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Gwenyth: We're inspired by women who have restarted
their lives using health and fitness.
We hope you are, too.
(lively music)
I'm Gwenyth Paltrow.
Tracy: And I'm Tracy Anderson.
Gwenyth: This is The Restart Project.
(calm music)
Kitty: Hi.
Katie: Hi, I'm Katie.
Kitty: Hi, I'm Kitty, nice to meet you.
Katie: Nice to meet you.
Gwenyth: Katie's story is about finding the internal strength
at a very young age to overcome a disease
that cripples many of the people who have it.
Kitty: So, I'm going to set a little contemporary piece
I think will really showcase you and challenge you.
Katie: All right.
Kitty: Okay.
Katie: As a kid, all I wanted to do was be a ballerina.
I was always in dance recitals right in the front,
because I just loved it so much.
It was just my whole life.
Then, when I was 14, I had an episode
where my elbow swelled up and I couldn't bend my joints.
I wasn't even dancing, I just reached for something.
Gwenyth: What did that mean for you,
as a woman who was active and a dancer?
What were your feelings?
Katie: It was scary, because it just started in my elbow,
just like, "Ow, I can't move my elbow,"
and then it moved to the other elbow
and then it moved to my fingers and then it started moving
all over my whole body and it progressively just got worse and worse
until it was at the point where I couldn't do anything.
(calm music)
Of course, my mom's like, "Okay, we're on this."
We went from doctor to doctor to doctor.
Acupuncture, detoxes, I tried everything.
Nobody could figure out what's going on.
I went undiagnosed for two years.
Over those two years, I was just getting worse and worse.
My hands were like claws, I couldn't turn my head,
I couldn't drive, I couldn't brush my hair,
I couldn't do anything because my body was immobile.
I would go to dance class and I would just watch.
You want something so bad and it's literally
right in front of your face and you can't have it.
I was just a teenager, so I couldn't understand
why this was happening to me.
Kitty: Up!
Longer, longer, longer, like a star.
There you go.
That's much better, much better, Katie.
Going on from there, five, six, seven -
Katie: Finally, this last rheumatologist that I went to,
he was like, "I don't know why people haven't
"been able to diagnose you.
"You have rheumatoid arthritis."
Kitty: That's better, nice.
Katie: To finally have a diagnosis was good to know,
but it was also like a death sentence,
because he said, "It's chronic, it's never going to go away.
"There is no cure."
Gwenyth: What was that like for you
to have that talent and know that you were meant
to be a dancer and a choreographer
and be physically unable to execute those things.
Katie: One of the worst things was they were like,
"You're going to have to stop dancing
"and we're going to give you this wheelchair
"because you're probably going to end - ,"
and that's when I was like, "No, no, no, not happening."
If I accept sitting in this wheelchair, I'm accepting
that this disease is in control of me and it's not.
I'm in control of it.
(upbeat music)
The medicine was allowing me to dance,
but it was artificial.
I knew that even though I was dancing,
I had to figure out a way to sustain this for the rest of my life.
I thought if I use my mind to control my body
and say, "You're okay," I'm going to make it
and I'm going to make myself better that way.
From there, I started going to the gym a lot
and changed my diet a little bit to not eat foods
that are inflammatory.
After a while, I got off the steroids
and by watching what I eat, by keeping my body moving,
keeping my body strong and dancing,
I reversed all damage in my joints that I had.
(upbeat music)
Kitty: Now, what I need to see is a little more
pulling something out of the earth.
Pull it out, shoulder, shoulder, right?
Not just a dance move, it's about what you're pulling out of yourself.
The strength you're pulling out.
Gwenyth: You're dancing now.
Katie: I am, I am.
I'm dancing now.
I actually had the opportunity to audition for
one of the biggest dance companies in LA.
Gwenyth: That's wonderful.
Katie: Yeah, it's really awesome.
Gwenyth: And it's incredibly powerful to move out
of a victim mentality into a place of empowerment
and being able to share your triumph with other people.
It's very healing to be able to move
from that consciousness to the other.
Katie: Thank you. (laughs)
I never went in the wheelchair.
I never used it, because I knew that this was
how I was going to live my life.
I was going to show everyone you don't have to accept a death sentence.
I think, in a crazy way, dancing saved my life.
(music continues)
(electric sound)