I’ve completely transformed throughout the last year, and I have the trail to thank for my progress. Following two thru-hikes of the Trans-Catalina Trail on Santa Catalina Island in Southern California, I connected the dots between what was happening in my body and mind. Nature has a way of making that happen.
My first backpacking trip in 2016 was a wakeup call. In an REI dressing room, as I squeezed into the biggest sizes they offered—16 and XL, at the time—I didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. I was the biggest I’d ever been. It felt like just yesterday I’d been in the best shape of my life on the women’s rowing team at the University of Kansas. Who was this woman?
Instead of shaming myself, I asked, “Girl, how did we get here?” I didn’t realize a trail held—or even could hold—the answers for me. But it did. Following that dressing room moment, on my first Trans-Catalina Trail journey, I learned two essential lessons: I can do hard things, and I love my body.
Months later, in September 2017, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I knew nothing of the disease, only the stigma. Looking back, I know diabetes is the best thing that ever happened to me. I chose love for myself over the fear that stigma carries. I learned the four variables that affect my blood sugar—food, exercise, medication and stress—and how to manage them. I started walking 30 to 45 minutes every morning. I took my pills as prescribed. I learned how to nourish myself all over again.
I saw physical results almost immediately, but my blood sugar was still elevated. I couldn’t wrap my head around the weight that was melting off. After several dramatic chunks of weight loss, I started connecting the dots.
I lost the first 15 pounds by doing what the doctor ordered. Over Thanksgiving, my family and I healed a bunch of emotional wounds, and I lost 15 pounds between Thanksgiving and my sister’s wedding on New Year’s Eve.
I realized my near-constant rumination was mainly due to childhood interactions with my sister. I lost another 10 pounds between her wedding and February 2018. In an attempt to get my career aligned with my values, I quit a stressful agency job in February to join a friend’s startup. I lost another 10 pounds.
Working at the startup, I was at risk of reversing all the progress I’d made in managing my disease. I was working 16-20-hour days to get a big order out, having near-daily panic attacks and my blood sugar readings were increasing to levels I hadn’t seen since I was first diagnosed. I quit the startup and lost another 10 pounds.
With that, everything seemingly clicked. As I was addressing my mental health, my physical health followed. On a training hike, I realized I’d replaced eating and drinking my feelings with hiking my feelings. Never one to be satisfied with just one answer, I had to get to the root of my coping mechanisms.
Two weeks after quitting my job at the startup, I embarked on my second thru-hike of the Trans-Catalina Trail. Throughout that trip, I felt on top of the world. On the trail, my blood sugar readings were the best they’d been since my diagnosis. As we descended to the last campground of the hike, I realized the last time I’d felt that good physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually was before I’d survived a sexual assault 12 years prior.
After that second thru-hike, it was clear to me my diabetes was a physical manifestation of my unresolved trauma. The second I healed the mental wound, my physical health improved—every single time.
Since that revelation, my life has been a whirlwind of positivity, healing, connecting more dots and recreating myself. I’m now defining and designing my life by my standards. I’m a work in progress. I manage my diabetes through diet and exercise, and I’m entirely off medications. I’m hiking my feelings. I’m reclaiming my body. I managed to recreate myself outside, and that’s what this next chapter of my life is all about: sharing my story, bringing folks to the great outdoors in a judgment-free zone and helping people find power in their stories on the trail.
This story first appeared in RANGE Magazine Issue 10, which is dedicated to the idea of progress. Get your hands on a copy HERE.
XX Sydney Williams