Christine D'Ercole: “My Body Was Built For This!”
Christine D’Ercole, Peloton mindset master extraordinaire
You know her and you love her: . Christine was actually my first Peloton instructor and her ability to talk to me like I was the only person in the room resonated deeply. When we talked on Women Physician’s Day, I couldn’t wait to hear her amazing story.
When Christine was a little girl, she wanted to be a ballerina. But they wouldn’t put her in any shows with a short tutu as the costume. She was told she was a good dancer, but wouldn’t get a part if she couldn’t lose weight in a matter of weeks. At 12 year old, Christine developed an incredibly dysmorphic sense of self. She carried this feeling of being unworthy for a long time.
Finally, after going to as many means possible to make herself smaller - including self-harm and eating disorders - Christine did a lot of therapy and moved on to acting. She got into Carnegie Mellon’s theatre program and took it as a sign that acting was the right track for her. Then she came across an audition sheet that said she was “a little heavy in the thigh.” This one comment threw her into a tailspin.
Eventually, Christine graduated from Carnegie Mellon and moved to New York. She became a bike messenger because she needed a job to do on the side while auditioning with bike grease under her fingernails. It was during that time that Christine learned - when racing her co-workers in Central Park - that she was a talented cycler and should think about racing.
Christine got curious and dove heavily into cycling. She was doing national competitions, racing for Nautica, and being invited to teams. So she went back to her acting agent and they agreed that this was her time to pursue cycling, not acting. She loved that bike racing had nothing to do with what she looked like. She won races because of decisions she made and the strength she trained for. Discovering that she could be successful because of herself, not somebody else’s opinion of her, was an essential shift.
She’d been so frustrated and so tired of rejection, and Christine naturally moved toward what made her feel good. So Christine said yes to the team and started to race all over the country.
Then she found she was pregnant. She stopped racing. And she gained a lot of weight. Christine had to find a way to be okay in her new body after finally getting to a place of being proud of it. She needed to feel empowered again. So Christine auditioned to be a plus-sized model. She was told she wasn’t big enough as she was, but she could work the fall and winter lines if she wore pads that took her from a size 18 to a 22. So that’s what she did.
In that job, Christine was exercising her ability to be proud of herself when she looked at herself in the mirror. It was a fake it until you make it sort of thing. And eventually, when she looked at herself in the mirror, Christine’s inner voice told her to get back on her bike, forget all of the stuff that had anything to do with others’ opinions of her, and see what she was capable of. She heard herself loud and clear. It was a directive. She finished that day of work and was done.
That year, Christine got a Christmas present: a one-month membership to a gym. So she went and took a spin class. And the class was terrible. The instructor was mean and judgy. Christine knew it could’ve been an amazing experience. She knew that if she were the instructor, Christine would put on beautiful music, helping people want to cross the finish line instead of berating them. So within a month, Christine got certified to teach spin classes.
Not only was Christine empowered by what she was capable of as a cyclist, but she was also on a stage, telling a story, and moving to music - all of the things she’d ever been passionate about. She discovered that all of this was about storytelling, whether through movement in dance, acting in words, or racing on bikes. She realized she was a storyteller using a vehicle of a stationary bicycle to take people somewhere rather than words.
The messaging and images in our culture telling us we have to look a certain way to be loved and accepted are so loud, making us feel that if we don’t look that way, we should just give up. But Christine believes that we should all be able to walk around naked and proud instead of hiding our bums with our shirts.
Self-acceptance is still a journey for Christine. She still has bad days. But getting on that bike and speaking to people is cathartic and therapeutic. It’s all about how we talk to ourselves. It’s about finding where we are now and what we can do about it, giving ourselves permission to think of what we can do without boundaries.
Now, approaching 50, Christine realizes that the moments of change in our lives are soft, not hard, sharp angles. It’s a collection of moments that leads us to growth. She hasn’t achieved a perfect mindset. She still has to tell herself in the mirror that she’s bigger than a small pair of pants. And that’s part of the journey.
If you are looking to start your own body journey, I’d recommend. you check out my YouTube page:
If you want to follow Christine, you can find her on Instagram or her website.