I know there are people – “friends” – who are beginning to see me as a lunatic for simply being empowered to think critically about my health and well-being.

I have done all of this without judging, berating, or insulting anyone else for their own choices.

People who know me know that I am generally very reasonable. I am thoughtful, I am deliberate. I am calm. I try to act with respect and integrity in all that I do.

Two years ago, I rejected any further prescriptions of Metformin to manage my PCOS and chose to manage it through nutrition and exercise instead. People called me empowered, strong, inspirational.

Two years before that, I stopped taking hormonal birth control (which had also been aimed at managing my PCOS) because I was concerned about blood clots and other effects of it. To battle the acne that the pill had been managing, I turned to herbal supplements, namely milk thistle, which did in fact help keep my skin clear as I transitioned away from hormonal management.

And again, people said I was empowered, strong, and inspirational.

It was seen as a great quality that I researched, deliberated, and took thoughtful action into the management of my condition and my health to do what was best for me. And my decisions in both cases turned out to be for the best for me.

I have chosen not to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The vaccine is experimental, it is still in the EUA stage. COVID itself has a survival rate of over 99%. I am unconvinced about the effectiveness, the need and of contents of this vaccine.

But now I am a lunatic.

Whereas before I was natural, intentional, conservative, and thoughtful, now I am a stark raving loon and some equate it as being the next worst thing to a murderer, walking around unvaccinated.

It is amazing how the mainstream media has taken such control over the narrative that me, being who I have always been, has taken me from being inspirational to reprehensible, even in the eyes of some friends.

Steve Jobs was right when he said, “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.”

The media is the storyteller. And everyone is buying the story.

Back during my undergraduate degree, I had to take a course called “Consider the Source,” which if I remember correctly was a one-credit class aimed at teaching us to discern the validity of different sources as we were putting together a persuasive case. We didn’t actually have to make any arguments, but instead we had to vet sources and justify their usefulness in supporting an argument.

For years, I was a lead in the customer solutions department at the laboratory where I work. What we often saw were the escalated issues from our clients where something got screwed up and errors were made. I remember certain employees on the team getting exasperated because “oh great, we screwed up again.”

I had to remind them to consider the source of our work. We handled issues, full time. No one was going to call us and say, “Hey, you guys just did a bang-up job again, thank you for not making any mistakes.” No, we were tasked with the issues only. I had to remind them of the big picture, that in the largest scope of our organization, about 99% of the work performed each night for our patients was done flawlessly. We saw the issues, which were serious and important, but in the larger scheme of things, they were very few.

I had an appointment with my personal physician this week to get my prescriptions renewed, and of course he asked me if I had gotten the COVID-19 vaccine. I had debated how I was going to answer this going in to my appointment, but I decided to be honest and told him that I had not. I knew he would try to persuade me to get it, and he did. He began, in his kind way, sharing details of horror stories of very sick patients he had treated in the hospital – unvaccinated and filled with regret.

I wanted to say, “Yes, but I only call the plumber when I have an issue, not when the pipes are running smoothly.” He’s a doctor, he lives in a world of sickness. I don’t discredit his stories, I am sure they are true and that his concern for me is legitimate. But he isn’t calling on the asymptomatic or mild symptom patients. He is dealing with the severely sick, and it is the same argument he has made to me every year when trying to get me to get the flu shot (and me refusing that as well). I understand the lens through which he sees the world might be frightening in terms of COVID.

But it doesn’t change the fact that I am distrustful of these vaccines, this government, and the intense push to mandate it.

I told him I would consider the information he presented, and to his credit, he said, “And that is all I can do and leave you with a free choice.”

I am still unconvinced. I respect his opinions, but I consider the source.

With everything going on right now in the country it is worth it, I believe, to throw my hat into the ring of millions of opinions, knowing that I am a rational person with a good heart and want all people to live in peace and freedom.

I have said it before when it comes to COVID, they are framing an “us against each other” scenario, where average Americans are hating their own brothers for differing opinions. When in all honesty, it should be all of us against them – them being the powers that be, the “leaders” that lie and misspeak and mislead and coerce and pit us against one another. We should all be against them.

When it comes to the vaccine I have two major issues:

I am not convinced this is a true vaccine or that it works. That is just an opinion, one which I am entitled to under the constitution and able to speak freely in this country. I am also not convinced that the moon landing was real. Am I a denier? No. I said I am not convinced. Traditionally, coronaviruses have not been successfully able to be vaccinated against. And typically, a vaccine would prevent transmission. This appears not to do that. I am unconvinced. I believe there has not been nearly enough testing. I am also extremely suspicious of campaigns to silence anyone with a differing opinion. If the vaccine is a true, real, scientifically safe and valid choice, why all the need to have our text messages spied upon? The campaign against free speech has alarmed me more about the vaccine than the shot itself.

I am deeply troubled by the way this is splitting society. I have friends and family members that have taken the vaccine. I assume (since they never said otherwise) that they did this freely and without coercion, so I support their choice to do so. I also insist that I be respected for not taking the vaccine. I don’t malign these people who made a different choice than me. I don\’t belittle them. I don’t threaten to pull my friendship or affection from them because they made a different choice. However, I have some acquaintances and “friends” that have made such comments to me for choosing not to be vaccinated.

Since I conduct myself with respect and rationality, I expect to be treated in a similar manner. But the media is turning my own friends against me, that I am to blame, that I am irresponsible, that I am unpatriotic because I have so far refused to do this.

My friends, both vaccinated and not, should not be troubled by my vaccination status. They should be troubled by a powerful and well-choreographed campaign to create division. To turn your neighbor into a villain. To make your own child or parent a “bad guy.” We should be horrified, regardless of our stance on the vaccine, by the absolute dismissal of our freedom of speech and our privacy. Social media is being censored. The government is asking our cell phone carriers to report texts they deem dangerous.

What is dangerous is the loss of our freedom. That is not only our American identity but the identity of the human spirit.

In the end, we will have some people vaccinated, and some hopefully with the freedom to choose not to be. But the real divide here is the people who justify the trampling of our freedom. There is something sinister in how this is being set up and playing out. Manufactured hate and fear. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Freedom is beautiful. Freedom in life, freedom in love, freedom to be ourselves. And it is not a privilege bestowed upon us by our leaders. It is an inherent, God-given state that springs from our soul.

That is why we are so drawn to freedom. That is why so many people have sacrificed everything in order to gain it or keep it.

Any type of oppression or suppression violates our spiritual need for freedom. Whether it is that those who love us do not do so with freedom (and if not, how is that even love?), or whether it is another entity that is removing that freedom from us by force, this is in direct contradiction to the condition for which our souls were created.

 A few years ago, when I decided that I wanted to get into better shape, I didn\’t do so with some wild \”thirty-day transformation\” goal in mind. In fact, my goal was literally to reach the highest point of my potential that I could before my 40th birthday. 

I turn 40 in 671 days and I am excited!

I was diagnosed with PCOS and hypothyroidism 12 years ago, after years of wondering what the hell was wrong with me. At that time, I was essentially told this was a lifelong set of conditions and I might as well learn to be as content as possible with my struggle.

That struggle included, among other things, my hair falling out, my nails peeling off, lethargy, difficulty managing my weight, hormonal adult acne that I always cheerfully referred to as \”my beard,\” and patches of skin on my body known as acanthosis nigricans which appeared under my breasts, on the back of my neck and sometimes under my arms. More severely, wild unpredictability in my menstrual cycles, excessively painful PMS, months of anovulation, infertility, and so on.

And this, I was told, was just the new normal for me and I better get used to it.

I\’m adaptable, and I am willing to play the best game I can with the cards I am dealt. I can\’t be blamed for ignorance when I tried to find alternatives to mainstream medicine and everything turned up blank for me. I hustled. I became a cardio junkie. My endocrinologist specifically stated that changes to my diet wouldn\’t help me, so I kept eating as I was, and put myself through 12-15 hours worth of cardio each week.

My cardio endurance was splendid. But my other PCOS issues all remained the same, and I continued to gain weight.

I went from weighing 165lbs in 2009 to 195lbs in 2015/2016. The more weight I gained, the worse my PCOS became, the more lethargic I felt, the harder the cardio became, and the more I worried that this futility would snowball until I was 400lbs by the age of 50! I was insecure about the condition of my skin, I agonized during my horrendous periods. It was awful.

In 2016 I shifted my focus to my nutrition. I found the blog of a woman my age who overcame her PCOS naturally through nutrition and light exercise. I was fascinated. I immediately tried her suggestions. I\’d been beating my head against the wall my way for seven years, I was ready for a new strategy. I immediately began tracking calories, and lowered my overall cardio effort. I ate 80% clean food, in a calorie deficit, and lo and bloody behold, within four months I had lost thirty pounds. And I have kept it off ever since.

(Just a friendly FYI, the law of thermodynamics doesn\’t change just because you have a hormonal imbalance. That is a roadblock, but not a reason to give up. Calorie deficit works even if your hormones are jacked up. Don\’t let anyone tell you otherwise).

In the years since I have switched my fitness strategy from mostly cardio to mostly weight training. And my goal wasn\’t some lame \”hot girl summer\” strategy but rather when I turn 40 I want to be the strongest, healthiest, happiest, purest version of myself. And so, with this in mind, I didn\’t get discouraged and give up when 30 days in I didn\’t have some amazing transformation. 

Change sometimes happens slowly, and that is why mindset is everything. I was patient. I learned more about myself mentally in those first months. I struggle with technique and coordination but I am always hellbent on perfection. I invested countless hours in clinical studies about weight lifting and watching videos and connecting with people more experienced than me to get help. Those first few months didn\’t show much physical change but mentally I was making vast strides.

But here I am, a few years in, and not only am I making progress, but I have essentially cured my PCOS. They will tell you it is incurable. But I have zero clinical symptoms of it, including in my blood work. At the age of 38, I have the healthiest menstrual cycle I\’ve ever had, regular, predictable and my PMS is insignificant compared to how it was. My skin is clear, I have no patches on my skin, my body has changed. I am strong, energetic, empowered – I don\’t feel constantly at war with physical self.

I have taken control of my health. After the doctors told me there was no hope.

And when I turn 40 I\’ll feel accomplished at how far I have come, that at 40 I\’ll be so much better than I was at 20. And I\’ll shift my goals again, long-term goals with a broad purpose, to be vibrant and healthy and strong, to be the best version of myself every day, as each decade passes. Forget hot girl summer, this is confident, disciplined woman lifestyle.

When it comes to \”fitness stuff\” I always feel like an imposter. I\’m not a fitness motivator or influencer – I\’m a nerd with a desk job who writes poetry books as a hobby. But at the end of the day, I have worked very hard. I\’ve put in hours and hours perfecting what I do in my gym, and like the nerd I am, I\’ve been collecting data and tracking progress in a measurable way.

Image: ncnsupps.com

People are so hungry for instant gratification. Technology has trained us that we can have what we want no later than next day shipping. We fall for this in everything. Sacrificing what we really want down the road for some cheaper, faster, less satisfying version of what we can get our hands on today.

You see this all the time in fitness. People that are in a starvation/binge cycle, trying to get results. People dropping money quickly on teas, waist trainers, pills, potions, gimmicks – all in an attempt to achieve results tomorrow. They cannot wait.

People seem to be way more willing to get scammed than they are to put in the work over time.

When I adjusted my program from being predominantly cardio to predominantly (and truthfully lately, almost entirely) weight lifting, I did so with the aim of changing the shape and composition of my body.  That was nearly two years ago.

My approach was definitely the long game. I love the long game. I love the slow and steady. I love the people that say \”if you just stopped eating you\’d hit your goals way faster.\” Everyone had some kind of advice, and nearly all of them were the types scrambling for the easy fixes. 

I took the hard road. I have spent twenty-one months cycling between eating in a calorie deficit or maintenance, but not a surplus. I have stuck to a successful split, lifting progressively, gaining muscle and strength but maintaining my body weight. Losing inches, but gaining on my goals.

And I have done so while getting through the pandemic, going through a divorce, through setbacks, illnesses, minor injuries, work challenges, and momentary emotional frustration that my progress has been slow.

But my progress does show, finally. The result of grinding away, in a sustainable way. I eat a decent diet of food I enjoy, fluctuating between maintenance or a slight 15% calorie deficit – in no way is it starvation. I spend an average of 45 minutes a day in my gym, not hours and hours. I go in with a purpose, I focus, I get it done and I get out. But 45 minutes a day over two years stacks up amazingly well, far better than wishful thinking, magic teas, and giving up after 2 weeks.

In the first picture below, I was about 9 months into my program change. I\’d seen progress. I was happy. I was getting stronger, losing body fat. I was excited. People told me I should seriously restrict my calories. Or worse, that if I didn\’t stop what I was doing, I would look like a man. I did not listen. I stayed the course.

The second photo is a year later, body fat much lower, and so much stronger. Exactly the same body weight, and still feminine. I can deadlift 300+ pounds but I still look like a woman in a dress. And I am lapping the people who tried to sell me on the quick fixes.

And this isn\’t the end. Nowhere close.

Time is going to pass. In a year from now you are either going to be sitting in a stagnant pool of your own regrets, or you are going to be chugging away and making progress. Don\’t be deterred by the long game. Soak it in. Nothing great ever came from a quick fix. Don\’t look for change tomorrow, be willing to be patient.

And you\’ll find it\’s not the outside that sees the most benefit. I see my physical progress, but I have trained hard and with purpose through the most difficult period in my life. My mind is where the most progress is. My confidence comes from having proven what I am capable of. I am courageous, committed, and strong. And that always looks good.

The last eight months have been by far the most challenging of my life. Divorce is so much more than just being sad. It is the dismantling of a life. It is the resignation of some dreams. It is a costly, bureaucratic nightmare. It seems that every event in life that brings the most sadness also brings the most paperwork.

I am a resilient person but the months have taken their toll on me. My energy has been low and my attention span has suffered badly. There was about a six-week period in Q1 where I existed primarily on caffeine all day and melatonin at night. 

But I still showed up. Every single day.

I maintained my training schedule in the gym. I took only my scheduled rests, and sometimes I trained with dread and low energy, but I showed up. I maintained a decent level of nutrition. If anything, I took better care of myself, not worse, knowing how badly my body and my mind needed the consistency.

I worked. Sometimes not as efficiently as I normally do, but I did not miss a single day just because I didn\’t feel like I could do it. I slogged through some days. I had to remind myself to smile sometimes. But I showed up, every day.

I gave everything my best. No excuses. Because I don\’t just keep my commitments on sunny days. I showed up in every storm to train, to perform, and to be the best woman I can be.

Struggle always creates growth, but not if we hide from it. Not if we drown the struggle in our vices. Not if we indulge in hedonistic behaviors to escape the difficulty. We grow when we push through. We grow when we show up.

It isn\’t showing yet on the outside, but from the inside, I can already see myself coming out of this a much stronger, better person than I was before. In a way, I can almost hardly remember who I was before I found out how strong I can be. I\’ve learned so much about myself and life in these eight months. I have refined some of my dreams, I have realized the ways I need to change in order to build the future I want to have. I have raised my expectations, and not just for myself, but for everyone else. I see what I am bringing to the table, and I expect others to match it.

I have always said, in a smug and defiant tone, that I am stronger and more committed and more capable at my worst than most people are at their best. My experience has perhaps taken the smugness off of that statement, I have been humbled by this experience, but it has also proven that the statement is true. I smile as I use the word formidable, knowing that my mom will nod and agree – but if I am this formidable at my worst, then I am so excited to see what I can be at my best going forward.

I read a quote that said, \”make sure everybody in your \’boat\’ is rowing and not drilling holes when you\’re not looking.\” 

My dad always used to say, \”little Annie is a fraidy cat.\” I was not a brave child. This was not helped by his insistence that there were sinister elves living under the stairs!