Why Weight?

So over the past few days or week or whatever I’ve been rather depressed/worried because I feel like I have regressed, health-wise. My joints are painful, my muscles ache, and I have days when I am oh-so-tired, even though I am getting plenty of sleep. (I have learned that there’s a difference between exercise-related aches and pains and Lyme-related aches and pains.) Did I speak too soon? Did the Lyme treatment fail? Or does the way I feel have to do with the fact that I am ridding my body of Epstein-Barr (EB) virus. Or maybe it’s due to the potential thyroid/hormone/adrenal issues.

I am well aware that chronic Lyme causes symptoms and illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, “brain fog,” and depression. Maybe I am not cured. I know that people who have chronic Lyme do not always respond to the traditional (two- to four-week) antibiotic treatment. I know that many doctors do not/will not “recognize” that chronic Lyme exists (and the traditional tests used to detect Lyme are often “false negative” ESPECIALLY in people who have had Lyme for a long time). I know that there are doctors (referred to as Lyme-Literate MDs or LLMDs) who do recognize chronic Lyme and who recommend long stints (like up to a year) of antibiotic treatment. So what do I do now?

I have to admit that there’s still a part of me that doesn’t believe I had/have Lyme because it wasn’t diagnosed “traditionally.” Do I trust what my naturopath says or do I go elsewhere and get more tests and try other treatment? Should I consult my regular doctor or see a LLMD?

Yesterday I sat quietly and thought things over (after having talked or corresponded with several people I know who have dealt with Lyme in various ways). I have decided for now not to worry it. I will continue to finish out my EB treatment. I will address any thyroid/hormone/adrenal issues once the results of saliva and other blood work is in. And in a month I will ask my naturopath to order me another CD57 test to see where my natural killer cells are (the CD57 test is the not-yet-approved way to detect Lyme disease). If there’s an improvement and my numbers are in the “okay” range, I will trust that the homeopathic remedy worked. I will continue to monitor how I feel and maybe do another round of the remedy. If my numbers have not improved, I will make an appointment with a LLMD and consider long-term antibiotic treatment.

In the meantime the lesson has been driven home once again: the key to everything is acceptance of what is. And it takes constant practice.

This entry has been posted as part of Prevention Not Prescriptions Tuesdays hosted by The Kathleen Show.

My blood and saliva has been taken off to the lab to be tested and I sort of feel like everything is on hold until I get the results, meet with my doctor, and get my marching orders.

So in the meantime I am taking an idea from Mary at A Merry Life (if you don’t read her blog, you should!) and I am going to take requests. Ask me anything related to any aspect of this journey to living lighter!! I’ve wanted my blog to become more interactive, so I figure this is a good way to do it!

Her first request to was name five foods she used to love, five foods she now loves, and five foods she still can’t stand. She suggested that others do the same, so without further ado…

FIVE FOODS I USED TO LOVE
Cold cereal: this isn’t something I hate now, but cold cereal seems like a pretty useless food.

Bread: don’t get me wrong, I still like bread but it’s not something I want to eat as much as I used to…I don’t love it. I don’t even have it everyday but there used to be a time when I couldn’t imagine not having it several times a day

Regular yogurt: compared to Greek-style yogurt, regular yogurt now tastes watery and bland to me.

Foods with “flavor” added: “cool ranch” or “chipotle barbeque” or “white chocolate raspberry.” I used to think foods like this were fun, but now I can’t stand the artificial/salty/chemically taste! It’s overwhelming to me. If I want the “flavor” I’ll eat the real thing!

Cheese: again, this isn’t something I hate now, but my desire for cheese has gone away. I used to want to add it to many dishes but a lot of the time I forget! I’ve had to throw out a lot of cheese lately because it went bad!

FIVE FOODS I LOVE NOW
Asparagus: I didn’t not like asparagus before, but for some reason I just can’t get enough of it now

Plain, non-fat Greek-style yogurt: mixed with berries or fresh peaches and a few chopped walnuts. Perfection!

Cabbage: cooked or raw, green or red, I love it all.

Avocado: I mix a little in with my protein shake and it adds some of the really good fat and makes the shake taste like chocolate or vanilla mousse!

Nut butters other than peanut butter: I still enjoy peanut butter (but only the natural kind with nothing added) but find that almond, walnut and cashew butters pack a nice nutritional punch and provide a nice alternative.

FIVE FOODS I STILL CAN’T STAND
Beans, peas (except for green string beans): I wish I could love all the beans and legumes because I know they are so good for us, but I just can’t get past the texture. They make me gag.

Liver: I don’t think this requires an explanation

Mashed potatoes: a lot of people think I am weird because I don’t like mashed potatoes. Again, it’s a texture thing.

Raw mushrooms: crumbly and rubbery

Spinach salad: I love love love spinach that has been slightly wilted or when raw spinach leaves are chopped up a bit and included with other items, but plain raw spinach (even with a little dressing)? Nope.

So what about you? How have your tastes changed?

My meeting with Dr. Monaco was at once wonderful and terrifying. He pretty much confirmed (as much as can without the results of blood work and saliva tests) that I am estrogen dominant and that my progesterone is probably way too low, that my thyroid is just enough out of whack to be causing certain symptoms, and that my cortisol levels are also probably out of whack.

I am worried about developing heart disease (it runs on both sides of my family) and already have a couple of risk factors that I know about. The good news is that I have some really good habits that can counter-act heart disease, but there is more I can do! All of this can and will be addressed. But some of the old (family) tapes have playing in my head and that’s why it’s terrifying for me. Illness of any sort was never dealt with in a healthy way (pun not intended LOL) and so I don’t know how to be anything other than scared or guilty. But I am learning and I am letting go.

Dr. Monaco has written a fascinating article about heart disease and the use of statin drugs and I guess that’s kind of what scares me…I’ve been on Lipitor for ~10 years and in the end, it’s really not the be-all and end-all.

Over the weekend I will be doing the saliva test, which involves filling four vials with saliva before breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime. As I was filling out the symptom check-list for the saliva test, I was like “oh…so that’s why I feel this way.” I will most likely be prescribed a bioidentical progesterone cream that has a slew of benefits, including lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, and acting as a natural anti-depressant and anti-anxiety agent. And lord knows my anxiety has been through the roof lately.

I’ll also be taking my temperature first thing in the morning (a lower than normal temp upon waking can indicate a thyroid issue). And on Monday I will be getting a whole slew of blood work done, which will show my real risk for heart disease, as well as some other things. :::gulp:::

BEFORE: a year ago this week I went for my annual physical. I sat in the exam room sobbing to my doctor. I had just come from a Living Lighter class and had gained nearly three pounds that week. I was devastated. Do you remember?

AFTER: yesterday I went in for my annual physical weighing about the same as I did last year, but also excited about the path I am on towards better health. I finally get it – “it” being that there’s no such thing as a “perfect body” and that I don’t have to have one in order to be truly content with my life. And best of all, I have actually achieved a goal I set for myself last year: acceptance.

Maybe this isn’t the kind of “before” and “after” that sells magazines and boosts television ratings, but it should. It’s not the kind of “before” and “after” that gets lots of people following a blog, either, but that was never my intention. My intention is to do the emotional work that supports a healthy letting go of weight, no matter how long it takes.

Even though I don’t write about pounds or inches lost, post whether I’ve been “good” or “bad”, or log the number of minutes I have exercised, I have certainly not given up trying to reduce my weight or my waist size. I still want to be the best and healthiest me I can be! I have believed, from the very beginning, that letting go of weight was never meant to be a struggle…that if I could just get my head in the right place, then my health would fall into place. And that’s definitely been a part of it. The other part has been a willingness to examine my health in a way I have never done before. That is why I am seeing a naturopathic physician, in addition to my regular doctor.

And so here’s update on what’s going on with me physically:

• I finished my treatment for Lyme disease in January. My knees still feel great!!
• I am currently in the middle of treatment to rid my body of Epstein-Barr virus.
• My naturopath has recently changed my homeopathic remedy, as she believes my “health state” has changed a bit.
• My body and mind are adjusting to the homeopathic healing process, which sometimes makes me feel worse, but I knew going into this that I would most likely feel worse before I feel better.
• That said, I still have some pent up anxiety and emotion over some of the changes my body is going through, even though I know that in the long run, it’s good for me.
• Tomorrow I am going to see a doctor that specializes in hormone balancing (will provide an update when I can)
• My sugar cravings are greatly reduced.
• I’m not drinking wine and I am not missing it as much as I was just a week or so ago.
• I have NO desire to binge.
• I’ve lost two inches from my waist.
• I am less bloated.
• I feel in control.
• I am happy.

And those things are worth A LOT to me.

I’d like to close with a link to an excellent blog written by Michelle Lelwica, who is associate professor in the Religion Department at Concordia University and author of The Religion of Thinness. She blogs for the Huffington Post.

Her most recent blog post is entitled “When Already-Skinny Women Obsess About Thinness: Time For A Little Soul-Searching” and in it she asks readers to ask themselves some questions like “What am I really looking for when I yearn and strive for a better body?” and “What does the weight I wish to lose really represent?” She suggests that women equate thinness with happiness and that the two have become so intertwined that it’s hard to imagine one without the other. I certainly did, and sometimes still do!

She writes: “If beneath the pursuit of this physical ideal, there is an even deeper quest to be happy, no wonder many women feel they can never be thin enough. In fact, this yearning to be happy is a sign of our vitality. The problem is that in the course of the past several decades (particularly in the U.S. and other affluent nations and especially for women), the happiness we crave has come to be associated with a narrow but ubiquitous image of physical beauty: the fat-free female figure.”

Pay special attention to the six simple strategies for cultivating real happiness that she includes at the end of her piece.

This entry has been posted as part of Prevention Not Prescriptions Tuesdays hosted by The Kathleen Show.

Once upon a time there was a woman who found it difficult to do much of anything without first asking her friends, her mother, her husband, for advice. She didn’t trust herself to make decisions and was in constant need of input, approval and reassurance.

Then one day she made a choice that changed her life – a choice that freed her to just go ahead and do things without needing advice and approval and allowed to see herself in a whole new way.

Okay, enough of the third-person nonsense. I am that woman.

Here’s the back-story:

I spent many years as a writer/reporter for various plastics industry trade publications, mostly for publishing companies and trade associations. I enjoyed this work because I was able to travel extensively throughout the United States and Europe. It was rather glamorous and at a time when air travel was far more civilized than it is today.

I also liked it because when someone asked what I did for a living, I could reply, “I am a writer.” You see, I had wanted to be a writer since I was in seventh grade. And when I went to college, I went with the intention of becoming a writer. I didn’t have specific plans, although the idea of being a foreign correspondent was attractive. I imagined that I’d start at a newspaper. I also thought I might write a novel. Or a children’s book.

But here’s what happened instead. A friend who’d graduated a semester early got a job at a public relations agency in New York City. She told me that they had plenty of openings for assistant-type jobs and that it was a great way to break into PR. So off I went, with no clue and no plan. I hated PR. After a year or so I left and got a job as an editorial assistant at a small magazine publishing company that served the model airplane market. Again, I had no real plan or goal, I wanted to write.

About a year later, I discovered plastics. I went to work for a magazine published by the Society of Plastics Engineers and the rest is history. All in all, I spent 17 years in plastics and eventually became Editor-In-Chief of one publication.

And then it was over. The magazine was sold to a large corporation in California and the new owners didn’t want me. I casted about, thinking that one of the other magazines might hire me, or at least use me as a contributor on a freelance basis. I even tried to offer my services to local plastics processors and equipment manufacturers. Those efforts went nowhere.

And here’s where I acknowledge (in hindsight) that I had absolutely no confidence in myself in those 17 years as a reporter, writer or editor. And I think everyone sensed it. And so I told myself that I’d never write again. That was in 2003.

I went to work for a local Borders bookstore that opened in August of 2003. After six months as a bookseller, I was asked to become the Corporate Sales Rep and did very well, considering that “sales” was something I thought I hated! Through that position, I found myself out and about in the community, attending networking events and meeting everyone from small business owners to execs and managers at larger companies. I found myself talking more about my previous career and was often encouraged to start freelancing.

So I quit the Corporate Sales Rep position, started working part time in the stock room, and focused on freelancing. I joined the local Chamber of Commerce (which resulted in a lot of business-to-business work) and pitched a story idea to the editor of Grace magazine. The editor wasn’t interested in the idea I had at the time but said she had another story and would I take it? I jumped at it of course, but at the same time said to myself, “are you crazy?” In the back of my mind I thought, “I didn’t know how to write about anything other than plastics, and even that I didn’t do very well.”

The assignment was simple: write about how getting clothes altered to fit well makes all the difference in how you feel about yourself. I did the interviews and research and wrote the article. And here’s where that all-important life-changing decision came in: I didn’t ask any of my friends or family to read the article before I submitted it. This was a conscious, premeditated decision. When I hit “send” on the email to submit the article I felt both scared to death AND triumphant! Somehow I knew, deep down inside, that it was time for me to trust that I had done a good job and that I didn’t need anyone else’s approval or reassurance.

The “results” of this one moment have been unfolding ever since. But it’s not like I went from being one way (needing constant reassurance and approval) to being the opposite (100% confident all the time). I still have doubtful moments. There are times when I can’t believe that people think I am talented or that I have something valuable to offer.

I have recently pondered the fact that I was never cut out to be a journalist. And then I took one of those silly quizzes on Facebook (Are You Right-Brained or Left-Brained?) and saw that one of the questions lumped “journalist” in with such left-brained occupations as engineer, doctor, and accountant, I thought about all those years I spent trying to force myself into a more left-brained kind of career because it involved writing.

As it turns out, I am most definitely right-brained. After I posted the results, the comments that followed were along the lines of: “You needed to take this test?” and “well, duh!” I responded that while it may come as a surprise, I didn’t realize this about myself until fairly recently. And actually, until that moment, I don’t think I had given myself permission to embrace this about myself. I knew it, but I didn’t KNOW it.

Before, I didn’t really believe that I was a writer and that’s because I wasn’t doing the kind of writing that suits me or plays to my strengths. Now I am most definitely a writer. That’s who I am at my core.

And so what does all of this have to do with living lighter? Writing on my terms and being confident in myself fills up that empty place that I have often turned to food to fill. I can see how my confidence in myself a writer mirrors my confidence in my body and vice versa. At one time I thought that weight loss was the key to all happiness and confidence but it wasn’t until I started really writing for myself (about a year ago) that I started to see that it wasn’t. That said, writing for myself helps me to better love myself and that translates to making better choices for my health.

I’ve been stewing over something for a few weeks now and haven’t known how to talk about it “out loud,” so I’ll just throw it out there. For some reason wine no longer agrees with me. Meaning, if I have a glass, I later wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I’m gonna hurl (so far, I haven’t actually thrown up but I get chills, sweats, and that uneasy feeling). And if you read my “What Am I Really Afraid Of” blog post, you know that, next to someone ELSE being nauseated, my biggest fear is being nauseated myself! I’m talking heart-pounding panic attacks here.

This has happened on three separate occasions in the past two months. It doesn’t happen if I don’t drink wine. And so I haven’t been. The only thing I can connect this reaction to is the fact that I’ve been undergoing treatment for Lyme disease and Epstein-Barr virus so perhaps it’s the medications I was (and currently am) taking. Maybe it’s hormonal.

The only other time I’ve had this reaction to wine was when flying. The first time it happened (I’d had one glass), I thought it was just a fluke. When it happened a second time (two glasses), I decided I’d never drink on a plane again.

Now, you also may remember that I’ve struggled with a wine habit. What bothered me most were the empty calories because more often than not, it was the glass(es) of wine that would be put me over “the limit” on calories, not to mention making me hungrier and less apt to care about mindless snacking in the evening.

But now here I am, scared to drink wine. You’d think I’d be grateful but I am, in fact, pissed and resentful. Something that I used to enjoy has been made scary and highly unpleasant. On an intellectual level I know it’s better for me that I don’t drink wine, but I feel like a child who’s favorite toy has been taken away. It’s not fair.

Nothing scares me more than knowing someone else feels nauseated. If I am in the same room with that person, I leave and get as far away as possible. I am serious. I get weak in the knees, I feel drained of blood, my heart pounds, I breathe shallowly, and all I want to do is run away! Far away! Sometimes just hearing (or reading) that someone else feels sick, or has already been sick, is enough to trigger my anxiety.

If my husband Tim has a headache, I ask him if he’s nauseated. If he says he feels like he’s coming down with something, I ask if it’s his stomach. I fear that he’ll lie to me in order to keep my anxiety at bay and so I keep asking. Lately I’ve been telling him to make sure he washes his hands a lot. I know it’s annoying but I can’t seem to control myself.

I remember a road trip we once took from Phoenix, AZ, to Fort Collins, CO (this was back around 1998 or so). The plan was to drive through the Rockies. The first night we stopped in Flagstaff, AZ, and were having dinner out. We got into a conversation with some folks who asked us where we were from and where we were going. When we mentioned the Rockies, one guy said, “watch out for altitude sickness.” I said, “what’s that?” and he replied that it involved headaches, nausea, and vomiting. Wonderful. So I immediately called my friend who grew up in Colorado and asked her how to combat altitude sickness. She told me to stay hydrated and take Tylenol.

First thing the next morning we stopped at the store, stocked up on bottled water, and I made sure we had plenty of Tylenol. I forced Tim to drink a bottle of water right then and there. As we drove and got higher into the mountains, I constantly checked with him to make sure he felt okay. I monitored myself, as well. After several hours of driving at 10,000+ feet and realizing that nothing bad was happening, I was able to relax a little.

Tim and I have told and recalled this story many times and we always get a chuckle, and I think, “How silly was I?” But I am dead serious when I say that my fear was very real.

There have been a number of similar incidents over the years. And then there are the times that Tim has actually gotten sick (maybe three times in the 12 years we’ve been married). One of these times we were in Las Vegas and ate something that didn’t agree with him. And we were in a hotel room and it was the middle of the night, and there really wasn’t anywhere I could go. And the world did not come to end. I was not struck dead. The earth did not open up and swallow me whole.

And even though I logically know that someone throwing up is no real threat to me, my anxiety is only getting worse. I have come to fear any sort of public transportation: airplanes, buses, and ferries (especially high-speed ferries that only have one small outdoor deck). Trains not so much. Maybe it’s from all those years of commuting to New York City on Metro-North.

It hasn’t always been this way…and so far, it hasn’t really stopped me from doing anything important, but in the past couple of months I have started to think that it actually might. I don’t like the idea of having a panic attack; I don’t like the idea of having to continually check to make sure no one around me is feeling ill. I hate to think that I might end up being afraid to leave my house. I am certainly not even close to that point, but sometimes, when I let my anxiety feed on itself, I can see that happening.

But recently I got an unexpected glimmer of hope through a conversation with a woman named Emrys Tetu, whom I met through a small networking group. Emrys is a health counselor and she’s had some anxieties of her own. As we talked, she picked up on the fact that just talking about it was starting to trigger me.

She told me that the greatest help she got was through cognitive behavioral therapy and that while it was effective, it was also very hard. She said that part of her own breakthrough involved going through the motions of a full-blown anxiety attack and asking herself what’s the worst that can happen? And then finally just accepting that yes, the “worst” might happen.

She also talked about how the objects or situations that trigger anxiety come to represent all the other things in our lives (and in the world) over which we have no control. But if we allowed ourselves to become anxious over all of those things than we’d truly become incapacitated. And so we transfer our worries and anxieties onto one thing. And that one thing for me is the fear of other people vomiting, and a close second is the fear of vomiting myself. Emrys also said that once we understand this concept of transference, we’re able to have a certain amount of sympathy for the object of our anxiety because we know that it isn’t their (or its) fault.

Just talking about all of this brought me to tears several times. I was truly frightened. Just thinking about it now as I write this brings me to tears. I have always prided myself on being able to do the hard work, and to go to those painful places, but this is something else completely. While I want to “get over it” I am afraid of the process that will allow me to do so. I know that in some cases, therapists believe that gradual exposure to the actual, feared object or situation is the key. I am not sure I can do that.

I know all of this has to do with “control issues.” I don’t consider myself a “control freak” in general, but when it comes to this particular subject, I feel an incredible need for control. And the fact is, someone who has a stomach bug or food poisoning “loses control” and with good reason! He or she needs to get rid of the bug and vomiting is the most efficient way to do so. I also know that there must be something else driving this anxiety because the level of fear I feel is irrational. Do I want to know what it is?

This entry has been posted as part of Prevention Not Prescriptions Tuesdays hosted by The Kathleen Show.

I have come to believe that it is the intention with which we eat something that matters most. Eating out of guilt, rebellion, desperation, or any other so-called “negative” emotion will almost always have a negative impact. You might argue that eating joyfully can also have a negative impact, and that’s true, but when I really examine why I am eating and what I am eating as a result, then joyful eating is never bad.

The preceding thoughts came to me when I read “Sneaking! Airing My Dirty Laundry,” a post on the blog “Man Meets Scale” by David Kirchhoff, the CEO of Weight Watchers International. In it he wrote: “A few weeks ago, my wife and I were winding down in the middle of the week after a typically long and busy day. She announced that she was going upstairs and I indicated that I would be up in just a little bit. After I heard her go upstairs, my vision got fuzzy and I headed over to the freezer in a somewhat frenzied state. See, I knew there was ice cream in them thar hills. I pulled out a spoon like a trust six-shooter, and dug deep into the vat of Eddy’s (the fact that it was “low fat” was hardly the point). I was a fast and steady gunslinger, as I quickly brought spoon to mouth. Then my wife walked into the kitchen. Ooops. As she put it, I looked remarkably like a seven-year-old boy caught completely red-handed. Red-faced too. Busted!!!”

He then went on to talk about how he used to sneak food as a child and boy did that bring a rush of emotions and memories!

I am a food sneaker from way back and I think I did it out of rebellion. Like many children, I was sometimes forced to eat foods I hated, even if it meant eating them cold for breakfast the next day, or eating what I had tried to swallow and gagged up. To this day, I can’t eat foods with a certain texture: lima beans, peas, kidney beans, black beans, pretty much beans of any kind, mashed potatoes or liver…blech. I don’t blame my parents because I honestly don’t think they knew any better, besides there were starving children in China and they didn’t want me to be spoiled or ungrateful.

Then when I was a little older, my mother might raise an eyebrow or make a comment if I wanted more of something than she thought I should have. So to get back at them, I’d sneak foods I liked: cookies and crackers mostly. I’d look forward to being left home alone, or to being given a babysitting or petsitting job. I loved to raid other people’s cabinets and see what kinds of goodies they had. Of course, I’d try and hide the evidence. When I think about that now, and from the perspective of my own adult self, I know I wasn’t fooling anyone.

Even though I’ve been blogging about this kind of thing for about a year, I don’t think I have ever written about those years. It’s when the bingeing started. Now I can look back at that girl with a sense of compassion rather than harsh judgment. Even just a year ago that wouldn’t have been possible. Another thing I realized when I read David’s blog is that I don’t have to sneak food any more because no one is judging me and so I can truly enjoy my food.

I say this as much for myself as for anyone who happens to be reading this: slow down, relax, be grateful for you food, and eat it joyfully and with pleasure. Take the time to taste and savor it. Think about why you’re eating and the underlying feelings that accompany the act of eating.

This entry has been posted as part of Prevention Not Prescriptions Tuesdays hosted by The Kathleen Show.

It seems fitting that this is my 100th blog entry!

A couple of weeks ago I was thoroughly surprised and honored when my friend Hanlie of FertileHealthy fame chose me for a Happiness 101 Blog Award. It is now my turn to pay it forward:

As per Hanlie’s post, I am to:
1. Copy the image and display it on my blog.
2. List 10 things that make me happy.
3. Try to do at least one of them today.
4. Pass on the award to 10 bloggers who brighten my day.

10 things that make me happy:
1. My marriage and my husband Tim
2. Self-awareness, which in turn, has lead to my being able to give of myself in ways I never thought possible
3. Kickboxing
4. Facebook Scrabble (I have learned so many new words this way and have become a much more competitive player than I ever was playing Scrabble the old-fashioned way)
5. Running
6. My girlfriends, from all walks of life, who have enriched my life
7. Animals and all of nature, but in particular my little Bella
8. Writing
9. My family, which extends out far and wide and has many steps and halves
10. New London, the city I now call home.

And the award goes to… 10 bloggers who make me very happy.

1. Jack Sh*t, Gettin’ Fit because he never, and I mean never, fails to make me laugh (and think). His clever way of chronically his weightloss is beyond unique.
2. Foodie McBody because she’s the real deal and she understands why it’s so important to put it all out there. She writes: “I’ve been struggling with food, body, love, hate, disgust, ecstasy, for as long as I can remember. I’ve been struggling with food, body, love, hate, disgust, ecstasy, for as long as I can remember.” Since a wake-up call (she was diagnosed with diabetes in January of 2009) she’s lost 30+ pounds, started running, and turned 50 being the healthiest she’s ever been.
3. A Merry Life because she’s tremedously wise for her young age and cute as hell (and she’s following her heart and living her own adventure)
4. Hanlie of Fertilehealthy is a beautiful soul. Her goal is a vibrant and disease-free life and she eats a “whole foods, predominantly plant-based, high raw diet.” I particularly relate to how she writes about her emotions.
5. Kim Brittingham of Kim Writes is a woman who, as a social experiment, created a self-help book cover with the title “Fat Is Contagious: How Sitting Next To A Fat Person Can Make YOU Fat”, wrapped it around a real book and carried it around on public transportation in New York City. She then wrote an essay about it and has since been interviewed on The Today Show and NPR. Kim is clever and real, touching, and hysterically funny. She has a memoir coming out soon called Read My Hips.
6. A Weight Lifted is the official blog of Green Mountain at Fox Run, a healthy weight-loss retreat for women. I go here when I need to feel soothed and accepted and normal…to feel that a weight has truly been lifted. Entries include everything from book reviews to healthy recipes to learning to love yourself right now!
7. You’d Be So Pretty If… by Dara Chadwick is a must-read body image primer for parents of girls, and for girls and women of all ages. Dara is the author of You’d Be So Pretty If…: Teaching Our Daughters To Love Their Bodies Even When We Don’t Love Our Own
8. YumYucky does taste tests and blogs about them and “finding the balance between fitness and your greedy side.” And she’s always willing to pose for the photographer to make her point!
9. MrsFatass This blog post says it all.
10. TheCrazyWomanInsideMe (Susan) is laugh-out-loud funny and she chronicles healing from AS (ankylosing spondylitis–an autoimmune disease) and losing weight at the same time. She’ll make you laugh and cry.

…You’re Never Gonna Keep Me Down!

I got up early today for a meeting and didn’t feel exhausted. And I was cheerful. And energetic.

I sat for a few hours at my desk and my knees weren’t stiff or painful when I got up.

I thought about going out for a walk with the intention of trying to run.

I grabbed my iPod. As I walked, I listened to my RUN! playlist. I recalled that day, back in 2005, when I ran for the first time.

And I walked and walked. And my knees didn’t hurt.

And so I set my iPod to Melissa Etheridge’s “Run For Life.” And I ran. For the whole 4 minutes and 23 seconds of the song. And my knees didn’t hurt. And I walked some more and got choked up. Lyme disease is not breast cancer, not even close, but I swear I never thought I’d feel this good again.

Then I set my iPod to a song to which I used to be able to run forever: John Mellencamp’s “Human Wheels” In fact, during a 5K a couple of years ago, I kept resetting my iPod to “Human Wheels” because it seems to be the perfect pace for me. And I ran for the whole 5 minutes and 35 seconds of the song.

Next up was “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba. And I laughed out loud. And I slowed to a brisk walk for the rest of the way. And now here I am, writing this post, and flexing my knees every once in a while to feel the absence of pain.