even with those forms of gentle movement, I still scanned my body, focused on my heart rate, felt that little ping of anxiety that I was doing too much.

On and on it went for the next ten years. Cycles of panic and cycles of remission. Until my most recent episode pulled me under completely. Walking around the block was impossible. I became sedentary. Too afraid to leave the house some days because I was afraid of what my heart would do. Terrified of having a panic attack in public and having to leave a place abruptly.

I got better. I started taking medicine. I went to therapy. I meditated and journaled and started forcing myself to go live my life. It worked. But there was one last piece of the puzzle. I still didn’t trust my body. Not completely.

I was afraid of long walks, scared of my heart, scared of being too far from home and having only my body to rely on to get me back. I was afraid of group fitness classes. They felt too confining like I was being held captive for an hour.

So, at the beginning of this year, I decided to work on trusting my body again. It started slow. 10 minute arm workouts. 20 minutes of slow yoga. 20 minute walk on the treadmill at the low speed. Over three months, I worked up to 10k steps on long outdoor walks enjoying the warm spring weather and Pilates (at the pilates studio!) twice a week.

My confidence in myself and my determination has absolutely soared. I am reminded of the me that panic reduced to the size of a pebble. She’s back, and I welcome her with open arms.

However, throughout these last few months there is a part of me that assumed I would see some massive shift in my weight. I’d been putting in so much work! I’ve been counting my calories! Eating low carb! My body would definitely change, right? I’d be some better, skinnier version of me!

Every time I got on the scale, though, I was gaining and losing the same 5 pounds in varying increments.

I’m not going to lie. I was so frustrated that I cried. To put in all that work and not see any results. Or think that you don’t see any results. And then I took out my journal, and started to write about my wins for that day. Turns out I had lost sight of the plot.

The win was that there was a time when I couldn’t even walk around the block without having a panic attack. Now, I can walk for hours, 10k steps, far from home and enjoy myself.

The win was that there was a time when I couldn’t go to a group fitness class because I was too afraid I was going to have a panic attack and have to leave before the hour was up. Now, I go to pilates two times a week and enjoy myself.

Those are the wins. It was never about losing weight.

Until next week, friends.