Notorious NYCK Writes about the Evils of Exercise Excess for the December Issue of Town & Country

I first got bit by the exercise bug at 31 when I started working with a trainer for a fitness article I wrote for YM magazine. The story was called “Countdown to a Prom-Perfect Body,” which in retrospect is about the meanest and most sadistic promise you can make to anyone, especially to a teenage girl, since the end goal is impossible to achieve. But no matter, I gave it my all—despite the fact I hadn’t been to a prom or thought about one for over a decade. This trainer, an ex-marine, had a take-no-prisoners attitude toward fitness and put me on an intense six-day-a-week regimen of high-intensity interval cardio sessions alternating with two hours of brutal weight training. In three months I lost 13 pounds and actually liked my body for the first time ever. True, I missed the train nearly every day because my quadriceps screamed “NO!” as I tried to run down the hill to catch it. But I had abs…and I whittled myself down from a size 6 to a 2 (and briefly even a 0). Better still was how strong I felt after those years of being picked last for gym class and made fun of for being a total spaz. I did push-ups (the boys kind), pull-ups and at 100 pounds I could bench my own weight. I’ll just remind everyone here that I stand only 4’11”, so weighing 100 pounds wasn’t that scary…OK maybe a little.

Like a budding exercise-bulemic, I decided that if heavy duty training was good, more was better. So I kept at it seven days a week for two hours a stretch,even working with a posse of three different trainers for a few years. But I didn’t become an Olympian or a supermodel. After eight or years of going at it full throttle, I partially tore both rotator cuffs, developed arthritis in my feet and was perpetually exhausted and out of sorts all the time. I was also no closer to having my dream body.  The scale mysteriously started creeping upward and my clothes started getting tight.  But I kept right on going. I just needed a little more time and effort to achieve fitness nirvana, I “reasoned” with myself .

Until I woke up one morning with back spasms so excruciating I ended up in the emergency room. They were payback for pursuing my regular exercise routine, against my chiropractor’s advice, after I fell on a hike in Hawaii and injured my sacrum. For two months I could only take short walks interspersed with bed rest. I was petrified that “laying around” would make me “huge” and “squishy”, but oddly enough, it had the exact opposite effect, which you can read about in this month’s issue of Town & Country. Check out  http://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/beauty-products/working-out-exercise-overdrive

Ciao for now my friends. Stay happy and healthy.