The Thrill Is Gone

Have you ever gone on a vacation to a posh resort , slept on crisp white sheets, swam in tranquil, sparkling pools and dined on sprawling verandas with sweeping views? And have returned to your perfectly nice house post vacay and found it suddenly feeling messy, outdated, and the view of the neighbor’s cluttered driveway just irritating? That’s what the discovery of intense cardio workouts were like for me. Three days a week I felt like I was indulging at the Four Seasons while on alternate days, when left to my old workout routine, I felt like I was crashing at the Motel 6. Needless to say, I’m a resort kind of gal.

I am at a point in my story, where I have documented reference points. In 2007 I began a spotty yet expletive filled habit of journaling and this has allowed me to recall my memories with more clarity, making it easier to translate them to my writing now. What pops out to me as I re read them, is how much I was emotionally struggling back then. I spent most of my journaling time either documenting the adorable antics of Dylan and Brennan or writing about my frustrations regarding my marriage. My anxiety about Marc's excessive drinking, his continued late night’s out and his increasingly long business trips found me not only feeling disconnected to Marc but also angry, and resentful, and so tired. We spent a lot of time either arguing or giving each other the cold shoulder. I was terrified that we were raising our kids in a dysfunctional environment and I didn’t want them to grow up in a chaotic, unpredictable home like the one in which I was raised. Pages and pages of writing about how, more than anything, I wanted them to feel safe, loved and happy but I didn’t know how to do that unless things changed between Marc and I. It is hard to read the fear in those pages.

Heartbreak Alert: This was taken the last day we had Zoey as part of our family. The boys adored that dog, as did I. ( 2007)

I can’t find much in my journaling at that time regarding my thoughts around food and exercise (although plenty of that to come), but I can recall some of those feelings better than I can recall where I left my phone this morning. I am clear that when I was in that cardio blast class, I felt not just strong and healthy but also a sense of relief. I found comfort in the fact I had nothing else to focus on but how many burpees I could do in a minute, the sweat pouring out of my body leaving my worries and anxiety on the fitness room floor. There were days I didn’t want to leave that little room with the bad sound system and white scuffed floors, so I didn’t and usually stayed for the strengthening class right after. I suppose other moms of kinders might have taken their precious few hours of freedom and enjoyed a tantrum free grocery shop, coffee with friends or just crashed on the couch in their jammies to watch The View, while I spent hours squat jumping and planking until my body was exhausted and my mind was calm.

But alas, as it sometimes goes, the glow started to fade as the months went by and the post workout buzz started to lessen as my body got used to my amped up exercise routine exercise is similar to other drugs. But I needed that high, that relief, and I was determined to find a way to get my body humming again. And I did find a way, or rather it found me.

Gimme More

I imagine exercise became for me what heroin is to a drug addict. I had to have it and going even a day without some sort of intense movement left me jittery, impatient, and distractedly pacing the floor obsessed with how to get it. Exercise addiction.

“So how much would you say you exercise in a week?” My dietician Gretchen asked me during our initial intake session on a sweltering hot day in August of 2016. I was wearing my favorite yellow long sleeve top in efforts to hide my boney arms.

“Oh well, it really depends on what else is going on, I answered casually picking at a nonexistent hangnail, “but I’m guessing about an hour a day five days a week.” Oh, and I also invented the iphone and I can bend steel with my mind.

Gretchen was no eating disorder rookie, she knew my game.

Met in college and close friends ever since. We call ourselves the "core four", and these guys have been by my side through this whole crazy journey.

As with most of my story with anorexia, my exercise habit just slowly snowballed over time. When my body healed and my energy returned after the cancer treatment, I was inspired to get really healthy, not just skinny. Healthy. This was a new way of thinking for me. Up to that point diet and exercise was all about controlling my weight, but with that at a stable, happy place, I wanted to focus on my overall health. I researched superfoods that helped to boost immunity, especially those with anti-cancer fighting properties, and I loaded them, not only into my diet, but Marc’s and the boys’ as well. I made steamed broccoli every night, smoothies packed with blueberries in the morning, and if it could be made with a tomato, well, marinara, salsa, Bloody Mary anyone? But as history has shown, diet is only half of the equation with me, and I was ready to take my hill walking, self-taught weight training routine to a whole new level. To do that, I believed I needed to shake it up and branch out from the small gym I’d been using at the neighborhood recreation center and head to a big chain gym, although I was hesitant to give up the convenient location of the center that also housed the boys play school downstairs. While I was contemplating my choices, I decided to pop into one of the group fitness classes offered at the rec center, it was called Cardio Blast which made me snicker a little. Blast? Seriously? How hard could it be? It was, after all, a place where half the membership was over the age of fifty, (back when this now fifty year old thought that was down right geriatric). Holy crap, have you ever exercised so hard you thought you might vomit? Yeah, it was like that. I had underestimated the class and overestimated my fitness level but I LOVED it. Face burning, sweat dripping, heart pounding joy. The instructor pushed me much harder than I had ever pushed myself. I felt so alive, like I had received an electric charge that left my body humming. And as an added bonus, the rest of the day I was calmer, happier, and like a teenager discovering Minecraft, I was hooked. I started going regularly for the three days a week it was offered. An hour in that class s made me feel physically stronger and emotionally happier. If an hour a day made me feel that good then I could only imagine what more might be like.

The Perfect Storm

“I cannot do this, it is too hard,” I declared to my dietician, Gretchen, one dreary January day in 2017, about six months into treatment. I was done with feeling full all the time, I was tired of forcing myself to eat calorie laden food everyday and I absolutely hated how my pants were slowly but surely getting tighter at the waist.

“You ARE doing this, Sherri,” Gretchen said, careful to keep her voice calm although I saw her eyes widen in a bit of panic. We both knew that anorexia as severe as mine was typically treated in an inpatient setting, but Gretchen had faith I could do it, “what makes you think you can’t recover from this?”

“Gretchen”, I cried, tears welling in my eyes, blurring my vision, “I was dumb enough to get myself into this…this… situation, I just don’t think I have it in me to get myself out.”

“Oh sweetie,” I loved that Gretchen called me that, “you didn’t do this on purpose, you were just caught in the middle of the perfect storm”. Risk factors.

I’m finding it hard to explain here, why my cancer had anything to with my anorexia. I know it would make much more sense, to myself and to others, if I suffered more, if I had months of painful chemo treatments and breast reconstruction surgeries. But I didn’t, my diagnosis was early and my recovery, although stressful at the time, could have been so much worse. I’m aware of that and I am very grateful. But sometimes it just feels like the aftermath it created just wasn't justified.

Another family trip to Hawaii( postponed due to the cancer stuff). I'm completely sleep deprived as Brennan left his blanket on the plane and refused to sleep without it. (3/2007)

The timing of my cancer ordeal did play a part in stirring up a big gust of my shit, stuff I had been carrying with me since childhood, things that an adult child of an alcoholic or a sufferer of childhood trauma might understand. Lifelong scars. My need for control, and structure was tested and disrupted. I was already working overtime to try and alleviate my anxiety about Marc’s drinking, our frequent arguing, and attempt to present a happy front to friends and family, and an added cancer diagnosis at the age of thirty-six with no family history just left me feeling confused and vulnerable. I have always felt secure in the fact that I had control over my body but knowing I had cancer inside of me, a growth I could do nothing about until someone got it out was one of the strongest feelings of powerlessness I have ever experienced.

And here is an interesting fact. When I got my cancer diagnosis I was, for the first time, really happy with my body. I was at a healthy weight, I looked great, I felt strong and I had absolutely NO trouble finding a pair of jeans that fit perfectly. Come on, that speaks volumes does it not? My weight also didn't fluctuate even a pound during my recovery despite less exercise (yes, I still found a way to do something, if I could lift a toddler I was going to exercise, dammit) and my friend’s amazing pesto lasagna. I had no intention of losing more weight, but I felt I had to change something. Some aspect of my life that would ensure the cancer was not going to come back, possibly even bigger and meaner. I was determined to feel back in control of my life and my body, and in my eyes, there was only one way to accomplish that.