It's Too Much

Eat less + burn more =weight loss. Eat more + burn less=weight gain. Simple equations that even my mathematically impaired brain has understood since grade school.

One would think that my amped up running /cardio blast routine would require me to increase calories to keep up with my more demanding energy output. After all my goal was to be fit and strong not to lose more weight. Right? However, at the age of forty about a year after I started running, my weight had dropped yet again ( another ten pounds to be exact) and although I didn’t acknowledge it at the time, it was teetering on an unhealthy weight for me, actually and unhealthy weight for anyone. I, however, was not concerned about the smaller number on the scale, in fact it gave me a rush to see that shrinking number. Having felt “big” for most of my life, being at a weight this low was something that always felt unattainable to me and although I was starting to get comments like “you are not planning on losing more weight, are you?” They were balanced with ”you look great/fit/strong,” compliments and those were the ones that stuck. What bothered me, was that I was starting to have less energy for my workouts, it became harder to push myself and when I did (and I always did), afterwards I felt more fatigued than energized and my legs were often stiff and sore. This was frustrating to me. I had just begun training for my first race, a half marathon my sister had signed me up for as birthday gift, and I was determined to kick ass, which at the time meant I wanted to finish it without having to stop and walk. I was bothered enough by the fatigue to see a sports nutritionist, I wanted someone to tweak what I felt was already a pretty fantastic diet, so I could run farther and faster. A marathon runner and accomplished athlete, this nutritionist had been featured on national news shows and in sports publications so I was confident she would get me on the right path. Ironically, she expressed no concern for my weight and she actually applauded my heathy fruit and veggie filled diet, she said I just needed bigger portions of macronutrients. What? I should eat more? She sent me on my way with a personalized meal plan, one I felt was very reasonable. On paper, anyway.

Hawaii, again. What can I say, I like it there. This is the first picture I remember looking at of myself and thinking.....hmmmmm, too thin? (1/2009)

When I started on the prescribed plan, it just seemed like so much food. I even whipped out my measuring cups and scale to make sure I had the portions right (I had not used them in a while as I had a pretty limited and familiar rotation of meals). Oatmeal, bread AND pasta all in one day? Eating according to that plan made me feel gluttonous and over indulgent. If I eat like this every day I will GAIN weight. I had spent most of my life trying to keep my eating under control so I struggled to wrap my head around allowing myself permission to eat more food. I understood the necessity if I wanted to feel better and reach my fitness goals, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

.

Running Away

“I talked to Gretchen yesterday,” my therapist Kirsten said to me during one of our session a little over a year into treatment “she said you have gone another week without gaining any weight, what do you think might be going on?”

“I don’t know,” I answered avoiding direct eye contact with her, “I think my body might just be done gaining weight.”

“Do you really think that is true?” She pressed, I felt her direct gaze upon me and it was making me break into into a little sweat.

“No but…..God why is this so hard?” My head flopped back on the couch and my hands slapped the couch with the dull thud.

“Hard? I have known you for a year and a half”, Kirsten said earnestly leaning forwards on her chair, “and you are not the kind of person that will let hard stop you from getting what you want.”

Back ten years earlier, I wanted to be a runner. It wasn’t about weight, I felt I was in great physical shape, it was a mental game, and one, after my bout on the beach, I was ready to play. Immediately upon returning from that family trip I found a running app that tracked miles traveled and I mapped out a four-mile loop in the tree lined paths of my neighborhood.

I developed a plan to attack it in bits, run a quarter mile, walk a quarter mile, run a half a mile, walk a quarter mile, and so on. I had new running shoes, an iPod loaded with upbeat inspiring music, including my favorite Manilow tune, Copacabana, (don’t judge), and three times a week after dropping the boys at school, I hit the road. (Not the treadmill, B-O-R-I-N-G). It was hard and for the first ten minutes of every outing I wanted to quit but I soon discovered if I could stick it out ,until my body became warm and my legs became loose, the rest of the route would be easier. Most days I couldn’t believe that I was running, by choice, and enjoying it.

More than anything, however, running brought me peace, the rhythmic pounding of my feet hitting the earth, and the sound of my own breath as I inhaled the fresh pine air was so cathartic, I eventually ditched Barry and the iPod, so I could be alone with my thoughts. And in those days, I had a lot to think about.

What I found was, the more distressed I was about the problems in my marriage, the further I could run. I was so busy I my own head, that my labored breathing, and my burning legs often went unnoticed, and before I knew it three miles turned into four and four turned into five and so on. While tackling the hilly terrain of my route, I would mentally replay arguments Marc and I had throughout the week, the same arguments we' been having for the past three years, about his excessive drinking, late nights out, and disconnected demeanor, and I would imagine (again) the ultimatums I would carry out as promised, if didn’t change his ways . I felt better after those cathartic runs, they gave me moments of clarity and feelings of empowerment, but those feelings often dissipated when I walked in the door and kicked off my running shoes, leaving me to wonder, was I running towards a goal, or running from my life.

Besides running, giving back to the community has always been something that has given me a "high" and in 2008, working with this amazing woman on her brain child was an honor for me.

Something More

My mom’s turkey meatloaf, spiders, and using the word “moist” in a sentence are all things I have spent many years trying to avoid. For a long while I would have put running at the top of that list too, well unless I was running from a spider, so I never would have imagined it would become such a big part of my life.

Seriously, in junior high I manipulated my mom into a doctor’s note excusing me from any sort of timed mile, during high school tennis practice I hid behind the backstop until the final lap of the warm up jog, and in college the closest I came to running was a fast-paced walk of shame back to my sorority on a Sunday morning.

I found it ironic that not long after my get healthy, anxiety relieving amped up workout routine I did start to get sporadic comments about my build. A classmate at the recreation center asking, “are you a runner? You look like a runner,” followed by a massage therapist's comment that I was “built like a runner,” and when a mom at my son’s school invited me to go running with her, I felt like the nerdy girl in school who had been invited to sit at the popular table. I won’t say I wasn’t flattered by the comments, and although I was no fitness slouch, I believed people that ran for exercise were not only crazy, but much higher up on the fitness food chain than I.

In retrospect, I can see why people might have assumed I was a runner, between the pre-cancer weight loss and the post cancer workouts, I had become stronger, and leaner. I had dropped several more pounds due to the increased exercise, and although at the time that was not the main catalyst to my workouts, I admit it did give me a little thrill to see the scale scooch down to a number I never knew possible for me. Still within a healthy range (yes, I remember the number exactly), but inching closer to the lower end. Once again, I had no intention of losing more, I didn’t even think it would be possible for my body to do so. I was more than content with my thinner athletic body and I even went out and purchased my first pair of designer jeans, a pair of 7 For All Mankind. I guarantee you, there is no way I would have spent two hundred bucks on jeans if I wasn’t planning on wearing them until they went out of style (and came back in again.)

Family trip to Crater Lake, Oregon, about six months into my new jogging (I was still slow) regimen. (2008)

I suppose it isn’t too surprising I found myself on an early morning beach walk in fall of 2007 at the age of thirty-nine tempted by something more. It was during a family trip to the Oregon coast and having no access to a gym I was trying to squeeze in some exercise before the kids woke up ready for a donut outing. I was powering through my walk trying to get the adrenaline rush I craved, allowing the misty salt air to fill my lungs, joined by panting dogs chasing balls, laughing children building sand castles and runners. Lots of runners. Come on Sherri, try it. Um, no I hate it. Come on, you are in shape now, just quick twenty minutes. Surely you can do twenty minutes. Ok fine! ( I can be annoyingly persuasive, even to myself). I picked up the pace to slow jog and it felt good. I felt healthy, invigorated and challenged so when my legs started to feel heavy and my breathing become labored I figured I must be close to my twenty-minute goal and I checked my watch. Five minutes had passed. Yes, only five minutes.

I didn’t stop though, unfortunately when it comes to exercise, stopping has never my strong point.