For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been working up a sweat, but it wasn’t always because I wanted to. (Spoiler alert: I haven’t always appreciated my muscles and curves.)
I was a bold and confident little girl, rarely deterred by hard work or the less glamorous side of sports. My mother says I did backflips off the diving board when I was four years old, right around the time I began my intrepid gymnastics “career.”
I continued gymnastics throughout my childhood, even though I reached the height of 5’7” by age 12, which is super tall by gymnastics standards. I was a full head above all the other girls, and even though my height sometimes gave me confidence, I also didn’t always feel I fit in physically. I was so tall and “sturdy,” as my mom would say, that it would take a little extra oomph to fling my body around the parallel bars. But I certainly had enough of it to do so: I was muscular, powerful, and…
