Random Thoughts on Movement and Living Well

Wow, talk about a respite....it has been nearly a year since my last blog post.  I decided it was time because I had so many thoughts swimming around in my head surrounding National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Recovery is such an enormous and monumental thing that one cannot help but be passionate about it. Even though I have been weight restored for about two years now, I still battle the disorder but to a much lesser extent. As usual, I like to be active during NEDA week as I do feel very strongly about awareness as education is the key to early detection and prevention.   So, here is a quick recap of where I am after starting recovery from Anorexia in February of 2019.  I just spoke about weight restoration...that took a long time, but I am at a healthy weight. I have gained over 30 pounds since 2019. I don't love the way I look but I don't hate myself (I did hate the way I looked a large part of my life). I know that my worth is not connected to the way I loo...

  I have been thinking about time and life and the amount of time that I might have left here on earth a lot lately. Bottom line, I want more! There are reasons why…maybe you have thought about it too in one of these ways? I approach the decade of undeniable senior hood this year. 60 is coming in hot. So, I am putting the breaks on the year in a big way…slow down! It is almost June which means 2024 is nearly half over!...and I get ever closer to 60. Why does 60 seem so big to me? It is plain and simple, because of 70 and 80!   I look at these upcoming decades with the backdrop of my parents; everything they went through after 80 yo, seemed awful to me…. from a physical and mental aspect. So, I think I likely have two decades of quality life at most , God-willing. More often, people around me are passing away. In a most tragic way, I just heard of a friend of a friend who is in hospice (she is not even 40 yo) due to the physical complications of Anorexia. Heartbreaking, and y...

  It is heart month, do something good for your heart.  Let it feel. I don’t know about you, but music conjures up all sorts of feelings for me and it has since I can remember.   When I was a young teen, my bf and I had a few songs that we would intentionally listen to if we needed a good cry. I don’t recall talking about our feelings, but we simply just wanted to cry…. we have to let it out at times, don’t we? My music choice usually reflects my mood. If I am all disordered and stoic, I would listen to music that got me motivated and out of a feeling place. My music choices would help me to block out the bad so to speak. I still have some songs like that, but rather than feeling like they help me to block out life, now I feel like they just remind me of a really tough time in my life and they help me to say yes, I relate to all that. The other day, I was being pushed out of my comfort zone at work and I needed some music to soothe my spirit. I was not near Alexa, s...

  T oday after reading about Billie Eilish’s award for the song, “What was I Made for?”, I decided to put my real work aside and write about my Barbie thoughts which by the way, feels very exposed and scary to me. I agreed to go see Barbie one Friday in late summer. A group of dear friends were going, and I didn’t really want to see the movie, but I went to be with my girls.   As we were partaking in some wine and appetizers before the show, one friend said that she cried a bit in the movie (she was seeing it for the second time). I said rather emphatically and loudly “I am a grown-ass woman, I am not going cry!” I am forever skeptical and rather cynical at times. My expectations for this movie were very low simply because so many people were praising it. If the world likes it, then I won’t and that is how I often think. Much to my chagrin, I had to take those words back…. I am not going to lie or cover it up; Barbie hit me hard and I loved it, and I saw it twice in the th...

  Mercy, how does this happen?   It seems like just yesterday that I started NY eve with Covid and shortly after a new hip (which is now doing great).  And, it has been so many months since I last sat down to do this. To sit and type and write is a very therapeutic action for me and yet so many times when the ideas pop in my already-fully-muddled brain, I don’t sit and type.   What have I been doing, you ask? You might think, she is compulsively or obsessively exercising, hiking, baking, reading, or working. But the answer is when I could have been writing, I was usually stress cleaning, painting walls, and organizing…….for a better part of two years off and on in some shape or way that is what has filled my downtime. I did take two wonderful trips to hike. One in the summer to Bozeman and a quick one to LeConte this fall, picture above. Case in point on the cleaning though, last night before drifting off to sleep, I was “dreaming” about another closet space I coul...

  There seems to be a constant battle between what my heart and emotions desire and what my brain and body says are needed. I see it as a disconnection or short circuit (anorexia diagnosis) in my emotional and physical connection. I constantly willfully choose to ignore what my body wants or needs. It is eating disorder 101 and because I am so advanced in it, it still lingers even this far into recovery. I suppose all of us do this to some degree with something. Yesterday, I posted a rather fun for me to write blog about my hip replacement. This one is more honest and vulnerable because there is more to the story than meets the eye and I have come to the point of wanting to share the difficult or dark-belly-of-the-fish stuff (you know the nasty part that is gross looking) for some unfathomable reason. It just might be to keep myself accountable, I am not sure.    In May 2017, after being sidelined from running for four months after major ankle surgery I went all in on...

  Your doctor will likely tell you that you will swell and have pain. But, is he or she going to tell you that it will hurt to pull up even your underwear after surgery unless they are really big and stretchy? Will he or she tell you that even the loosest pants still may not fit over your giant thigh after surgery?  Keep in mind that often you will go to physical therapy within a day or two after surgery so ladies a dress is out of the question…..best to find you some big shorts girlfriend. The answer is your doctor is not likely to share these things unless you have a very close personal relationship with your surgeon.   Most times, you are fortunate if your surgeon or their team reminds you to take a stool softener several days before surgery (no knock on them, I just have had enough surgeries to tell you that it is a rare thing for them to suggest).   Don’t get me wrong, I had a fabulous surgeon and experience, and they prepared me well, but I did learn some hip...

  As I sit trying a new yogurt flavor, I was struck by a theme I keep thinking about….the new normal. Many people may be feeling a bit like this now that we are in a different phase of covidness. Life is different, right? But, my need for a new normal has nothing to do with Covid. I am eating a different yogurt in my newfound normalness, and it is very different. During my recovery, I used to eat an amazing Greek yogurt that was silky smooth and had more calories than many ice creams. So much has changed and normal is still rather  illusive. My Saturdays are no longer consumed with long runs and recovery. And I cannot bring myself to eat that other yogurt. Looking back, it all seems so long ago now…… In 2019 (that was almost three years ago for those of us all warped by Covid time), it was probably in September (six months before Boston) that my sports medicine doctor said, “you know after Boston, you will have to find a new normal”. I responded with a dejected but honest, “...

  The sky is not the limit Maybe you have big life goals.  How do you push yourself to achieve or do well without losing yourself in the process of mastery? Do you need to have any big goals? How do you know when a goal is within reach? When is it important to see a goal through?  What about those things that get in the way, our own limits? How do we deal with limits and obstacles? These are just a few of the many questions that run wild in my brain and end up looking like a labyrinth going nowhere. Sometimes, writing helps. Other times, I am still in a mental tizzy. Maybe just maybe, you want to look differently. Maybe you want to lose weight. But what if you are right where you need to be?   Maybe your body was not meant to be 5’8’’, xxx pounds. This blog is not about weight but it is about goals and limitations.   I see so many people out there wanting to lose weight or look a certain way; that is not meant for them anymore than me running like Shalane Flan...

  This picture was taken right after crossing the finish line  (Hopes, Wishes)….call it what you want or wish😉 Sometimes needs/wants/dreams can change in unexpected ways, or they can be the same and just perceived or understood differently. I was thinking about how I am finally getting better at doing what I need vs what I want.......for me having a disorder used to mean more exercise, less sleep, and less food. Chaos reigned in my malnourished brain, and I acted only on what my disorder wanted and not what I needed. I had a hard time praying and I felt virtually nothing. In 2019, my anxiety was higher than ever, and I said to a few people that if I were told I had a terminal illness, I would be okay with it. I was ready to die, even though I had everything in my life to live for and I knew it. I knew I was blessed to have all that I had. Even so, in 2020, though I had started the path to recovery, I knew that I had a secret weapon if life got intolerable here on earth…. wh...

WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DO YOU DEFINE YOUR LIFE? Be you, but you may ask, “well, how do I find me?”  Some of us find out early, some of us find out later.  I also firmly believe that we have never arrived when it comes to knowing ourselves. It is an evolution, am I right?   I just recently discovered that I am a cat person. Not exactly what I am getting at but it is something that I just realized in let's just say well-past my wonder years. When I was a young kid I had a progression of career desires….not that career defines who we are but it is maybe our earliest definition of ourselves and I for one, put a lot of value in it.  I wanted to be a stewardess or waitress at first….sorry if those terms are “wrong” but they were the terms used in my childhood.  Then when I was older, I wanted to be a teacher.  A good friend of mine (we were in about the 4 th grade) and I would pretend to have classrooms. In my room, Greg was always getting in trouble, and he...

Words and Hope Today, I came across the below Henri Nouwen quote.  I have been reading his books for a good fifteen years now.  His words move me always in such an inexplicable way. His writings had a great impact on me early in my journey and they continue to pop-up when I least expect them. Like today, when I really needed a boost to keep my hope alive; I came across part of this quote.  It is the amazing reminder that even in the midst of darkness, hope and God are with us even in the discomfort even if we do not realize it. “Hope is not dependent on peace in the land, justice in the world, and success in the business. Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God’s guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness. No one can truly say with certainty where he or she will be ten or twenty years from now. You do not know if you will be free or i...