EP 220: Alannah Yip (Olympian) — Alopecia, Finding Power Beyond Hair Loss, and Her Fight Against Disordered Eating

Alannah Yip is a professional climber from Canada who competed at the Tokyo Olympics. We talked about getting diagnosed with alopecia and the emotional journey of losing her hair, taking back her power, preparing for the Olympic Qualifying Series, lessons from Tokyo, mantras for slab boulders, her involvement with IFSC policies to prevent eating disorders and RED-S, her eating disorder as a teenager, why she plans to retire from comps, rock climbing goals, and much more!

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EP 220: Alannah Yip — Uncut Video!

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Show Notes:

thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/alannah-yip

Nuggets:

(00:00:00) – Intro

(00:02:11) – Alopecia

(00:07:31) – Identity crisis

(00:11:33) – Deciding to shave her head

(00:12:55) – Taking back her power

(00:19:55) – Setting it on the back burner

(00:25:33) – Training camps

(00:30:23) – Alannah’s coaches

(00:33:47) – Training for Paris vs. Tokyo

(00:39:26) – Feelings about Tokyo

(00:42:08) – Lessons from Tokyo

(00:44:06) – Training with other women

(00:46:52) – Working on slab

(00:50:10) – The Olympic Qualifying Series

(00:55:00) – Olympic vs. World Cup lead style

(00:59:27) – Why she quit comps during college

(01:02:10) – Making the jump to World Cups

(01:04:35) – Reexamining her relationship with climbing as an adult

(01:08:54) – Engineering & coaching

(01:11:28) – Excited to retire from comps

(01:18:24) – IFSC policies to prevent eating disorders & RED-S

(01:30:05) – Self-reporting & BMI

(01:35:39) – Alannah’s eating disorder as a teenager

(01:41:53) – The turning point

(01:43:50) – Dealing with hard moments

(01:45:30) – Conflicted feelings about food

(01:48:13) – Alannah’s PSAs

(01:50:15) – My PSA

(01:53:03) – Mutual appreciation

(01:55:05) – What’s next

(01:56:24) – Rapid fire Qs

(02:01:21) – Occasionally on Instagram

(02:04:49) – Wrap up