I’m still swimming because I believe I have yet to swim my fastest race. My performance at Rio 2016 was humiliating. I flopped at the biggest sporting event in the world, and I for one would like a do-over.
2015 was a lightening year for my swimming career, and all was working extremely well for me leading up to 2016 before I got sick. “Sick” is an understatement, I got incredibly ill. My issues were gastrointestinal and my digestive system completely gave up on me. I knew something was very wrong with my body, but no doctors were ever able to diagnose my pain and nobody could tell what was wrong with me.
What was supposed to be the most exciting time of my life, training for something I’d worked my entire life for, had turned into a living and walking nightmare. I hate that I’m even sharing this with you because it paints me as such a victim, and maybe that’s why I’ve gone so long without sharing this part of my story, because I want to remain seen as a strong and resilient person, but this is honestly what happened.
Training for an Olympics is no joke, it can be very serious and very stressful. My body giving up on me added a whole new layer of complications to the training process. I would cry driving to swim practice. I would cry driving home from swim practice. I would cry because I couldn’t even finish swim practices. I would cry out of frustration for falling short of my full potential, not once or twice a week, but every single day. I would cry out of frustration with a lack of understanding, truly understanding, what was happening to me and my body. I would cry because I knew something was incredibly wrong, very very wrong, but everybody around me was saying I was fine.
I was repeatedly told by many qualified professionals that nothing was wrong with me, and without a diagnosis to fix the problem, an entire new layer of misery was added to the training process.
This isn’t how training for an Olympic games race is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be serious, yes, but more importantly than that, it’s supposed to be fun, but I was having no fun at all. It was one of the darkest and most depressing times of my life and I’m so glad and grateful that it’s all behind me.
Anyway, long story long, I eventually got fixed by an acupuncturist, but by this late stage of the game it was May, and I only had 2 months left to prepare for the Olympics. I had run out of time and that was why my race was so abysmal: a lack of preparation due to dysfunctional bowels.
Fast-forward 3 years later, I still haven’t found a doctor that could properly diagnose and fix me, so I did what all champions do, I found ways to fix myself. My coach at the Rio Olympics, Sandra Burrow always told me: “A winner finds a way, and a loser makes excuses,” that perfectly sums up the equation of sports. I found a way to fix myself through alternative medicine, but I also got a lot of help along the way. I’d like to give a special shout out to Daniele Albert, my former trainer at Texas A&M, whom was a supreme source of information on how to heal my gut through food. I now see food as a life source, as medicine, and it taught me how to listen to my body after every meal so I can learn how to get to a place of everyday optimal health.
It wasn’t an easy journey, one that took years, tons of research, reading scholarly sources, venturing into the health and wellness blogs, and immense amounts of trial and error, but I finally fixed myself and I’m never looking back.
A big part of why I want to do Tokyo 2020 is that I’d like to help people who are living or who have lived through similar experiences like I did leading up to Rio 2016. I see myself as a valuable resource of information for people who want to get their gut health back in check. Going through the misery and pain of my past gut health issues isn’t going to be all for nothing, my purpose this time round is to pay it forward and help others who are living through these digestive issues. I want to share with the world how I fixed my gut health issues, reclaimed my life and vitality, and allow people to follow me on the Tokyo 2020 journey along the way.
I’m going to swim fast next year, I can feel it. I hope you can all accept my invitation to join me on this exciting journey and incorporate some healthy lifestyle changes into your daily routines as well!
Peace and blessings,
Amini