Live Your Ideal Life

WE'VE MOVED!!

2010-09-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

Hi! And if you're here, first of all, THANK YOU!

Second, I'm no longer posting here, but at my new home: YourKickAssLife.com

So, please go and visit! And remember: "Life's a garden, dig it!' -Joe Dirt

I did it because I was scared

2010-09-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

In my last couple of posts I’ve mentioned that I’m training for a sprint triathlon. I’m doing it because as a runner, this will be a challenge and the fact that I always thought it was ballsy to say the least to swim in open water. Growing up in southern California, I’ve played in the ocean countless times, but it wasn’t until I became an adult that I became afraid of the open ocean. How does that make sense? I’m not too sure.

First things first, let me tell you about my pool drain phobia. Just typing those words makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I had a boyfriend in high school who thought it would be funny to try to drag me down by my ankle to get close to it. He didn’t like it when he got kicked in the nuts. (Hey, it wasn’t totally on purpose. I’m not responsible for flailing arms and legs when I’m freaking out). I don’t do Jacuzzis. When I do laps in the pool, I CANNOT swim in the lane that goes directly over the drains. And if there is no one else in the pool, I won’t go in. Even if the only other person is a 95 year old Asian lady bouncing around on her noodle, I feel safe. I mean, if the drain monster is going to get me, at least she can go get help.

As I’ve been training in the pool, the drain thing has gotten a bit easier to deal with. It stays put, so I’m happy. On Sunday, I signed up for a swim clinic for beginners. I was so sick with anxiety, in the days leading up to it I almost vomited twice. Two days before the clinic, this was my Facebook status:

Less than 48 hours until I do my first ever open water swim, a practice before my first triathlon in October. Thinking about it makes me want to vomit and I can't breathe. But, I'm doing it anyway. Bobbie Vrastil-Solomon, I apologize now for any drama I bring.

After I posted it I suddenly realized I had a choice in the matter. It wasn't really me who was scared. My gremlin had been shouting in my ear, "Who do you think you are, competing in a triathlon? You'll probably come in dead last!" Therefore it was easier for me to just be scared. So I declared I would leave my gremlin at home and bring my badass self to the swim. Done!

However, on the drive there I almost turned around and went home. My gremlin said, "That's really cute, that thing you said about leaving me at home. The open ocean is scary, mean and there's no side of the pool to hold onto when you choke on filthy polluted water and the piranha come to feast on you." Nice, isn't she? But, then I got to thinking. No, really. I DO have a choice here. I have a choice to be scared. It's a mind game. Plain and simple. Not to mention I was creating all the drama surrounding being scared. Drama feeds on drama. I don't care if it's about a pool drain, or a bad relationship, throwing gasoline on a fire called drama is just going to get you more....you guess it! DRAMA!

So, I went. I wasn't exactly choreographing synchronized swimming routines and I avoided the buoys with all the crustaceans on them (gross and scary). And it helped that Bobbie was a great coach and hey- there were even other scared people there too. So, I didn't feel like a total weenie. And here we are. Alive!

Moral of the story:

You have a choice to feel whatever you feel. Good or bad.
The drama you create will feed on itself and become more.
If you face your fear with support, I can guarantee it won't be as bad as you (or your gremlin) has made it out to be.
Pool drains are still scary.

The Worst Mother in the World

2010-08-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

This blog is supposed to be all about empowering women, to lead their best lives. I try my best to make the best out of everything, to put a positive spin on things, to talk about my struggles and how I overcame them. It brings me great joy to know that someone reading might take my words and have a little hope.

But, this post isn't about that.

I recently told my coach that motherhood has forced me to dig to the deepest parts of me to find the most patience I have. I have dug, and dug and dug. And there isn't any left. I'm all out. I have ~~hit~~ slammed into a wall recently and am wondering when the "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" statement will be flung at me like monkeys throwing poo at the zoo. Which by the way, I don't even want to get into complaining about how much poop I've been dealing with on a literal standpoint in this house.

So, what is this post about? Well, I understand that you, reading this, are not the complaint department. But, I'd like to confess that my gremlin has got the best of me lately. And she's hit be below the belt, right in the uterus. She's laughing hysterically and pointing and saying,

You are the worst mother in the world.

In the world of, "Keep it together, lady. Don't let them see you sweat, or cry, or fly off the handle," it's next to impossible for me. When my 3 year old son gets in my face and screams, "NOOOOOOOO!" at the top of his lungs I think, "Does this child hate me? This beautiful boy that has my heart in his hands?" And when my 11 month old daughter clings to me and cries when I drop her off at daycare for the 4 hours that she will be away from me 3 times a week, I think, "For pete's sake, she's still nursing! How could I leave her?"

You are the worst mother in the world.

I mean really, it's the only possible explanation.

I don't think I ever knew pain until I experienced mommy guilt. No one tells you before you have kids that it's a package deal. No one tells you that the pain of mommy guilt will wreck you from the inside out. I spent all that time before I had kids with my head in the clouds thinking motherhood is about hearts and rainbows.

Again,

You are the worst mother in the world.

I type all these words and think, "You know there are people out there that can't have kids. That would give their right arm to have them, all of it, guilt and all."

So, yet again,

You are the worst mother in the world.

But, I'm human. And I'm having a really, really hard time.

One of my favorite scenes from the movie, "Forrest Gump", Forrest is running when a reporter approaches him. Forrest runs through dog shit:

Reporter: Man! You just ran through a big pile of dog shit!

Forrest: It happens.

Reporter: What? Shit?

Forrest: Sometimes......

Letter to my former self

2010-08-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of writing letters to myself. Last year I wrote a letter to my body, which was a major healing marker for me. I also wrote a letter to my skinny jeans, which I finally got rid of. And about a month ago I wrote a letter to my former self.

It's a letter to the girl I was about 10 years ago. I've come so far from that girl- in ways I was feeling ashamed of her. Of me. And it was biting me in the ass. I was separating myself now from her which was robbing me of valuable love and learning. I soon realized I wasn't "walking the talk" of giving the advice to never apologize for who you are inside. Back then, I was exactly where I needed to be.

******************

Dear Me,

I owe you an apology. A big one.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of growth. And it’s good, but I’ve made a mistake along the way. See, I’ve been looking around inside my heart, learning from the past and have come a long way.

But, you already know that.

You’ve been here all along, cheering me on. The mistake I’ve made is by being ashamed of you. Looking back, I think about who you were, the mistakes you made, the ways you used to cope....and I push you away. I pretend you don’t exist.

And recently you told me you were pissed about that. And sad too. So, I’m sorry. I really am. That was pretty shitty of me. So, I ask for your forgiveness. I understand that you were doing the best you could, with what you had, at that time. And it wasn’t a lot, I know. You coped the best way you knew how. After all, back then you wanted the same thing you do now:

Love.

So, I plan to look at you differently from now on. With an open heart. Without harsh judgement. I might be wiser now, but no better.

Love,
Me

Photo credit

Hello, recovery. Nice to meet you.

2010-08-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

I want to preface this blog post with a quick update. Obviously my posts are few and far between lately. One main reason is that I'm having a website built and this blog will move over to it. My creative energy has gone to that, plus two very small children that are now both mobile. So, between potty training, hovering, chasing, beach/park going, training for a triathlon, life coaching certification, getting up at 5:30 am with my son....I'm just spent. Lots of ideas to write that swarm through my head, but never get to this blog. So, there you have it.

************

Triathlon training. Wow. It's something I never thought I would do. It's something I never thought I could do. As I write this, I'm in week 5 of training, with about 8 more to go. I'm not a strong swimmer, so that is a challenge. I also have a fear of open water swimming, plus training in a pool is challenging because of a really raging drain phobia (shut up) so mentally, that's been....interesting. But the biggest challenge of all is this:

In the last 2 weeks I've noticed my body is changing. And a few other people have noticed too. So what? Well, this is the first time I've started a new (and temporary) exercise program for fun (did I really just say that?) rather than to be a certain body type. And also the first time I've done it and been this far into recovery from disordered eating and exercise.

Now, I know what's happened from a physiological standpoint (science nerd alert). I've switched up my workouts from just running to running, swimming and cycling. Plus, bumped up my usual 3 times per week to 5 times per week. I've also been hungrier and eat more.

That's it.

But, the victory is accepting the body changes for what they are. Just changes. Formerly I would have seen the changes and become obsessed by them. Worked out more, ate less. But now, I let it go. At first I braced myself for the reaction I would have. Like someone closing their eyes waiting for an oncoming collision. And waited, and waited. But, they didn't come. I opened one eye, then the other and took a breath. And I let in the new feelings.

So this is what it's like to be recovered.

This victory is a big giant step. I guess I lived for so many years on the other side, part of me thought that if I did get to a place where I lost some weight, or toned up, I would come crashing back down. Being fully recovered is still somewhat new territory, and my gremlin gets a wee bit terrorized there.

I know it's all a work in progress. All of it, my whole life. Will I fall down, get triggered, make a step back here and there? Probably. And that's okay.

Old Memories

2010-07-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

So, I'm training for a triathlon. A sprint distance, nothing crazy. Since I've been recovered from disordered eating and exercise, I've kept my love of running, but one thing has changed; I only run outside. I don't think this was a completely conscious choice, but since I've had kids, I have to bring them running, and I can't exactly push them on the treadmill in their stroller, and I've discovered I really love to run outside.

On Sunday I went to the gym for the first time in a long time. I did an easy swim, quickly changed and got on the treadmill. Plugged my ipod in, pushed all the buttons and started running.

And all the memories came back. Like a Mack truck.

The smell of the gym, the people there, the sound of the treadmill. The digital time ticking, telling me how much time has elapsed, how many miles I have run, and of coarse, how many calories I have burned. I would race the clock to see if I could make a certain distance before the time got there. Or, I would run until I burned x amount of imaginary calories. I wonder if that ever made my happy.

On Sunday I ran for only 20 minutes, but in that time I thought about how I used to be when I was on the treadmill. ~~Thinking~~ obsessing about calories, wondering how much more distance I could take, hoping my legs wouldn't buckle out from under me. Trying to ignore the hungry feeling in my stomach. And on and on. And thinking.....that was normal.

After the 20 minutes was up, I stopped. The old me would have pushed on for another 20 or 30 minutes, just to...I don't know. Prove something.

In times like that, when I see my old ghost, I take note of how far I've come. I'm sad for a moment. Thinking of how happy I thought I was. Then happy, taking note of how "grown up" I feel now. Exercising to be fit. Huh. Now, that makes me happy. I'm sure of it.

Life. Changing. Experience.

2010-07-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

On Twitter yesterday I was tweeting innocently away and stumbled across a blog post. I read it, smiled, read a particular line, kept reading and heard the sound of breaks screeching in my mind. I backtracked. This line practically knocked me over:

"I encourage you not to wait for that life changing experience."

Had someone told me that on this day exactly 10 years ago I would have blinked and said, "Um, okay, thanks" and went about my business. Went about my business of being scared. Scared of who I really was. Terrified of "what if". What if I really was great? No, I mean really, really great. The thought terrified me. Little parts of me would try to sneak out but were quickly squashed by my gremlin voice. Or I would literally be told by some one to shut up. And I would. But my gut would say, "Tell them to fuck off."

In 2006 I had that life changing experience. My world fell apart in 10 seconds. Standing in Barnes and Noble I shook so hard when I hung up the phone I probably looked like I was having a seizure. Life. Changing. Experience. My future sighed with relief and said thank you, although I didn't know it at the time.

So, I also encourage you to not wait for that life changing experience. Because I did. Or if you do, that's okay too. Hopefully you'll have an equally dramatic story to tell that makes people's jaws drop like I do. But, please, don't wait for it. Seize your opportunity to live. Your future is waiting for you. Patiently.

What's Happening?!

2010-07-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hooray!!! So many things are happening on my end, so I thought I would update my 2 readers (mom and dad).

I've been writing this blog for about almost 2 years now. I had no idea where it was going back then, I just knew I loved to write, needed an outlet for all the things I needed to say and knew I would eventually have a blog when I started my coaching business. So, almost 2 years later, my coaching business is being born.

Your Kick Ass Life is almost here! I struggled with the name, and my gremlin said, "You CANNOT have the word 'ass' in your business name!" So, I thought about it, got some advice from my most trusted coach friends and basically came to the conclusion that if someone is offended by the word "ass", they probably don't want to be my friend. And by all means, I'm okay with that. "Live Your Ideal Life" was good while it lasted, but it's really not "me". Many, many years ago I started saying, "Life's too short for it not kick ass", and well, it just stuck. I hope you like it!!!!

Also, I have a new Facebook page, (many thanks to Kristina Chartier for the amazing photography), and I really hope you'll join me there. I'll post inspirational things, and I promise not to be a spammer.

My heart and soul are going into this. It might sound crazy, but this is almost as exciting as the birth of my children. It's more than amazing to know I was put on this earth to make a difference and inspire others to do the same. To find their true calling, whatever it may be for each individual person.

So, stay tuned for my new website (yourkickasslife.com), hopefully within the next month or 2 (*shrieking*). And thanks for reading, supporting, or even if you don't like me, I'm glad I have at least conjured up a feeling in you. It makes me proud ;)

Love,
Andrea

A HUGE beginning

2010-06-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

ABC Family's HUGE premiered last night. I blogged about it last week, and was uncertain about what was in store for this show. Weight loss camp + entire cast of overweight teens = Skepticism in my book. I couldn't help but think of that disaster of a movie, "Shallow Hal" where the moral of the story was that beauty was on the inside. Blech. Worst way to send that message EVAR! Anyway, moving on....

My first thought was that in no way would I be able to relate this. I've always been open about my own struggles with body image, but I've never been overweight. In the first scene I noticed they show the teens in roles like every other social circle and the teens make comparisons from the beginning. The defiant rebel, Wil, is the main character. She is obviously there against her wishes and makes it known. Haley is the pretty girl, thinner than the other campers, but still overweight. In the first initial meeting, another camper tells her, "Oh my god, I hate you. Just kidding. You're so skinny!"Why is it that it seems okay to tell someone they are hated, as long as it's followed by a joke and/or it's because the person is commenting that they are skinny?

Here's what threw me for a loop. I had something in common with Wil. She is a loudmouthed, eye-rolling, attitude ridden, sarcastic, too-cool-for-school type. When I used to hate myself and my body, I was the same girl. Tough exterior and sometimes mean at the expense of others (yes, me) because I was so unhappy with myself and my life. It's not a fun place to be for anyone. In fact, it's downright shitty.

In an emotional scene the girls are informed one of the campers has been asked to leave and seek psychiatric care because she was caught vomiting. As sad as this is, I was happy to see a female showcased with (what's assumed as ) an eating disorder that isn't emaciated. Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder and is prevalent in about 30% of those seeking weight loss treatment (Wikipedia). Good work, ABC.

I want to point out that the acting was amazing. In the world of reality shows galore, it was really a treat to watch great actors. What struck me the most was the pained expressions and feelings on these teen's faces. And it got me thinking; these teens live this in real life. In some way or another, they have been affected by society's idealistic standards and the fact that they don't fit it. I can't imagine how painful that must be. To have your life revolve around what size you are on the outside, being judged about the kind of person you are when really, the size of your heart is really what matters.

Choices, choices.

2010-06-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

Sitting in my therapists office many years ago (don't you just love stories that start with that line?) I remember telling her, "I'll bet you have a really great marriage and life in general because you're so smart about all this". And she laughed and informed me that she had her own therapist. And that just because she gives advice and helps people get "well" (whatever "well" really is), doesn't mean she has a perfect life. I supposes that was my first realazation that just because someone is an expert at something, doesn't mean they do it perfectly. So, in becoming a life coach, I've let go of trying to have the perfect life. However, there's a distinction between that, and walking your own talk.

Last year I wrote a post on that topic, and it's come up again and again as I trudge further and further into my own personal growth and development. Funny how that happens, eh? Anyway, I'll get right to the point:

Over the last month or so my almost 3 year old son has been getting up at the crack of dawn. No, actually before dawn cracks. At around 5 am. Sometimes 4:30. And to me, that's still the middle of the night. We've tried everything, putting him to bed earlier, later, putting him back to bed, telling him the sun is still sleeping, but he's up and ready to party. So, I've been bitching and complaining about it on Facebook and Twitter, to my mom, and anyone who has ears.

In the meantime, I'm writing an e-book for my new website (more on that later) that's about self esteem. I talk about shifting your mindset. I preach that if you're not happy about something, shift the way you look at it. Huh. Pretty good advice, I'd say. So, this morning, bright and early, I stumbled downstairs, made my son an Eggo, changed my daughter's diaper (because he graciously wakes her up too), and poured myself some coffee. Feeling oh-so-sorry for myself. About 10 minutes later it dawned on me. I said to myself, "Self. Shift your mindset." So I did. Was it easy? Meh. But, I did it. It takes practice, I think. It's not as easy as jumping up and down, explaiming, "Wow! I LOOOOOVE this time in the morning!" But even a slight shift is a start and gets the momentum to shift a little more. Try it. And let me know how it goes. Life is about choices. Concious choices.

What have you been looking at that you think sucks? What can you do to shift your mindset even in the slightest?

Huge is coming...

2010-06-23T07:05:00.000-07:00

I admit that I don't watch too much TV that often anymore. I think I might be the last person in the world who doesn't have TiVo or DVR, and watching commercials makes me a bit crazy. However, upon hearing about ABC's new drama, HUGE, I was intriuged.

It's hard to form an opinion on a show merely by the one minute trailer, however, if you know me, you know I have an opinion.

From what I understant the show revolves around teenagers at a weight loss camp. The teenagers vary from overweight to obese. They deal with normal teenage problems, feelings and drama. At a weight loss camp. Oy vey.

My first problem is the question of what's with the poster with the actress, Nikki Blonsky, looking so....sad? Uncomfortable? Jaded? Scared? From what I understand, the show is promoting living a HUGE life, which if you read my blog, you know I send the same message. But, from the poster alone, I feel that they're saying, "Hey everybody! Come check out this show! We're going to pretend we're sending a great message, but selling it to you by thinking you're coming to see a train wreck".

So, I'm torn here. My battle is the question of why does this show need to be at a weight loss camp? Or day I say it (becauses I know you're thinking it) what most people still call a "fat camp"? Why couldn't it just be overweight kids at a high school, or private prep school? Aren't all the other shows about teenagers like that?

The only reason I can think of, is that no one would watch it if it were just overweight kids in high school dealing with high school stuff. American's are obsessed with intensity. Reality shows must contain people fighting and/or hating each other (with a side of nudity, please), we love addiction shows (I readily admit I'm intruiged by the show "Hoarders"), we can't get enough of Oprah and Kirstie Alley losing and gaining weight all over the place. So, I'm not surprised at all to see a show come along like this. Honestly, part of me wants to bang my head against my computer keyboard in frustration. Sure, it's a step in the right direction to have a show on a major network in prime time showing overweight kids, but at what cost??

I can only keep my fingers crossed that it does what I hope: Shows that teenagers of all shapes and sizes have real feelings. That they are more that just overweight. Regardless of how they got there, they all have their "stuff" they are dealing with.

I'd love to hear what you think about it. What do you think it will be like? How do you think it will be viewed? What do you think about the cast? Here's the link again to the show. I'll be blogging again on Monday right after the show airs. Stay tuned...

Readers: What do YOU want?

2010-06-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved to write. She started a blog, and much to her surprise and gratitude, people started reading it.

Then one day she realized what she wanted to be when she grew up, helping women love themselves, but needed the people's help to get it right.

Obviously, that girl is yours truly. Very soon I will be moving this little blog over to a website and starting my coaching business. But, before I do that, I need to hear from YOU, my readers, or anyone you might know that can help me.

I'm looking for women 30-50 years old who might have issues with their self esteem and/or body image. Perfectionism is a biggie too. I'm doing some market research and that's it. Just a short little survey. I'm not trying to sell you anything, I promise! Except my husband's mountain bike, but that's another story for another time. So, if you think you can help, please either leave a comment here with your contact info, or email me at andreafry75 [at] hotmail [dot] com. I'd be eternally grateful.

ALSO!!

I'd like to know what you want me to write about. What do you like, what makes you read a particular post? I love writing and love feedback as well. So, let me hear your beautiful voices!

Oh, and thanks.

The Prize

2010-06-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

"All my life I've been searching for something
Something never comes never leads to nothing
Nothing satisfies but I'm getting close
Closer to the prize at the end of the rope" -Foo Fighters

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. The prize at the end of the rope that so many people are after. What is it? Happiness? Love? Beauty? A partner? Losing weight? Organization? Size 2 jeans? A better job? Perfection? A six-figure salary? Everyone's got one. Or two. Or more.

A few weeks back I wrote about the theory of "Go Big or Go Home". In my teens and 20's I thought I had to have it all. If I didn't have it all, or at least be going for it all, and especially look like I had it all, well, that was just unacceptable. I really felt like there was something out there that would bring me all the happiness I ever needed. I planned and planned. Controlled and controlled some more. I was outwardly happy, but inside I was pretty miserable. I lived in the world of "If only..."

What if your "prize" is yourself? Your trueness. I know that sounds really serious, doesn't it? But what if we were all put on this earth so unique from one another for a precise reason? I spent a lot of years trying to fit into a box. What I thought I should be, because I didn't think who I truly was was good enough. Actually, to be honest, I didn't even know who I was. It took me getting dropped on my ass and my heart ripped out for me to figure out what I was doing wasn't working.

So, maybe if just for a minute, we all looked around and decided that our prize was right now.

This moment.

Ourselves.

Save New Moon Girls!

2010-06-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

7th grade. What does that evoke in you? For me, 7th grade was puberty, braces, new hips, boy crazy, new to leg shaving and wearing make-up. My mom let me subscribe to Teen magazine and I remember a particular issue where the model on the cover had a super-cool haircut. I wanted that same super-cool haircut, so off we went to Supercuts with the magazine in hand. I proudly showed the stylist and 30 minutes later I walked out of there with a mullet. I kid you not. It wasn't the stylists fault, it really was a cute mullet on the model, but I was devastated. I clearly remember crying on the way home, holding the magazine in my hand. I would love to post a picture of this, but I would not let my mom take my picture until it grew out. I thought I looked hideous. Looking back, I wanted to look like that teen model. I thought all my dreams would come true if I looked like her. It wasn't the haircut, it was everything that went along with it. The clothes, the sparkly white teeth, the perfect skin, all of it. Teen magazine was just the beginning. I later got Seventeen magazine, then Cosmopolitan, then Shape. Model after model, advertisement after advertisement, telling me what I should be: Beautiful, thin, perfect.

What is this doing to us? What is this doing to little girls?

I'm not going to get into the effects of mainstream media right now, but I want to introduce you to Nancy Gruver and her amazing magazine of nearly 2 decades, New Moon Girls. In this day and age where girls are evermore exposed to heavily sexualized imagery and messaging, New Moon Girls gives them empowerment, no advertising, a safe interactive online community, girl created content and not to mention numerous awards, year after year. Nancy wanted to have a magazine available to girls that was for, by and about girls 8 and up. On New Moon Girls Facebok page she shares messages from subscribers like this one:

"I really love your magazine. I know i sound like a ad, but it really, truly makes me feel, happy, beautiful, and unique. I wish that every girl would have a subscription to new moon girls. It would make girls feel so good. Keep making more girls feel beautiful!" - Chloe, 12, Illinois

Hoorah, right? But, here's the bad news. (Boooo, I know). New Moon Girls is in trouble and needs our help. Because of the current economic climate, New Moon Girls may have to close their doors forever. So, here's how we can all help: I have become an affiliate partner for New Moon which means I will be selling New Moon subscriptions from my blog. A year long subscription is $44.95. That's a great deal for an entire year of empowering that little girl in your life! If you choose to purchase a copy through me - you will receive a $10 discount off the total price. Making a year of empowering magazine action for just $34.95. (I will be making no commission off this).

If you don't have a girl in your life to buy a subscription for, you can still help by buying and donating a subscription to your local library or school. How's that for paying it forward? Or, if you can't buy a subscription, please consider tweeting about New Moon Girls, this post, or sharing about New Moon Girls on Facebook and become a fan yourself.

Another cool thing if you do get a subscription: Have your daughter or the girl in your life contribute to New Moon. She can send in her poetry, essays or her questions. This magazine is by, for and about girls!

Young girls don't have to be bombarded with images and messages that make them feel less than what they are. We may not ever know what they see or hear that is damaging. But, with publications like New Moon Girls, I can guarantee you'll be sure they'll get empowering messages encouraging them to be themselves, dream big, have their voices heard and to discover and honor their true selves.

So, please, buy a subscription (or two, or more!) and help New Moon Girls. For the $34.95 offer, please click here.

Eight Windows

2010-06-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Inspired again by my dear friend Karen Pery, she has invited her readers to think about their lives. If given the opportunity to have glimpses of your life flash before your eyes, what would you see? She describes 8 windows, from the outside looking into your soul. I tried hard to think about things that were all nice and fluffy. But, honestly, not all my pivotal moments were great. Some yes, but not all. The moments that changed my life, the moments that would flash before my eyes if I was perhaps faced with death? Here is what I would see:

Riding my big wheel on the tennis courts when I was 5 years old. The plastic streamers, my royal blue tennies, red and white tube top and dove shorts. No cares in the world.
20 years old, walking into the recovery room where my dad had just had quadruple bypass surgery. Seeing his scars, seeing him hooked up to machines was too much. I walked out.
Standing in Barnes and Noble. I called my then-husband and the other woman answered. I finally knew for sure. It was over. Walking out and into the parking lot I had my first out-of-body experience.
The moment Jason opened the door the first time we met. We had been talking for weeks on the phone, and I promised myself I would have no expectations when I met him in person. The look of such curiosity on his face was evident. My first thought that I remember so clearly was, "Oh shit. He's cute. I'm in trouble."
My son's birth. Terrified, laying on the surgery table, smelling my burning skin as I was cut open to have him removed from my body. Thinking, "Shouldn't I be happy right now?" And feeling like the worst new mother ever for being furious about the way he was coming into the world.
On my son's first birthday, he woke up from a nap. I got him out of bed and sat down to rock him. He fell back asleep in my arms and I memorized his smell: Baby sweat and sunscreen. It was delicious.
About 30 seconds after my daughter was born, I broke down in tears. Fighting with my obstetrician about how I was going to give birth to her was more than I could handle. I was so happy that she was here, that she was in my arms, that she was healthy and that she was born the way I thought she deserved to be born.
Sitting at my dining room table with my beloved MacBook, writing any post of this blog. Crying, typing the words of the story of my past. Realizing how sad I was at times. And how I used to cope. The girl I was. The woman I've become. And the vulnerability of letting everyone see it.

I feel like I should say something inspiring right now but I don't have it in me.

What would you see through your windows?

Just things

2010-06-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

I've been blogging a lot lately. Well, at least a lot for me. I remember when I got rejected from blogher.com because I didn't post frequently enough. I lurked through other blogs on their site and saw many that hadn't been updated for months on end, or frequent posters that wrote in-depth articles about the antics of their cats. The rejection sent me into "I'll show them" mode and I vowed to only write about things that mattered- things that would hopefully help someone, anyone. I keep writing for two main reasons: 1. This blog has been theraputic for me. And 2. Whenever I get an email from someone thanking me for helping them, it makes little hearts come out of my head.

My dear friend Karen Pery wrote a recent post that moved me. It was so simple, but yet a challenge for me to do my own. She quotes Jen Lemen:

…I think I should stick to a regimen of shallow self-disclosure in the spirit of old-school blogging. You know, the kind we had before we decided to try to make all of this mean something.

I feel confident that all ten of you will be just fine if I…

Don’t try to soothe or feed you.
Refuse to help or advise you.
Just tell you how I am every so often without taking on anyone’s future dreams or development.

So, taking the lead from Jen and Karen, I give you my own "Things":

Things I don’t know yet (except, of course, when I do)
If my son and daughter will have a close relationship when they grow up.
If we'll stay in California, or move out of state.
If I'll go back to graduate school.
What the topic of my first book will be.
If I will ever step on a scale again in my lifetime.

Things I'm learning
Patience.
How to slow down.
How to let go.
How to be an awesome coach.
How lucky I am to have such a great marriage.

Things I'm wishing for
Eternal happiness for my children
More time to myself
Big hair to be back in style
A housekeeper
All women to love themselves and their bodies unconditionally.( Wow, wouldn't that be awesome?)

Things that are getting on my nerves
My son's phase of getting up before the sun. Coming in my room at 4:30 am to tell me the big news: "Momma! The sun is still sleeping!"
The landscapers that always seem to know when I've put my kids down for a nap.

Things that scare me
Zombies (seriously).
Car accidents.
Drama.
Debt.

Things that are making me happy
My past relationships. As shitty as some of it was, I'm so happy it all happened.
Exercising for health.
My husband. I never knew how happy I could be having simplicity.
New friends. And watching my old friends grow up.
Seeing how much my son loves animals.
Getting to know myself.
My daughter's fierce attachment to me.

Ratting myself out.

2010-05-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, blogosphere, for I have sinned.

The last few weeks I've been ranting about taking steps back to re-evaluate ourselves and what we're doing. I wrote about just "being" instead of "doing" all the time, and before that I wrote about perfectionism and the curse of "go big or go home".

And last week, my good friend Jenny Blake wrote a post entitled "My Sandboxed Life" where she confesses that her overachievement is getting to her and she wants to slow down (by the way, the "friend" she mentions that told her she was a "house of cards waiting to crumble"? Yeah, that was me).

So, here I am, blahbidy, blah, blah. Telling all of you in the blogosphere the importance of slowing down for your own sanity and little ol' me has a to-do list 17 miles long. Yes, I said it. I am a....

Hypocrite.

But, in my own defense, and the point of this post, is that I didn't even know it was happening. Let me explain.

I've learned some things about my own negative self talk, or saboteur (remember mine? She's a real bitch). In most cases, this talk is blatantly negative, saying things like, "You can't do this, you suck at that, you're stupid", etc. Since I've done a pretty good job at recognizing these voices and putting a lid on it, my bitch of a gremlin has evolved and gotten smarter. Since she knows she can't trap me that way, she's flipped it around and disguises herself as ambition. She makes ridiculous demands, plays the comparison game and has no patience for compromise. None. (P.S. I talk about her in the third person because it helps me decipher those words from my true self . I know it sounds like I hear voices, but I'm really not schizophrenic. Er, at least I don't think I am). My own coach gave me a homework assignment a couple weeks back that entailed me sitting down and making a list of things not to-do, but what I've done in the last year. I finally did it, and was astounded at how long and kick-ass it was. It made me realize that if I can't sit back and be proud of myself for accomplishing all that I've done, what's the point it wearing myself out for it? It's okay to slow down and celebrate once in a while. To look at how far I've come, and sometimes, to confess that I screw up. So, with that, I pull up my big girl panties and carry on.

I can't tell you what a relief it's been to realize this and put things off. I don't know why I see women entrepreneurs that have been in business for 10+ years and think I need to be that. Tomorrow. How ridiculous! I was reminded this week by Jennifer Powter that moms starting a business with small children live in dog years. What takes most people 1 day may take us a week. It's frustrating, and as a recovering type a/perfectionist person, I can tell you that irritates the shit out of me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go get my professional juggling certification.

What do you want to BE when you grow up?

2010-05-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

Interesting how that question is worded. Not "what do you want to DO when you grow up".

I suppose in some ways I'm just growing up now. I had several life altering experiences within a few years of each other. Bad ones. I mean really, really bad. The kind of things that make people's eyes widen and they don't know what to say. So, I've been asked many times how I came out on the other side. How did I not just wallow in self pity and become a walking disaster? Well, I was a walking disaster for several months, but some key things happened to get myself to a better place. Today I found something and would like to share with you.

I've always been in a hurry to do everything. At this point, I know it's in my DNA, and I've accepted it, so I only try to slow down when I'm being crazy and it's affecting me or someone I care about in a negative way. I walk fast, talk fast and like to cross things off my list. So, 2 years ago I was sitting in one of my coaches training classes and we were asked the question to ponder and write down the answer:

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

And being little Miss Busy Bee that I am, I started writing furiously. Making goals. The things I was supposed to do. The things I thought I should do. I even put timelines on them. I wrote about 5 things and stopped. I drew a big X through them. On the next line I wrote:

Just Be.

Just be happy and confident and know that when the time is right and when I am ready it will happen.

That was a big step for me. Letting go of all the doing. Letting go of control, knowing I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Looking at my own words in my own handwriting this morning brought me to tears. That was my list of hopes and dreams. That was what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sure, I wanted to do all of the "things" on my list, but really, it wasn't working out so well in the past. I was lost. So, that day I threw the towel in. I didn't care if everyone else in my class had goals written down. I was tired. Tired of chasing the impossibleness of "doing" all the time. I wanted to just be me. I suppose my soul sighed from relief and thanked me.

Trust me, my life isn't all unicorns farting rainbows. I still make lists of things to do. But, I've been able to just be....me. Messy, unorganized, imperfect, crazy, spazz girl me.

Summer Reading list for girls!

2010-05-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

I have received several emails from friends of mine, asking for suggested reading. Some for themselves, and lately moms are contacting me asking for books that are for their daughters- books that give a positive moral message. They're tired of their daughters having "role models" thrust in their faces that are not worthy of looking up to. Reality stars, "glitterati girls", and girls that are famous for nothing more than bad behavior and attractiveness. A couple months ago I wrote about Katherine Switzer, an amazing woman who at 20 years old paved the way for women to be able to enter and run competitive marathons. That is a woman I would love for my daughter to aspire to be like, someone strong willed, who stood up for what she believed in, and didn't let anyone get in her way.

So, I've compiled a list of books for you with the help of Tanya Lee Stone. This list is for girls ages 9-12. The links are all to Amazon, but that's merely so you can see what the books are all about. I encourage you to go to your local library and get ALL of them! Oh, the library, remember that place? I had forgotten about it too, but have recently returned and wow- it's a pretty cool place!

So, here it is, in no particular order:

"Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream" by Tanya Lee Stone.

"Thank you, Sarah" by Laurie Halse Anderson

"Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" by Philip M. Hoose

"Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Staton and the Right to Vote" by Tanya Lee Stone

"Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About the Women and Girls of the American Revolution" by Laurie Halse Anderson

"Remember the Ladies: 100 Great American Women" by Cheryl Harness

"Lives of Extraordinary Women: Rulers, Rebels, and what the Neighbors Thought" by Kathleen Krull

"Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women" by Catherine Thimmesh

"33 Things Every Girl Should Know about Women's History" by Tonya Bolden

The Curse of "Go Big or Go Home"

2010-05-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

I saw this bumper sticker the other day and it conjured up many bad memories. I used to live my life by this mantra. No, I mean LIVE MY LIFE. If it wasn't going to be done 150,000,000 percent, then don't do it at all. Isn't that what it means to "Go Big or Go Home"? If you read my blog you know I sometimes write about a nasty thing called Perfectionism. I've struggled with this for years. It's ugly, I hate it, but I've actually come a long way. Perfectionism is black and white. In someone's life who deals with this, everything is or isn't. There's no "in-between". No gray area.

I started playing tennis when I was 3 years old. I practically grew up on the tennis courts. My parents were avid players. I took lessons for years and years and if my parents weren't paying for lessons, my dad was my coach. My freshman year in high school I got up enough courage to try out for the tennis team. The first day of try-outs I sized up the other girls there. Some of them were better than me, but not all. It didn't even occur to me that these girls would be my teammates, not my competition. The anxiety that overtook me was much too overwhelming. I felt sick thinking that I might lose. In front of others. In front of my parents. So, guess what I did? I went home. The following year I tried out for something much less stressful in my book: Cheerleading. I don't regret being on the cheerleading team, however, I very much regret letting my own perfectionism, my own fear of failure limit me in something that was so important to me. I loved tennis. I was a really good player. But, if I couldn't be the absolute best, if I couldn't "go big", (and in my mind that meant never losing) I would rather go home.

This thought process continued and bled over into other parts of my life. I compared myself constantly to everyone else. I wasn't as thin as this person, my boobs weren't as big as that persons, my grades weren't as good as hers. Compliments fell on deaf ears.

When someone concentrates so hard on looking good, at being the absolute best at any cost, are they really living their life authentically? Are they even living their own life? I didn't even know what "living authentically" meant until I became somewhat comfortable living in the grey. Years of "go big or go home" had worn on me, and I had no idea who I was, what I wanted, and who I wanted to become. Was it easy to let it all go? Shit, NO! It's still not sometimes. I still have moments of "Oh no, I'm going to look like a complete asshole if I do this or say that". It's slowly becoming easier to be okay with the fact that some people might think I'm an asshole. And on a good day I might even take that as a compliment.

After reading Courtney Martin's "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters", it was reiterated to me that so many women, especially in my generation suffer from perfectionistic behaviors. The line gets blurry from the ambitious, go-getter, fierce female, to the woman practically killing herself to be perfect in every way. For me, I let my mean and vicious saboteur voice run my life for a lot of years. And she's a real bitch to me, let me tell ya! But, I truly believe that living a life this way, can be crippling.

So, think about times when you might have had this type of thinking. Perhaps you made assumptions ahead of time about something or someone. Or maybe you avoided something because in your mind if you couldn't do it perfectly, it wasn't worth doing. Just notice it.

Triggered.

2010-05-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

trig·ger

–verb

to initiate or precipitate (a chain of events, scientific reaction, psychological process, etc.)
to fire or explode (a gun, missile, etc.) by pulling a trigger or releasing a triggering device
to become active; activate

First thing Monday morning I had a session with my coach. I didn’t have a specific topic nailed down, but had about 3 things that were swimming in my head, so I just started talking. Talk, talk, talk about how I want to do this, and I need to decide on this, and I feel lost about that. A few minutes later my coach says, “Wow. Sounds like you’ve been triggered.”

And Holy Moses, was she right.

I thought about the last 2 weeks and some things that had happened. Not necessarily monumental events, just little things that planted themselves in my brain, and then the fire started. For me, in this particular instance I’m writing about, is body image. And let me tell ya, when it's body image, it's not just a piddly fire. It's a god damn inferno.

Week before last I was running in my neighborhoods while pushing both my kids in the stroller. I was feeling amazing, finally feeling better from an injury and so happy to be back doing what I love: running. A car pulled up beside me, slowed down and a women about early to mid-60’s rolled down her window. She smiled and asked me, “How come it’s always the skinny girls that are running?”

...

I was speechless (which is rare for me). My first reaction was to stop and launch into an enormous explanation, an angry explosion. Who does she think she is, thinking that I run to be skinny? How dare she assume that being skinny equates happiness and health? And who cares what type of body I have, why does that matter? Is that supposed to be some kind of compliment? And on and on and on. My head spun out of control with assumptions of what she really meant and I can’t imagine what the look on my face was like. However, I said nothing.

On Saturday I went to a workshop that was held at a beautiful private gym. I went to use the restroom and there it was: The scale. You might be thinking, “Yeah, so what?” But for me, and I think for a lot of people that are in recovery from disordered eating and exercise, seeing that scale was...terrifying, haunting, exciting, curious, frustrating, confusing and triggering. So many thoughts. The angel and devil quickly had an argument: Don’t get on it. It’s not that big of a deal, just step on it. Don’t do it, you haven’t weighed yourself in 9 months! Well, you’ve been exercising again, let’s just see what happened. If you step on it, you might go back there, to that place. Are you that fragile that you can’t handle what it says? Yes, you can, just do it. Prove that it’s not a big deal anymore.

As I washed my hands I stared at it on the floor in the mirror. And I walked away.

These two things happened and that’s just it: They happened. In my mind I’ve come to the conclusion that being triggered = BAD. And what happens afterward, or how I handle it (or don’t handle it) determines and defines who I am and where I am in terms of recovery.

Today, I learned and accepted that I don’t have to go down with the triggers in my life, whether they be about body image, perfectionism, relationships or anything. Sometimes they suck, and sometimes they hurt, but I can choose to look at them as a gift. Sometimes they’re wrapped up in a pretty bow, sometimes they feel like a block of cement, sometimes it's a box of dog shit, but no matter what, they are my gift to myself, and I just need to ask, “What did I learn?” That’s it. They don’t need to mean anything profound all the time. They don’t define me. They don’t grip me.

So, what did I learn? I learned that backhanded compliments about my body are hard to swallow. Thinking about it further, any comment about my body is hard to swallow. But, I don't need to make assumptions about what that person meant. And I learned that sometimes the scale looks scary. And there's a part of me that's curious about how much I weigh. That's it. I can get so caught up and lost if the "what does it all mean?" and will run on that hampster wheel all damn day. And if I need to cry, I'll cry. And if I don't, I won't. But being triggered doesn't equal anything.

So, think about what triggers you. Perhaps there are times when you feel so overwhelmed by something, or really wanting to launch into a new project, or control something, anything in your life. Think about the past few weeks or even months and if anything happened, however small that may have triggered you. And just be with it.

Photo courtesy of Soul Rider

I was attacked today.

2010-05-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Got your attention? Good.

I went to a self defense class this weekend. I've wanted to go for ages but, it was never on my priority list so I never went. I try to be aware of my surroundings, and have always thought that if someone messes with me I'm pretty sure I can hold my own. I mean, I'm in shape. I even have muscles! I've taken kickboxing classes and can throw an uppercut. Doesn't all that Tai-bo count for something? But, when Chelsea King was raped and murdered in my home town, I knew I had no more excuses.

Let me tell you something. In the real world, my attitude, plus the fact that I can curl a 25 pound dumbell with my bicep isn't going to get me out of a chokehold by a 200 pound man. I had a very humbling experience in the class. The instructor, Tracie Arlington, talked to us about elbows, and how as women, we're told that just throwing an elbow around is defense enough. Then Chad, her assistant asked if anyone wanted to try that technique on him. He had no pads on yet and I thought, "Is he serious? I know I can get at least one strike in with an elbow." In the class of about 25 girls and women no one volunteered. So, I blurt out, "I'll do it!" and met him in the middle of the mat. I mean, c'mon, I'm tough! I'm fiesty! I've got SPIRIT!

I had no idea what was coming (as you really wouldn't, if you were attacked in real life). Chad grabbed me so quickly I have no idea how he got me into a choke hold, but he did. My first thought was how tight he had a hold of my neck, my next thought was the feeling of complete helplessness I had. I threw an elbow to his gut. Nothing. I threw another one. Nothing. I got as much strength as I could muster up and threw a few more. Nothing. At that point, I was exhausted from squirming, being angry and frustrated and from using all my energy to throw feeble elbows.

The point of my story is that learning specific techniques is imperative. Here are some startling statistics:

83% of rape victims are between the ages of 12 years and 25 years of age.
90% of women assaulted knew their assailant.
25% of college women surveyed are victims of rape or attempted rape.
85% of rapes on campuses are acquaintance/date rapes and most happen in the first three months of college due to Fraternity and Sorority pledging and parties.
90% of all campus rapes involve alcohol.
Women who resist are twice as likely to escape injury as others. According to the Women's Self Defense Institute, an analysis of 3,000 actual assaults showed that half of the attackers fled from a woman who was willing to resist! The key, however, is to learn how to effectively resist.

Even though we were in a class setting, where we know essentially we were safe, there is something very real about an actual person sitting on top of you with their hands at your throat, or holding your wrists down. In the back of my mind I thought there was no way I was going to be able to get out of the pinned down position while being choked, but guess what? I did. And now I feel much more confident just out in the world of the "unknown".

Love yourself. Love your life. I say that all the time. It's part of my job to help and empower people to do this. My blog title even proclaims it. Be proactive about your safety. It doesn't matter where you live, just google, "women's self defense" and find a class in your area. You owe it to yourself, your family and your confidence. Do it now and let me know that you did it.

Statistics from the Play it Safe website.

The Gremlin, The Mannequin and Joan Jett

2010-05-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

Warning: Strong language included in this post.

I may have mentioned in my previous posts about what we call in the coaching world as our “saboteur”. AKA "the gremlin". It’s that little (or sometimes not so little) voice in our head that we all have, some more than others. It tells us mean things, negative talk, tells us we can’t do something, that we look stupid, that we’re fat, ugly, etc. Everyone’s is unique. Some people believe theirs more that others. Some people have learned how to squash theirs. But, it’s been my experience, that it never quite goes away and that it evolves, just like we do. It gets smarter, and sneakier too as time goes on.

I’ve started this post a few times, and have never finished or posted about my saboteur. It was a homework assignment from my coach about a year ago; one that I never completed (See, even coaches are bad clients sometimes). I think back then I was afraid to rip the band aid off and show everyone my saboteur. Well, enough hiding, here she is:

My sabotuer is a vicious bitch to me. In my mind she looks like a manequin would, perfect hair, skin, and make up, perfectly thin with no flaws. On display. She is also empty inside. She tells me my world will fall apart at any moment, and to brace myself for it. She wears a smug expression. She tells me I need to be thinner, stronger, younger, in better shape, a better mother, a better wife, a better friend, a better everything. And never, ever, let them see you cry. She used to tell me I'm not good at anything, so why try?

I.
Fucking.
Hate.
Her.

The absolute complete opposite of her, and what in my mind kicks her ass is my alter ego: Joan Jett. She doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks of her, doesn’t give a damn about her bad reputation, is exactly who she is and certainly makes no apologies for it. She is a serious ass-kickin' rocker.

In many ways I'm a lot like her, but my gremlin says, "That's not pretty, not lady-like, it's too loud and-your-reputation-IS-so-important-if-it-were-flawed-WE-WOULD-DIE!!!"

Metaphorically speaking, the mean-bitch mannequin lady and Joan Jett have roller derby races. They race, they bump into each other, tell each other to fuck off, sometimes they crash and get it into a knock down cat fight. They go around and around the track, going nowhere.

Do you think I'm totally crazy yet? Okay, good.

But, sometimes they slow down and skate together quietly. Because I am not either of them. I am not perfect at parenting, working out, or anything for that matter. And I don't need to be hard-as-nails tough like Joan Jett either. I can be in the middle. In the grey. My gremlin, the mannequin lady is addicted to suffering. No matter how pretty she presents herself to me, no matter how convincing she is, I still need to remember SHE IS NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE MY LIFE. So, I take my skates back.

And skate away from her to take control of my own life.

So, who is your gremlin, your saboteur? What does he/she say to you? How do you decipher between that voice and your true voice, your true being?

Choosing an experience: My journey to VBAC

2010-04-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

Today's post is written by Pamela Candelaria who writes over at Natural Birth for Normal Women.

I’m going to come right out and say it: The single biggest reason I wanted a VBAC was because I wanted the experience, magic-filled and complete with angelic music and ethereal light. Well, yes, I had romanticized it a bit, but I had a very clear vision of my ideal birth before my firstborn was a twinkle in his daddy’s eye. I believe giving birth is a rite of passage, and the actual physical act of giving birth is the highest expression of feminine power. I was shocked when I ended up having a c-section to deliver my first baby, and it was an enormous struggle for me to work through my feelings of failure. There was never a question that I would pursue VBAC when I had more children. Or at least, there was never a question until I got pregnant again.

Then it started. I knew I had to be better informed this time, make better choices to have a better birth. My starting point for research was the internet, and it was absolutely filled with horror stories about VBACs gone wrong, catastrophic uterine ruptures that killed babies and left mothers hemorrhaging and facing hysterectomy. If only they’d chosen another c-section, their babies would be alive and they would be able to have more children. My conviction began to falter. I kept reading. I read the derision heaped on VBAC moms, the accusations that we were trying to get a “vag badge” or would rather have a vaginal birth than a healthy baby. I wondered if I was putting my own desire for an experience above the health of my baby. If that was the case, I needed to re-evaluate my priorities make peace with having c-sections for all my children.

In the midst of my searching, something wonderful happened. I found an online support group full of women who not only knew absolutely everything about VBAC and repeat cesarean (RCS), but were able to direct me to the sources so I could learn it myself. I started reading studies- actual studies that looked at thousands of births. I could see the biases and flaws in the research, and I was able to critically evaluate how the conclusions of the studies were affected by those biases. I had support, I had encouragement, and I had resources- and this is what I learned:

VBAC is safe. Let me say that again: VBAC is safe. That is not to say it is without risk, but any pregnancy following a c-section carries greater risk than a pregnancy with an unscarred uterus. On the whole, VBAC provides better outcomes for mothers and babies than scheduled repeat cesarean. VBAC babies have higher APGAR scores, lower rates of NICU admission, less need for supplemental oxygen, and shorter hospital stays than babies born by RCS. VBAC moms have less time in the hospital, too, and they also enjoy significantly lower rates of infection, hemorrhage, transfusion and hysterectomy. Repeat cesareans are 2-4 times more likely to result in maternal death than VBAC, but death related to uterine rupture in a VBAC attempt is unheard of. Because I wanted a large family, it was critical for me to learn that risks in future pregnancies dramatically decrease with multiple VBACs, but dramatically increase with multiple c-sections. Having this information renewed my confidence in my decision to VBAC, but it left me with questions, too. Why was the obstetric world so against VBAC? And why do only 10% of women choose VBAC?

The answers to those questions are multifaceted. The factors influencing modern obstetric care in general, and VBAC specifically, are complex and interwoven to the extent that it’s nearly impossible to separate them. Medical malpractice suits are a huge part of the equation, and there are lawyers ready and waiting to vilify OBs who support VBACs. It’s estimated that 30% of OBs have stopped supporting VBACs solely because they fear malpractice liability, and another 29% have increased their c-section rate for the same reason. The ACOG issued guidelines requiring “immediate” availability of emergency c-section for VBAC moms, and as a result nearly 1/3 of hospitals stopped supporting VBAC labors. But with the majority of OBs and hospitals still allowing VBAC, I wondered, why do women choose RCS in droves?

It is common (though inaccurate) knowledge that VBAC is safer for mothers and RCS is safer for babies, and there is a strong social expectation that we as mothers should be willing to sacrifice our own safety to ensure the safety of our babies. We fear we’ll be held responsible if a VBAC goes wrong, but choosing RCS makes the OB responsible for the safety of the baby during birth. Many OBs provide misleading information about the risks of VBAC, guiding women to “choose” RCS because it is falsely presented as risk-free. Other OBs claim to be VBAC-supportive, but have a laundry list of criteria that virtually guarantee no one will ever achieve a trial of labor. VBAC is no longer a mainstream birth choice, and when faced with unsupportive providers, misinformation, scare tactics, and a constant need to be vigilant and advocate for ourselves to ensure we’re given an opportunity to birth the way we want- well, is it any surprise that most of us opt out?

After all my hours of research, I felt vindicated. Not only was my desire for a birth experience okay, but going ahead and having that experience was going to be better for me and my baby and all my future babies too. I was also lucky; my OBs never questioned my decision to VBAC and they were supportive and encouraging throughout my pregnancies. I have now had three VBACs, and oddly enough, there wasn’t a single one marked by angelic music or ethereal light. I never had that ideal birth I’d envisioned. It was just me, birthing my babies, having that experience, doing a little part of God’s work. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

*******************************************************************************

Pam is a mother of 4 who found a passion for birth through her cesarean and 3 VBAC journeys. She believes the best way to improve maternity care is to empower all women to make fully informed decisions, regardless of what type of birth they choose. She resides in Denver, Colorado.

J Lo tells us the reason we should all get our pre-baby body back...

2010-04-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

Recently, Jennifer Lopez was interviewed for US magazine. Not the most intriguing of magazines, I know, but they do have (what I am assuming is) hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and many, many more pick it up while waiting in line at the grocery store. The cover screams, "MY BEST BODY EVER" and provides us with an eyeful of the celebrity looking happy and sultry. A look all of us mothers are apparently dying to achieve. (Insert eye roll). The article quotes Lopez as saying,"You get to the point where you're like, Where am I? What happened to me? I got to get myself together for my kids, you know? They need to know what I really look like."

Don't get me wrong; I love me some J Lo. Many times I've been running, listening to her music, shaking my butt, trying to tap into my inner Latina. But, Jesus H. Christ. "They need to know what I really look like" ?? What she really looks like? I can guarantee, that what she really looks like is not some perfectly lit, posed, professionally make-up'd, airbrushed and photoshopped celebrity. And what kind of message does this send to her children and to other mothers? Call me completely bananas-gone-crazy, but this is the message it sends to me as a mother:

Mamas: If you've got a little or a lot of belly fat, perhaps some pesky cellulite on your thighs,

some sag on your butt cheeks after having those babies, don't you think it's about time you show

your kids what you looked like BEFORE you had them? So what if it's been several years and you're

not 20 anymore. Do it for your KIDS! Get yourself together for your them.

Clearly, I jest, and who really takes J Lo seriously anymore. But, this is nothing new. We see it and hear it daily. The "How I got my body back after baby" article is a pretty constant bombardment to us mothers. So how do we ignore it? How in the world do we squash just deal with the body image pressures after having babies?

There are many things a woman can do about it, and it really depends on the severity of her issues. I will say a couple of things. First of all, remember this: When you decide to have a baby, your life will change permanently. Forever. For the rest of your natural life. So, count on the fact that it's pretty likely that your body will change too. For-ev-er. Am I happy about the fact that my body is different now after having 2 babies? No. By no means do I give myself a wink and a thumbs up in the mirror when my eyes fall on a part of my body that is different than it used to be. But, I'm learning to live with it. Sometimes I just sigh and have to say, "It is, what it is", then go chase my toddler or nurse my daughter (which by the way I'll take my not-so-perky-anymore breasts as a trade off for breastfeeding both of my children). Just try to keep it in perspective. We chose to have the attitudes we have about certain things. Body image is no different. We can choose to be in a place of "Oh-my-god-I-need-to-get-my-body-back-or-else-(insert worst possible fate)" or we can choose to just accept it for what it is.

Your kids don't care if you have some belly fat. They don't care if you have some cellulite. But, they do care (and listen) about how you think and talk about your body. I vowed to do my best to heal my body image issues and to not pass them on to my children, especially my daughter. I do the best I can. Sometimes I feel like that clown at the circus who spins plates on both hands, one foot, his head and his nose. Some fall off, sometimes he looks silly, but, hey, at least he's trying, right? We have a lot to deal with as mothers. Let's not beat ourselves up by comparing our bodies now to what they looked like before we had babies.

Thanks anyway, J Lo. Please don't comment anymore about that. Just keep making great movies making music that we can shake our butts to.

Things you shouldn't say to a pregnant lady...

2010-04-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

...Or one that just had a baby

“Don’t be a hero, just get the epidural.”

Plain and simple- Women who don’t get an epidural during childbirth are not trying to be a hero. They’re not trying to prove anything to anyone. They don't want a trophy, a medal, or a "congratulations". Their reasons may vary, but I can almost guarantee that they are completely annoyed by the “Don’t be a hero” statement.

“Women that have natural child birth are crazy!”

We are trained to think that childbirth is hidiously painful and should be avoided at all costs. Childbirth is a right of passage and many women embrace it, pain and all.

“VBAC is selfish. You should just do the safest thing for your baby and have another c-section”

This one makes my head spin. If anyone was truly educated on both the subject of multiple cesarean and VBAC, they would never say this ridiculous statement. I can only assume this would be said by someone that doesn't have a clue about both subjects or does not have a vagina. If someone does have the balls to say this, ask them where they got their medical degree.
VBAC is not selfish.

“Having a healthy baby is all that matters. It doesn’t matter how he’s born”

There is someone else involved in the birth and caring of that baby- and it’s his mother. Her physical health is important, but also her mental and emotional health. I am so tired of hearing this. It does matter how the baby is born! It goes without saying that the health of the baby is most important, but it's entirely unfair that the mother's feelings are simply pushed aside.

“C-section is the way to go. No contractions, no pushing, you’re in, you’re out!”

If you’ve never had a c-section and you say this to someone, shame on you. You have no right to impose this type of advice. If you’ve had a c-section and your experience was pleasant, I ask you to STOP telling pregnant women this. The process of labor and delivery is actually healthy for mother and baby. Most women grow up hearing nothing but horror stories about labor, so they learn to fear labor. I mean really FEAR labor. But women's bodies are made for labor. We're made to be able to take the pain and the contractions.

“Well, it could always be worse”

I'd like to think that this statement is said when there is absolutely nothing else to say. Perhaps out of desperation to fill the silence or say anything to make the mother feel better. But, I urge, you...don't say this! Obviously, it could always be worse. But, someone who didn't have a great birth experience does not need their feelings to be made less.

And lastly, I hesitated to write about this, but I wanted to make the point. (Another great post about this is here). If someone has had a traumatic c-section, or even a non-traumatic one but has ill feelings toward it, I think saying the following can be hurtful:

“Don’t worry, next time you can just have a VBAC!”

It can be negative for two reasons. First, she may not be a good candidate for a VBAC or she may attempt and not succeed (or she may be done having babies). Secondly, having a VBAC doesn’t automatically erase or “fix” the feelings of a previous traumatic birth experience. In some ways, I expected this to happen to me. Although my VBAC was great, and I encourage all women to try for one that desire to, I’m still sad that my son came into the world in a way that I feel was not the greatest. It’s out of my control, I’ve come a long way with the feelings assocaited with it, but like any traumatic experience, happier ones in the future don’t make it all better.

Photo courtesy of Shutter Daddy

Caveat Emptor: The Real Risks of Cesarean Section

2010-04-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

Today's post is written by Pamela Candelaria who writes over at Natural Birth for Normal Women.

Over 1.3 million babies in the US were born by c-section in 2008, accounting for 32.3% of all births. The most common reason for cesarean delivery is having had one before, but the reasons for a cesarean can vary widely. Sometimes there are medical reasons for planning a c-section prior to labor, and emergencies during labor make other c-sections truly lifesaving. For a huge number of women, though, the picture is less clear. They are told they have small pelvises, or big babies, or their labors aren’t progressing fast enough. Many women are told cesareans are a safe way to avoid the risks of vaginal birth, and an increasing number of mothers are choosing c-sections with no medical indication at all. Whatever the reason for the c-section, though, one thing they almost always have in common is a lack of truly informed consent. Let’s look at the risks listed on a fairly typical consent form—what isn’t on the form may be surprising:

The consent form says:

Infection in the skin incision, usually this is controlled with antibiotics. Sometimes it can require you to be re-admitted to the hospital, but in most cases antibiotics are taken as an out-patient.

In reality, you are twice as likely to be re-hospitalized following a c-section, infection is almost five times more likely to occur, and infection can extend to the uterine incision. Taking antibiotics while breastfeeding contributes to thrush, adding another challenge when breastfeeding is already less likely to succeed following a cesarean.

The consent form says:

Development of heavy bleeding at the time of surgery with the possibility of hemorrhage which could require a blood transfusion.

Transfusion is required in up to 6% of cesarean sections. If your c-section goes perfectly, you’ll lose over twice as much blood as you would during a normal vaginal birth- and even that number may be grossly underestimated. It is interesting to note that “normal” blood loss during a c-section would be considered a hemorrhage during a vaginal birth.

The consent form says:

Injury to the bladder and/or bowel which could require surgical repair (this occurs in less than 1% of all Cesarean sections)

True- but mild bowel paralysis occurs following up to 20% of cesareans, and some women have bladder injuries that don’t require surgical correction but do require use of a catheter for weeks following delivery. Even if only 1% of women require further surgery to correct these injuries, that is almost 14,000 additional- and largely preventable- surgeries per year being performed on mothers who should be happily caring for their newborns.

The consent form says:

Injury to the ureter (a small tube which passes urine from the kidney to the bladder)

While this injury is unusual, occurring in just 0.1% to 0.25% of cesareans, it often goes undiagnosed until the mother returns to her doctor with symptoms including pain and fever. Another surgery is then required.

The consent form says:

Developing a blood clot in the leg veins after delivery

This occurs in ½% to 2% of c-sections- somewhere between 6,900 and 27,000 women- and can be fatal; yet many women are never told what symptoms to look for or how to reduce their risk.

The consent form says:

Risks for subsequent pregnancies include: placenta previa (where the placenta lies wholly or partly in the lower part of the uterus)

Shockingly, this consent form fails to list any other risks for future pregnancies. Reproductive consequences of a primary cesarean include a risk of uterine rupture that is 12 times higher than it would be with an unscarred uterus, even if a repeat cesarean is scheduled. A woman also faces increased risk of placenta previa, more severe placenta problems like abruption and accreta, miscarriage and unexplained stillbirth, unexplained secondary infertility, and dramatically increased risk of surgical complications in future c-sections. If that is not enough, the scar tissue and adhesions left by cesarean surgery can cause chronic pelvic pain and sexual dysfunction, and in rare cases can cause intestinal blockage that can be fatal.

The consent form says:

Cutting the baby during the incision into the uterus (this occurs rarely).

About 1-2% of babies are cut during c-sections- that could mean over 25,000 babies, every year, receiving anything from a nick to a severe laceration at the hands of the delivering OB. While the consent form ends here, a slippery scalpel is not the only risk babies face when delivered by cesarean. Babies born by elective cesarean are up to seven times more likely to have respiratory problems at birth, and are up to three times as likely to die in their first month of life. C-section babies have lower APGAR scores, higher NICU admission rates, and they are more likely to have ongoing health problems like asthma. It’s important to note, these are low-risk babies, not babies who are delivered by emergency cesarean who may have been affected by complications of labor. No, these babies experience these issues as a direct result of the way they were born.

I’ve talked with hundreds of women about their cesarean births, both online and in real life. There is a pervasive belief that c-sections transfer the inherent risks of birth to the mother, providing babies a safer and lower-risk entrance into the world than they’d have with a vaginal birth. Many OBs perpetuate this myth, but it’s clear they aren’t telling us the whole story. I don’t think I’ve met one woman- not one single mother- who was told up front that in some respects her c-section put her baby at greater risk than vaginal birth would have. Even though many women seem comfortable with the increased maternal risks of c-sections, few are truly aware of exactly what those risks are, how much they are increased, or how they can be reduced. OBs are selling c-sections as a safe and easy way to deliver a baby- and women are buying.

Buyer beware.

********************************************************************************************************************************

Sources:

2008 Birth Data

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_16.pdf

Cesarean Section Consent Form

http://www.awomansplaceobgyn.com/PDF/CONSENT-FOR-CESAREAN-SECTION.pdf

Risk of selected postpartum infections after cesarean section compared with vaginal birth: A five-year cohort study of 32,468 women

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a913514882

Cesarean Fact Sheet

http://www.vbac.com/pdfs/CesareanFactSheet.pdf

Neonatal Morbidity and Mortality After Elective Cesarean Delivery

Caroline Signore, MD, MPH^a and Mark Klebanoff, MD, MPH^b

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475575/

Thrush in Breastfeeding Moms

http://www.babycenter.com/0_thrush-in-breastfeeding-moms_8486.bc

Cesarean Childbirth

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/cesarean_childbirth/page9_em.htm

Estimates of cesarean-related blood loss shown to be too low

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYD/is_13_38/ai_105514154/

Urologic Injury at the Time of Cesarean Delivery

http://www.femalepatient.com/html/arc/sig/obsF/articles/034_08_023.asp

Uterine Rupture in Pregnancy

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/275854-overview

Deadly Delivery Summary

http://www.amnestyusa.org/dignity/pdf/DeadlyDeliverySummary.pdf

Fetal Injury Associated with Cesarean Delivery

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17012450

The Easter Bunny meets Cesarean Awareness

2010-04-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

April is my favorite month. Probably because it's my birthday, Spring, Easter and Cesarean Awareness Month. So guess what this post is about? Yes, another topic that gets my panties in a wad: Cesarean section and VBAC.

Fighting for my own VBAC has changed my life. I don't use that term very often, only when I truly mean it. It opened my eyes up to the world of American obstetrics, and how far we've come away from birth as a natural process. In my opinion, we've shoved a big, fat middle finger in Mother Nature's face.

So, why do I care? Isn't it none of my business how another woman gives birth? What she chooses to do is her perogative, isn't that why we're so lucky to live in America? So, shouldn't I just sit back and not judge? Well, yes and no. Yes, I shouldn't judge, but realistically, we're all human and we do it every day. And no, this is my blog and I feel it in my bones to speak out about this. So, if you don't want to hear me rant about birth, unnecessary cesarean and VBAC, you are welcome to stop reading now and for the remainder of the month of April.

Congratulations if you're still reading, you might get your mind changed, help someone else change their mind, or just plain hate me later. I'm okay with any or all of those.

I have come to realize that birth is hands down the most natural, beautiful, organic process in the entire world. It's been happening for billions of years. And it's changing for the worse. We are backpedaling when it comes to nature. Once we figured out we were destroying our planet, we all jumped on the bandwagon to fix it, right? And when we realized how many hazardous chemicals are in our foods and household products we try to make changes to keep ourselves and families safe, correct? But, here we are, destroying the one thing we all have in common: Birth, and year after year it continues to get worse. In the U.S. the maternal death rate has nearly tripled in the last decade and the cesarean rate has continued to rise for the last 11 years, and if the trend keeps going, it may reach 50% by the time my daughter is ready to have babies. There are many reasons for this sharp rise, but that's not what this post is about.

I feel if I sit back and say nothing, I perpetuate the problem. What has me so upset, is the lack of information women have when they are pregnant and give birth. When pregnant with my first, I was one of them! I sat back, let my doctor talk at me and hardly questioned him. My instincts told me to do something, anything, ask questions, go against his word, call his bluff. But, I didn't. Years and years of wiring were engrained in me. Things like: Doctors know everything. Doctors always have your best interests at heart. Hospitals are the best and safest place to have babies. Birth is scary, painful and dangerous. These are all things I thought were true, never trying to find out if any of it was factual or not. Guess what? It's all bullshit.

(Note: Not all doctors are bad. There are some great obstetricians, ones that support VBAC and will even wait it out on a long labor. But, this post is not about that either. Moving on!)

So, what is this post about? Basically what I stated before: I feel that many women lack important information when they are pregnant and giving birth. Some patients rights include:

Women can refuse to be examined or treated by anyone.
Pregnant women have a right to refuse any medical treatment or drug, including a cesarean section, episiotomy, anesthesia, and pain medication.
A woman has a right to change her mind about any decision made before or during labor or childbirth.

Those are just a few. For a full list and other great information, click here. I hear story after story of women who are pregnant that didn't know they could refuse treatment, cesarean deliveries, vaginal exams or other interventions. It's up to us to know our rights and be able to ask or question our medical professionals.

One of my favorite birth bloggers, Barbara Herrera, wrote a post entitled, "When you buy the hospital ticket...you go for the Hospital Ride." She says, "If you want control, why go where egotistical birth is the norm? If you want autonomy, why go where lawsuits and defensive medicine are the rule?" I'll be honest. I was scared shitless that my baby might be in danger during labor. Why? Because I was fed the absolute worst possible scenarios at each and every one of my OB appointments. If you know me and/or read my blog you know that I encourage and teach people to listen to their intuition, their gut instincts. Mine was telling me everything was fine, myself and my daughter were healthy and safe and that I should trust my body. But, as mothers, as incubators of these precious creatures it's very difficult to ignore modern medicine and not place our utmost trust in our superhero medical birthing system. After all, hospitals save babies. They save mothers birthing babies. In very, very rare instances they do this. But, you have to wonder: Is a hospital the safest place to birth? Is it the best place to bond with our babies? Are we just too scared and maybe uninformed to do it anywhere else? Do women really think they can't or don't know how to birth? Is it just a coincidence that as maternal mortality is rising so is the rate of cesarean sections?

The month of April will continue with birth and Cesarean related posts. Here are some references if you are pregnant, wanting a VBAC, or thinking about either one. Or if you know someone who may learn something about birth, these would make an excellent gift. Birth is the first major event your child experiences. Inform yourself to be able to make the best choices for yourself and your baby. Empower yourself to take control of your body and your birth.

"Ina May's Guide to Child Birth" by Ina May Gaskin
"The Thinking Womans Guide to a Better Birth" by Henci Goer (this one is great if you like scientific research to back up all the things you're reading).

"Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience" by Ricki Lake and Abbi Epstein.
Also, visit the International Cesarean Awareness Network, VBAC Facts and The Unnecesarean websites.

Photo courtesy of Thomas van Ardenne

A little rant about eating disorder myths

2010-03-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

Recently, while on a Facebook page regarding eating disorders I noticed a few comments some people had made about eating disorders and thin people. One said, "It was great when Dove soap starting using real women in their ads" and another said, "It's just time to wake up and see that a size 0 is just sick! We need more people to join our fight!" (They were both men, by the way)

Okay. First off, let me start by saying it's comments like that that make me think just for one tiny second that I can't fight this fight anymore. It's too big and too deep and too tall for just little ol' me to lend a hand. However, then I squash that pesky voice and take two steps at a time up on my soapbox:

"It was great when Dove soap starting using real women in their ads"

ALL women are REAL women. Did you hear me? ALL of us. It doesn't matter if you are a size zero, eyeball deep in an eating disorder or naturally a size zero and healthy. Or if you are a size 24, or if you wear a triple XL, or anywhere in between. When we start to use terms like "real" we judge everyone else and we are no better off than companies like Victoria's Secret who only use ultra thin models in their ads. (I think that the commenter got confused when referring to Dove ads. Dove started the Real Beauty Campaign, not Real Women).

"It's just time to wake up and see that a size 0 is just sick! We need more people to join our fight!"

A size zero is NOT sick. Someone that suffers from an eating disorder is sick. And by sick, I mean ill. An eating disorder is no different than any other mental illness that needs to be treated by a medical professional. I know several women that are a size zero or close to it, that are perfectly healthy, do not starve themselves to be thin, nor do they participate in any other behavior that warrants an eating disorder status. They are judged for being thin, people assume they are starving, and are even disliked merely because of their size. No matter that they are smart, giving, kind, generous human beings. In America, they're "skinny bitches" naturally, so they deserve to be crapped on?!?!? To the commenter that said this: I will never join your "fight". You're ridiculous. Get informed before you make such ludicrous statements.

Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes. It is a huge misconception that only the skeletal and emaciated have eating disorders. That they're the only ones that need help or that die. Yes, I said it: Die. Eating disorders kill. And rarely do you see on a death certificate; cause of death: Eating Disorder. It's complications from it, including cardiac arrest, electrolyte imbalance, malnutrition (that can cause kidney failure and respiratory infections), hyponatremia and dehydration, just to name a few. (For a full list, click here). What someone looks like does not tell you they need help. They don't walk around with a tattoo on their forehead that says, "Hey everybody! I have ED!" They look like you and me.

If you read my post a few weeks back on EDNOS, you know that one-third to one-half of all diagnosed eating disorders fall under the diagnosis of EDNOS. It's so important to know these symptoms, so you or someone you love can get help. This is not a joke. We need to open our eyes and see that people are dying from this. It's very real. But, there is hope and help.

Katherine Switzer

2010-03-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

March is Women's History Month and with so many amazing women who have made a difference in our world, choosing one to write about is difficult. So, I decided to write about one you many not have heard of.

A few years ago I read that up until 1984 women were not allowed to participate in the Olympic Marathon competition. I was floored. This was in my lifetime that women were actually not allowed to participate. I thought by the time I was born in 1975, we were long past this, however I was wrong. As runner myself, this both fascinated and angered me and I wanted to know more. Upon researching, I came across Katherine Switzer, who has become my own personal hero. The following story is from the book, "The Spirit of the Marathon" by Gail Waesche Kislevitz. This story makes me emotional, gives me goosebumps, especially to see the pictures of what happened. Perhaps because when I read it I put myself in Katherine's shoes. As a woman, an athlete, it makes me so proud of Katherine, what she stands for and what an amazing role model she is for young girls and women everywhere. So, please sit back and read the whole story. It's well worth it!

Life is for Participating

by Gail Waesche Kislevitz

Kathrine Switzer
D.O.B.: 1-5-47
Residence: New York/New Zealand
Occupation: Program Director, Avon Running, Global Women's Circuit;
Director, Women's Health and Fitness, RYKA
First Marathon: 1967 Boston Marathon, Boston, MA
Age at first marathon: 20

Every time a female runner enters a marathon, a small offering should be made to Kathrine Switzer. Through her tenacity, stubbornness and belief that women can too run 26.2, she scaled the male bastion of the Boston Marathon that barred women from its race and helped to open its doors to women, which it officially did in 1972. Switzer then put her degree in journalism and her love for running to good use and furthered the cause for women in sports through her work at Avon and RYKA shoes. When not traveling the globe promoting women's walking and running, Kathrine can be found taking her daily run through Central Park. Among her many citations and awards for her work to advance women's sports is the Runner of the Decade commendation from Runner's World magazine. She was also honored as a member of the inaugural class of the National Distance Running Hall of Fame.

"When I was twelve years old I wanted to be a cheerleader. Like many pre-pubescent girls I thought if I were a cheerleader I would be popular and boys would ask me out and I would end up dating the captain of the football team. When I told my dad of my aspiration he looked at me and said, 'You don't want to be a cheerleader. That's silly. Life is for participating not spectating. The cheerleaders lead cheers. You should play sports and have people cheer for you. You like to run and be active. Why don't you go out for field hockey?' I wasn't a tomboy, but I always thought a girl could do anything a boy could so I took his advice to heart. My mother was a great role model in that sense as she did everything. She worked a professional job, cooked the meals, tended a garden and raised us to believe there were no limitations on what we could do. My dad supported that and encouraged us to think beyond traditional roles.

With my dad's encouragement, I started to get in shape for field hockey by running a mile. No one ran on the streets back in 1959. The only runners I knew were the track and cross-country runners at school. But when I realized that running did in fact build my endurance, it became my secret weapon. I knew it would make me better at other sports. I didn't know anything about training or conditioning, but I knew that running was the key. By high school, I was up to 3 miles and felt like the cock of the walk. No girl I knew anywhere could run three miles a day.

I continued playing field hockey at Lynchburg College in Virginia but was somewhat disappointed in the skills and commitment of the other women. Most of them were not very dedicated to the sport and didn't care whether we won or lost. I cared deeply and played hard, taking practice and the games very seriously. After practice I would run a mile. When the coach found out she got very angry, accusing me of not working hard enough at practice if I still had the energy to run a mile afterwards. What she didn't understand was that mile was my alone time, my solace. One day while I was finishing up my mile, the men's track coach approached me and asked if I would run a mile on the men's team. There was a big meet coming up and he needed another member on the team to qualify and I looked like I could do it. I had no problem with that and agreed. Well, all hell broke out when word got out that a woman was going to run on the men's team. Lynchburg was a small religious-affiliated school and I was doing something almost sacrilegious. On the day of the meet, the campus and field was swarming with local and national media to capture me, this woman, who dared run with men.

The media hype made me nervous and I knew I had to do well to uphold my athletic honor. I finished the mile in 5:58 and was pleased. But I wasn't thrilled with some of the hate mail I received over the incident, telling me God will strike me dead for running with men. I learned a valuable lesson that day. I was being judged not on my athletic ability but on being a woman. It dawned on me for the first time that there would be no sports programs for me after college. Either it just wasn't done or it wasn't available. Billie Jean King had just come out as a professional woman's tennis player and there were some female golf pros, but those sports didn't interest me. Since I loved sports but didn't feel I could participate on a professional level I decided to become a sports journalist and transferred to Syracuse University in 1966.

I was still serious about my running and wanted to continue it at Syracuse. Along the way, running had evolved from being my secret weapon to my first love. It was something I could do by myself, didn't cost anything, didn't need a lot of equipment and I loved being outdoors. I was also good at it. I knew that running was going to be a lifetime sport for me. I've often felt that if field hockey were an Olympic sport I would have stayed with it because I did love it and never would have become a runner. But those avenues were not available to women back in the early sixties. Women today have so many choices, from soccer to basketball to snowboarding, almost anything they desire. For me, it was running.

At Syracuse I went to see the men's cross country coach and asked if I could run on the team since there wasn't a women's team. He looked at me a bit startled and said, 'I've been coaching for thirty years and have never had a woman ask to be on the team. I can't let you run officially because it is against the NCAA rules but you are welcome to come and work out with us.' With that, I started running with the team but was miles behind them. That's when I met Arnie Briggs, who was the postman for the University. He finished his job at three in the afternoon and then worked out with the team. He did this for years until finally he became the unofficial manager of the team. He was also a marathon runner and had run the Boston Marathon fifteen times. When I met him he was fifty to my nineteen. He had a bad knee and all sorts of injuries but could still run slowly, which was faster than what my pace was. And of course, he still had the endurance for long runs. He was excited that a girl was with the team and sort of adopted me. Actually I think he felt sorry for me because as soon as the team headed out for their runs, I would lose sight of them and wouldn't know where to go. He took me under his wing and taught me about running.

In the winter when the team went indoors for training, Arnie and I stayed outside and ran in the cold and the snow. We were running six to ten miles a night and Arnie would keep me entertained with stories of the Boston Marathon. He'd tell me tales of Clarence DeMar, John Kelley the Elder, John Kelley the Younger, Tarzan Brown, all the legends. I was entranced and fascinated. Finally, one snowy night I said let's stop talking about Boston and just go and run the damn thing. He turned to me and said, 'Women can't run the Boston Marathon. Women aren't capable of running 26.2 miles. It's the law of diminishing returns.' I told him he was crazy, that if I could run 10 miles, why couldn't I run 26? He HAD to believe a woman could do it, because I had read in Sports Illustrated that Bobbie (Roberta) Gibb had run the Boston Marathon in 1966. She hid in the bushes until half the runners had passed and then slipped into the pack. She finished but her time was not recorded as she didn't wear a race number and was not officially entered in the race. When I told this to Arnie, he was enraged and didn't believe it. I was deeply upset at his reaction. I felt our friendship was at a crossroad if he truly didn't believe a woman could run a marathon after all the training and the long runs we had enjoyed together. He thought it over for a while and said that if any woman could run the distance, he believed it was me, and if I could prove to him that I could indeed run 26.2 miles, he would personally take me to Boston.

Now I had a coach and a goal and it was all business from them on. I trained consistently and bumped up the long runs from 15 miles to 17 to 18 miles and so on. It wasn't always easy. At my first attempt at 18 miles I hit the wall. But I kept going and finally we set the day to run 26.2 miles. I was hot to trot, so excited. It was an early April day with snow still on the ground. We mapped out about four 10K loops and as we were finishing up the last loop, Arnie turned and said, 'I can't believe you are going to make it. You are really going to complete a marathon.' It was such a big deal for me. All of a sudden I put on the brakes and said, 'What if we mismeasured the course and we're short of 26.2 miles?' I wanted to be absolutely sure of the distance and began to doubt we had measured accurately. Just to be totally sure, I wanted to add another 5 miles. Arnie was astonished, but said if I could do it, he could do it. During the last five miles of this now 31-mile run, Arnie began weaving back and forth, his legs like jelly. I put my arm through his and steadied him for the last mile. Back at the car, our finish line, I threw my arms around him and slapped him on the back screaming that we were on our way to Boston, and he passed out.

The next day he came over to my dorm with the race entry form. I knew that Bobbi Gibb didn't wear a number, so I somehow thought I'd just show up and run. Oh no, said Arnie, Boston is a serious race, you are a serious runner, you are a member of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), and you don't mess with Boston. You have to do it right and officially register. I wondered if it might be against some rule, remembering that I was allowed to run in the conference at Lynchburg College but not with the NCAA at Syracuse University. Arnie had anticipated the question and had the current AAU Rulebook with him. The book listed "Men's Track and Field Events," "Women's Track and Field Events," and then a third category, "The Marathon," which listed nothing about gender. We laughed that nobody would think about a woman running a marathon since only crazy men ran it anyway!

The application also called for a medical certificate. In lieu of that I could have opted to have an onsite physical exam at Boston, but Arnie didn't think I'd want to stand in a hallway with a bunch of naked men getting a physical. So I went to the Syracuse Infirmary for my physical and got the medical certificate signed. Anyway, I filled out the entry, plunked down my $3 entry fee, and signed my name, K.V. Switzer.

Now, the reason I signed K.V. Switzer instead of Kathrine is because I always signed my name that way. Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a writer and K.V. was going to be my signature name. It seemed to my young mind then that all the good writers used their initials like J.D. Salinger, E.E.Cummings, T.S. Elliot, W.B. Yeats -- so ever since I was twelve I signed all my papers K.V. Switzer, thinking I was totally cool. It was my signature.

Arnie sent my application in with the rest of the track guys from Syracuse who were also planning on running the marathon. Actually, I was the only one who had really trained. That night, I went out with my boyfriend Tom Miller, who was a graduate student and a hammer thrower. He was very amused with all this and would ask me how my 'jogging' was going. When I told him I was running the Boston Marathon, he fell down laughing. He said if I could run a marathon he could too and decided to sign up. He weighed 235 pounds but that didn't discourage him. He just felt if I could do it he could. To prove his point he went out and ran nine miles and declared he was ready. So we all go to Boston.

The day of the race was horrible. Sleeting, snowing, windy and cold. All the runners had on big baggy sweats with windbreakers and hoods. I wore my worst stuff because Arnie said when we got warmed up we'd throw away our old sweats and just leave them behind. As I pinned on my number, the other runners around me noticed I was a woman and got very excited and supportive. They thought it was great that a woman was going to run Boston. We all lined up to go through the starting pen and as I went through the pen, I had to lift my sweatshirt to show my number. Will Cloney himself, the co-race director, pushed me through the starting gate. More people were noticing I was female and congratulated me, all very supportive and excited for me. Arnie, my boyfriend Tom, John Leonard from our cross country team and I were in a little group. Our plan was to stay together for a while but if anyone wanted to split off we would meet at the finish. The race starts and off we go.

Four miles into the race, the media flatbed truck loaded with photographers came through and we all had to get out of the way to let it pass. A bus followed the truck with the journalists and on that bus were co-race directors Will Cloney and Jock Semple. The photographers saw me first and started shouting, 'There's a girl in the race,' and then slowed up in front of us and started taking pictures. By now, I'd thrown away my top sweatshirt and my hair was flying. I didn't try to disguise my gender at all. Heck, I was so proud of myself I was wearing lipstick! When the journalists saw me, they started teasing Jock that a girl had infiltrated his race. They looked up my number and saw K. Switzer and started heckling Jock some more. 'She doesn't look like a Karl,' they'd say. Their bus was still behind us. I was unaware what was going on behind me as we were waving at the photographers in front of us.

Jock was well known for his violent temper. He seethed for awhile, and then he erupted. He jumped off the bus and went after me. I saw him just before he pounced, and let me tell you, I was scared to death. He was out of control. I jumped away from him as he grabbed for me, but he caught me by the shoulder and spun me around, and screamed, 'Get the hell out of my race and give me that race number.' I tried to get away from him but he had me by the shirt. It was like being in a bad dream. Arnie tried to wrestle Jock away from me but was having a hard time himself and then Tom, my 235-pound boyfriend came to the rescue and smacked Jock with a cross body block and Jock went flying through the air. At first, I thought we had killed him. I was stunned and didn't know what to do, but then Arnie just looked at me and said, 'Run like hell,' and I did as the photographers snapped away and the scribes recorded the event for posterity.

The rest is history. My infamous run at the 1967 Boston Marathon is recorded as unofficial and does not post a time, although it was around 4:20:00. Despite that the BAA wanted nothing to do with me, the fact that I ran with a number made headlines around the world. The New York Times reported the story but inadvertently said I didn't finish. I was furious and personally called the reporter to correct his mistake, saying just because you filed your story while I was still out running didn't mean I didn't finish! It was this incident as much as any other that made me determined to become a better runner, to prove I could also be a real athlete, as I certainly never was a quitter and even with all the dreadful stuff at Boston I would have finished that race on my hands and knees to prove that a woman could do it.

Afterwards, I decided to use this experience to insure that other women who wanted to run would not be subjected to the same treatment. I became an organizer and an outspoken proponent for women's physical capability. The first thing I did when Arnie and I got back to Syracuse was form The Syracuse Track Club and encouraged women to join. We staged regular meets with full opportunities for women. I felt the most important thing I could do for women was to create the forum for their acceptance in sports.

Back in Boston, Bobbi Gibb continued to run without a number, as did the other women who were coming on the scene as well. In 1969 three women including Nina Kuscsik, ran unofficially. I stayed away from Boston until 1970. That year, four other women also ran. This time they recorded my time, 3:34. By 1971, myself, Nina Kusisck and Sara Mae Berman ran Boston and afterwards we united our efforts to try and force the arm of the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) to officially allow women to run. We wanted to lift the ban in Boston as well as the exclusion of women running long distance in the Olympics, including the women's marathon.

Finally, in 1972, for the first time ever women were officially welcome to run the Boston Marathon. It was a big breakthrough - at last we could be ATHLETES. After this momentous decision, I continued fighting for women's rights in sports, but for awhile I moved my concentration on being an athlete to my first priority. I was 25 years old and knew I had a window of opportunity left and trained my brains out. I didn't want to get to be 40 and not have tried to go all out. I'd do a 20 or 27 miler every Sunday just to be ready for anything. Some years I did 7 or 8 marathons a year. Probably too much but guess what? I got good! I went back to Boston eight times, and ran a personal best of 2:51:37 in 1975. I also won the New York City Marathon in 1974. When I ran my 2:51 I was thrilled. I though of the time I could only run a mile, then 3 miles, than ran my first marathon at 4:20 only five years ago and here I broke the three hour mark. I am constantly amazed at what the human body can do. Really, I felt if I could do it on my limited talent, I thought thousands of women could do it, and they really deserved the chance to try.

And after running the 2:51, I really wanted to concentrate on making that happen. I was hoping it could become my career, too, somehow. I parlayed my journalism and writing skills with running and set out on a career in public relations and sports marketing promoting races, doing sports writing which evolved into doing TV commentary of running events. I also created the Avon Running Global Women's Circuit, a series of running events for women in many countries. I am most proud of this program because it led in great part to the inclusion of a women's marathon in the 1984 Olympics Games. At the same time, the Avon program and the work I do with RYKA women's sports shoes has allowed me to introduce running to women in 30 countries around the world, giving them the tools, the motivation and the courage to run or walk a race. I've seen 400- pound women show up at a clinic with sullen faces of disbelief, wearing flip flops and eleven weeks later they are sporting smiles and a medal around their necks from their first race.

As an aside, Jock Semple and I became great friends. Five years after the 1967 event he had to welcome me, as well as all the women, as official competitors in the 1972 race and he was very impressed with our performances. We grew from there. For example, in the late seventies I was invited to Boston for a book signing on a book about his life, called "Just Call Me Jock". The promoters of the event thought it would be funny to surprise Jock during his talk by having me jump out from behind the curtains, wearing a gray sweat suit just like the one in the infamous 1967 marathon, and yell 'Get outta here, you're not official, give me that book.' He was certainly surprised and his first reaction was to bop me but when he realized it was a joke, he joined in and enjoyed himself.

I have been lucky in life. I had my parents and Arnie telling me I could do anything I wanted. As a female, I was never resigned to just playing with dolls or only being the cheerleader. Yes, I played with dolls and wore dresses but also climbed trees and played sports with a vengeance. After my experience in Boston, I realized there are plenty of women in the world who grow up without that support and without realizing the sky is their only limit. I wanted to reach those women and do something to change their lives.

All you need is the courage to believe in yourself and put one foot in front of the other."

Photo by Harry Trask for AP Images.

My sincerest of thank yous...

2010-03-10T04:00:00.000-08:00

It's been a little over a year and a half since I started this blog. When I sat down to write my first post I had no idea where it would take me. I knew it would involve my coaching career, and I knew I had something to say about things I felt strongly about, but I never envisioned it to become what it's become. I know I don't have a ton of readers like other bloggers out there, and I'm okay with that. In fact, it still humbles me when I get an email from someone in another country or even where I live, saying they found my blog and something I wrote touched them in some way. It makes me still want to call my mom and tell her. And sometimes I do.

So, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you to all who read, even if you've just read one post. The fact that you took time to read my words, thoughts, ideas and sometimes rants means everything to me. When I was a little girl, scribbling poetry or short stories I would dream of this day; when what I wrote was important to someone, anyone. It's such an amazing gift to me. I've kept writing because of the emails, the comments, the love. My goal is to help others and as a side effect I've grown tremendously writing about my struggles and sharing with you my life lessons. I hope I've inspired you, my readers, to embrace life with all your might. So, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Photo courtesy of ohmann alianne

Something you should know about Eating Disorders and EDNOS

2010-03-05T04:00:00.000-08:00

Recently, I came across a great article on one of my favorite blogs, Venus Vision, where the author talked about EDNOS, or Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. I linked the article to my Facebook page because I think this is so important for people to know about. I had never heard of EDNOS until I stumbled upon the website, Finding Balance, and when reading it, I felt overwhelmed, but relieved. Finally what I had struggled with had a name. I couldn't hide anymore. It forced me to admit to myself and to others that my behaviors around food and exercise were not normal. They were also dangerous and connected to other issues I had. I felt like a big piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place and it allowed me to see the big picture of my life, and move forward in correcting negative behaviors.

A few days after I posted the link, I received this email from an acquaintance of mine:

“I followed your link recently about EDNOS. As a woman that has always struggled with body image, in spite of being what I consider an otherwise secure and well adjusted individual, it's comforting to know that I'm not alone. By the numbers, I am doing okay..but I obsess over every pound gained or lost, the tightness or looseness of my clothes, the food I put in my body. When vegetarianism wasn't enough, I cut out eggs and dairy. When that didn't seem like enough, I cut out all processed foods. When that didn't seem like enough, I cut out anything fried. To many people around me, this seems unnecessary, but it's the only way I feel in control. When I feel bothered by television or print ads featured "beautiful" women, I restrict myself more.

Over the last 7 years or so I've gained and lost, then lost and lost and lost. I'm the same size I was when I was a teenager, much smaller than I was 5 years ago, and I still worry every moment: this is flabby, that is saggy...I have adolescent anxiety about my body at age 32. But I don't binge and purge, I don't starve myself. Instead, I monitor everything. I count calories, I fret going on vacation and not being able to control my food, I'm compulsive about exercise...all things associated with EDNOS.”

It's tough getting emails like these. On one hand I'm happy I have touched someone's life, and I pray that they can help themselves or seek the help they need. On the other hand, it makes me sad to know that for one email I get, there are at least 10 that read it and can relate, but didn't tell me, and probably hundreds of thousands that are suffering, but don't know what they're suffering from.

According to Edward J. Cumella, PhD, “Somewhere between one-third and one-half of diagnosed eating disorders have EDNOS. The important thing to know about EDNOS is that it is a serious medical and psychological condition. It can be just as deadly as anorexia can be....It is important that people with EDNOS are diagnosed properly and get the treatment they need.”

People with EDNOS come in ALL shapes and sizes. ALL ethnicities, ALL ages and BOTH men and women,(as do all eating disorders). Direct from the Finding Balance website:

Persons struggling with EDNOS can range from 'less-extreme' behaviors like common dieting, frequent concern about body size, and/or occasional overeating, to more extreme behaviors including frequent purging, obsessive dieting, obsessive exercising and more.

Just because a person doesn't fit the criteria for anorexia or bulimia does not mean they don't have an eating disorder requiring attention. And don't be fooled by appearances; most disordered eaters are normal weight or overweight, not skinny. But they can still struggle as seriously as an anorexic or underweight bulimic.

In fact, many who struggle in the EDNOS category are at risk for the same dangers as those who meet criteria for other disorders, including the risk of heart attacks, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and even death.

REGARDLESS OF WHERE YOU FALL ON THE EATING CONTINUUM, if your motivations regarding food and exercise are based on 'psychic' rather than 'physical' needs, you need to know that your struggle is important, and worthy of seeking out appropriate medical and/or therapeutic assistance.

I believe EDNOS is much more common than any of us know. Any time we allow diets, our weight, food or exercise run our life, we are robbing ourselves of precious time. Our society has made dieting, weight and obsessing about food a normal, everyday occurrence.

In the past, the reason I never got help for my disordered eating was because I thought my behaviors were normal and not dangerous. They were inconsistent, so I thought I was okay. I would go through long periods of normal eating and exercise, then plunge into disordered eating during times of crisis, stress, or even if I wanted to lose just a few pounds. What I saw in the media, in movies and news stories of what an eating disorder looked like wasn't me, so I thought I was doing well compared to that.

This post is merely informative. If you or someone you know could be suffering from EDNOS or any other eating disorder, there is help and hope.

Chelsea King

2010-03-03T03:00:00.000-08:00

If you don't already know, or if you're not living in this part of the country, today, March 2nd, 2010 has been a very sad day. Chelsea King, a 17 year old teenager was found dead near Lake Hodges. Our worst fears came true this afternoon. We all held out hope that she would be found alive and well and return home to her parents. But, that didn't happen.

Chelsea went out for a run last Thursday and never returned home. Found murdered in a shallow grave. The man in custody who allegedly committed this crime is a registered sex offender who was released after a 5 year sentence when a psychiatrist that evaluated him wrote a report saying he would likely re-offend.

So, why am I writing about it? Did I know her? No, I didn't. I grew up in Rancho Penasquitos, a small community right next door to the community where Chelsea lived in Poway. I lived in Poway for many years as well. I am also a runner, like Chelsea. I used to go running around Poway Lake alone, and my boyfriend at the time would get angry and tell me "You don't know who's out there! You can't go there alone." and I would get angry. Angry that he thought I couldn't defend myself. I hated being "Just a girl" and having to "watch out for myself".

And then this happened in our very own backyard practically and struck a chord with all of us. I ache for her parents. My heart is broken for anyone that loved her and wanted nothing more than to see her finish her life. What happened to Chelsea could have happened to me. It could have happened to you. So, I'm not one to sit around and do nothing. Here's what you can do:

Find registered sex offenders in your neighborhood. The link is for California is here. For all other states in the U.S., click here.
Get free alerts when a sex offender moves into your area. Click here.
Do a background check on ANYONE you think you need to, including sex offenders. This way you can find out their specific offense. It's not free, but worth the money. Click here.
You can call or write a letter to California Congressman Brian Bilbray. Nothing fancy, just tell him what you think of the sex offender laws. Click here. You can also call or write to California State Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher. Click here.
Contact your own federal and state congresspeople. Each letter/phone call is a representative of a certain number of voters. The more contacts there are from voters in their district, the more attention they will give to the issue. Click here. (Thank you Sacha for this one!)
Take self defense classes! I might think I'm a bad-ass, but I am not match for a 200 pound man who comes up behind me with a knife. There are several in San Diego, one I found in La Jolla and another that travels to you if you can get a group of 12-20 women. How easy is that?

It burns me that I live in a place where it is unsafe for me to go out alone. Or that I feel uneasy letting my children play out of my sight. But, we have power. Do something, do ANYTHING!

Beautiful Blogger Award

2010-03-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

I am so honored to have been giving the "Beautiful Blogger Award" by none other than Julie Parker, author of one of my favorite blogs: Beautiful You by Julie. Thanks, Julie!! To claim this award I have to regift it to 15 blogs I love and read and so the awards go to:

Voice in Recovery

Authentic Realities

Natural Birth for Normal Women (aka Use Your Vagina)

Life After College

May the Beauty

More To Love by Elizabeth Patch

Venus Vision

Beautiful Women Project

Motherhood Reinvented

Jess Weiner's Blog

Revolution of Real Women

Woman Uncensored

The Feminist Breeder

The F Word

You'd Be So Pretty If...

To claim my prestigious award I also have to tell you seven things about me, so I'll try to tell you seven things that may surprise you. Or maybe not? Drumroll please.....

I was a painfully shy child. The kind that hid behind my mothers leg if someone said hello to me. Quite the opposite now.
Having children deeply changed who I am. I was a conservative republican (okay, I just heard some jaws hit the table) and some of my views still stay there. But, as a feminist, well, you can figure out the rest.
I hate 2 things that are very "American". Snickers bars and Barbeque sauce. Both disgust me.
I have a phobia of drains. A serious one. Sink drains, shower drains and especially pool drains. I have near panic attacks when swimming near the huge deep-end pool drains. Even just typing this makes me uneasy.
I can do a beer bong. I haven't done it in a few years, but I've won a few contests. I'll sign autographs later.
I am a whiz at remembering people's names, but not at remembering faces. So, it rarely comes in handy. But, I am notorious for thinking I know someone and I'm wrong.
The worst physical injury I've ever had was knocking out 3 teeth when I was 7 years old. No broken bones ever!

I hope all the blogs I have given this award to enjoy it. To claim your award you need to:

1. Thank the person that nominated you and link to them.

2. Pass the award on to 15 bloggers you’ve discovered and think are fantastic.

3. Contact said Blogs and let them know they've won!

4. State 7 things about yourself.

Happy blogging all!

My amazing body

2010-02-23T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's post was inspired by another blogger and what she entitled, "MY perfection". I encourage you to click on the link and read her short view of what her perfection is. And here is mine.

This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness week and leading up to it was racking my brain thinking of something amazing and inspiring to write about regarding body image or eating disorders. But, truth be told, I just don't have it in me. Maybe I'm taking a break from writing about my own struggles, maybe I'm so far into recovery that my mind refuses to go back there and dig up the old painful memories. I'm not really too sure.

But, here's the honest to God truth: Every morning I turn the shower off and open the shower curtain. Directly in front of me is a large bathroom mirror, so I get to see myself naked everyday. It's not the same body it was 10 years ago, 5 years ago, or even 3 years ago. Three years ago today I was almost 3 months pregnant with my son, my first child. My disordered eating and exercise behaviors were ending. I don't think I knew it then. I wanted it to be over, but wasn't sure if I would relapse after my son was born. I'm proud to say I didn't. I kept going forward with giant steps, steps bigger and scarier than I ever imagined.

So back to the mirror. I heard once that if you can hold a pencil under your breast, you need a boob job. (Whaaat?) I'm pretty sure I can hold an entire pack of pencils under mine, and I still don't "need" a boob job. I have belly fat that spills over and my son loves to poke it and say, "Squishy belly mommy!" There are veins on my body that look like road maps, I have stretch marks, and even cellulite on my thighs. I am reminded every day of my sons birth from my pink, uneven cesarean scar. But, I ask you, someday at my funeral, will anyone say, "Such a pretty face, too bad she didn't lose that baby weight." or "That cellulite and stretch marks were a real eye sore."

No.

Because at my funeral, I hope to have touched enough lives that people will tell stories of what I meant to them, how I bettered someones life, how the values I instilled in my children's have helped shaped their own lives. That's all.

I'm not saying let's all throw away any notion of wanting to look good and feel our best. I know it's important, I get it. But, what's amazing to me now, today, isn't the same amazing it was even 5 years ago.

So, bring on the cellulite and stretch marks. I got the privilege of pushing a baby out of my vagina! Now, THAT'S what I call an amazing body. I love my body now, with all of it's so called "flaws and imperfections". It's pretty awesome to me...and for reasons that might not be what others think.

Photo courtesy of author (that's me!) taken by Kristina Chartier Photgraphy

Book review: "It's Not About the Food" by Esther Kane

2010-02-19T14:17:00.001-08:00

I finally finished a book that I started months ago and I'm so glad I did. I loved it so much, I re-read some of my favorite chapters. The book is "It's Not About the Food: A Woman's Guide to Making Peace With Food and Our Bodies" by Esther Kane, MSW. Every chapter in this book spoke to me in some way or another. I loved reading her story, in fact, it sparked a past blog post of mine when I discussed my questioning if we can ever fully recover from an eating disorder. Esther's vulnerability and authenticity were inviting, which is always nice, especially when reading a self help book. It really made me feel like, "Hey, if she feels this way too sometimes, then I guess I AM doing a pretty good job!"

After telling her own story, Esther talks about types of disordered eating, which I think is imperative for those seeking help. She discusses Binge Eating Disorder and Orthorexia Nervosa, two eating disorders that aren't as well known to a mainstream audience. Next is an excellent chapter on why diets DON'T work which was full of fantastic information on many popular diets and what they do physiologically to one's body. So, if you're a science nerd like me, you'll eat all that stuff up (no pun intended).

Mindful eating came next, which I found particularly interesting because this is something I need to work on. My latest and greatest excuse is that I have 2 very small children, so I'm lucky if I get to go to the bathroom alone, let alone have the time to enjoy a meal and be mindful about it. She lays out a "Top Ten" list for mindful eating with tips such as "Take a few deep breaths before you eat to calm and center yourself" and "Turn off the phone at mealtimes so you won't be interrupted". Basic, helpful tips!

The "Food-mood" chapter hit home for me because she talks about perfectionism and boundaries. THANK YOU, Esther! To see how these two things correlate with eating, you'll have to read the book, but I can tell you, this chapter had the best exercises in getting to the nitty-gritty of why we over eat and I should say why we under eat as well.

Meditation and relaxation comes next and I couldn't agree more that this is key in finding your mind/body connection.

"Changing Our Minds" looks at the inner voice and conversation we have with ourselves. I cannot emphasize how important this is in healing our issues with food and body image. I think there is a real thing called being addicted to self hate that many people don't even know they have. Esther says, "We may have all the money in the world, all the success we could ever dream of and even be perfectly healthy yet still feel absolutely miserable with ourselves and our lives". I saw this first hand when I used to be a personal trainer at a gym, especially with women. It broke my heart that I saw women sweating on the stair master or lifting weights, coming to me with questions about their workout and would give me snipits of their personal life. I would see time after time, their lack of self esteem, a lost sense of self. I wanted them to improve their lives more than they knew, however it was beyond the scope of my job there, which was the reason I left and pursued life coaching. However, I digress!

In her last chapter Esther gives us some fascinating history of the female form and we became to be so "body obsessed" in the western culture. And she closes with more exercises to help us love our bodies.

Esther suggests nothing drastic, nothing too scary, everything is completely doable. My favorite thing about this book are the practical exercises in almost every chapter. She asks powerful questions which encourage the reader to think critically about things they probably have never thought about before. So many books are just talk, talk, talk and many of them are fabulously helpful, but a lot of times we walk away and the next day remember nothing we have read. But, this book, with all of its powerful exercises, is different.

There is life after eating disorders and body image issues CAN be improved. I 100% recommend this book to anyone (everyone, really) who has had issues with food, eating, body image and/or self esteem. You will undoubtedly learn something and if you put into action her advice, you're issues will improve.

What being a girl means to me

2010-02-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

I have been called a lot of things in my life. Off the top of my head they are: sassy, agressive, obnoxious, loud mouthed, too-smart-for-your-own-good, fiesty, tough and bitch. As I was growing up and trying to find my place in this mad world, being called these things was somewhat devastating. As girls, we are taught and encouraged to NOT be any of these things. That embracing the qualities of femininity is the right thing to do. Soft, quiet, emotional, to be seen and not heard. As a young woman it was all very confusing. I learned very quickly that I could get away with things just for being female, but it really wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

I remember being in high school and having firm beliefs about certain things. Sadly, most of the time I didn't speak up because I didn't know how to articulate things perfectly and back then I thought everything needed to be perfect, so I shut up. Well, maybe not that I shut up, mostly just channeled my high-strung energy in the wrong direction. But, where I'm going with this is that I can remember always being "shushed". I felt more important if I sat back and was just pretty. Like a Christmas ornament. But when I finally learned to embrace all of those things, to not be ashamed for wanting to speak up, the flood gates opened and I could. Not. Be. Shut. Up.

I get my outspokenness from my mother. However, she looks at it as sticking her foot in her mouth. I believe in her generation, her view of feminism was what was seen on TV or heard about from adults conversations. Bra burning, man hating, hairy arm pitted ladies. Being outspoken was not something that was attractive. Even now, I see her hesitate when she wants to speak her mind. My mom was married at 17 and the mother of 2 by age 20. She is one of the strongest, most powerful women I know. But still, I believe she looks at speaking your mind as a masculine trait, one that is not seen as "right" in others eyes.

I recently watched a moving speech from one of my heros, Eve Ensler. She states:

...the verb that's been enforced on girls, is the verb "to please". Girls are trained to please. I want to change the verb. I want us all to change the verb. I want the verb to be educate. Or activate. Or engage, or confront, or defy. Or create. If we teach girls to change the verb, we will actually enforce the girl inside us, and the girl inside them.

If I am lucky enough to have you read my blog, even if it's just this post, I want to tell you this: If you have a daughter, or a niece, a sister, mother, aunt, any girl or woman in your life, it is imperative that we teach them to speak up. Teach them to be proud of what they believe in, teach them the power of education, the power that they hold, just by being female. Being female is no better than being male, but it's not our JOB to please everyone. Some things may come out of your mouth that are less than perfect, but don't run and hide under the covers. Vulnerability, honesty, love, compassion, empathy...all of those are beautiful and strong. Yes, strong.

So don't "shush" girls, and if you see one being "shushed", say something. And if you are a girl or woman reading this, trust me when I tell you again it's not your JOB to please everyone. It's a part of life to piss people off, have people disagree with you and yes, sometimes, someone may not like you (gasp!). It's okay. Speak your mind. It's well worth the effort.

Photo courtesy of natashalcd

Goodbye skinny jeans and good riddance

2010-01-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

Last summer I wrote a post entitled, "The truth about my skinny jeans" in which I confessed that I still had my skinniest of skinny jeans. I knew it was time to get rid of them, but I didn't want to give them away to a friend (and see that friend walk around in them? That would be counter productive) nor did I want to throw them out. They symbolized a lot to me, more than any other jeans.

I decided to donate them to Eating Disorder Network of Maryland. In 2008 during NEDA Awareness Week the theme for the week was “Be comfortable in your genes. Wear jeans that fit the TRUE you.” Women were encouraged to donate their skinny jeans to symbolize freeing themselves from the constraints of an idealistic body type, whatever that may be to each individual.

The truth is, I decided this last July. And it's now February. I don't know if there's some deep, unconscious reason I've waited until now to get rid of them and blog about it. But, at any rate, I felt they needed a public goodbye. You may think this letter is ridiculous, or you may relate. When I bought these jeans I was in a dark place mentally. I had let go of reality somewhat. These jeans represented a false sense of happiness. A lie. A hopeless, false sense of security. Here is my goodbye letter not only to the jeans, but to the girl I once was:

Dear Skinny Jeans,

Goodbye. Today I finally get rid of you. I have kept you around like some sort of dysfunctional relationship. In the back of my closet you hung, sticking around while other clothes came and went. For 3 years you have been there. Every once in a while I would pull you out and try you on. Many times you almost fit but the cost of this small task was profound. Sucking it in, buttoning, only to look sadly at myself in the mirror and think, “Ugh, I’m fat! But I can get these to fit again.” I don’t know why you mean so much to me. You’re just fabric. Threads. With a tiny label that has a number: Zero.

I remember the day that I bought you. In the dressing room I stood in a size 2, pulling the waist away from my skin and thinking that I had made it. I poked my head out of the door and proudly asked the sales girl to get me a size zero. I wondered what she thought. If she was jealous. The power and euphoria I felt as I zipped up and buttoned you was unlike any other. I had done it.

Why did I love you so much? You’re just a pair of jeans. You never loved me back. Why did you matter so much? Make me feel so happy, even if it was false? And why, why have I kept you?

Well, today I say goodbye and good riddance. You don’t matter anymore. You used to represent what I thought was happiness and beauty. But even when I wore you, you didn’t make me happy. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s my fault. My fault I let you determine my worth and happiness. But I’m glad we met. I’m glad you were in my life because I’ve realized you don’t matter. No one cares what number you are now I don’t either.

Goodbye forever,
Andrea

Photo courtesy of Ro/wererabbit

100 things I am grateful for

2010-01-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

I'm a huge fan of the list of 100. In a previous post I challenged my readers to make a list of 100 things they love about themselves. Today, I was on a walk in this beautiful weather, pushing my 2 beautiful children in the stroller. I was overwhelmed with how blessed my life is and it always seems to get better the more grateful I am for what I have. So, I thought I would share with you my list of 100. And I challenge you to do the same. Having repeats is okay. It shows patterns of what is really important to you.

I'm grateful for:

My husband. He has integrity, is loving, patient and is a kind soul. I hit the jackpot.
My mom taking me to church when I was little. It shaped my faith.
Legs that work. Because I love to run.
My husband's secure job.
Health insurance.
My healthy teeth.
Running water. Bathing and brushing my teeth are good things.
My dads sobriety. I'm so proud of him.
Being able to stay home with my kids.
Being recovered from disordered eating and exercise.
Knowing my purpose on this earth.
My son's birth. I knew he was safe when I had to have him via cesarean section.
My daughters birth. Having her vaginally was a magical experience. Yes, I just said "vaginally".
My ex husband cheating on me. It made me find my self esteem.
My first marriage. I learned so many things about myself and relationships.
My relationship with a drug addict. I learned to say goodbye to codependency.
Living in San Diego, the most beautiful city in the world. (In my humble opinion).
Santa Claus.
Having reliable transportation.
Date night with my husband. The conversation always inspires me.
Music. I am so moved by music.
Exercising. It's so worth it.
Dancing.
Having the guts to stand up for what I believe in.
Being literate. Thank you mom, dad and teachers for teaching me to read.
Razors. Because I don't like it when my armpits are hairy.
Brownies, chocolate chip cookies and cake.
Being able to breast feed my children.
The clothes in my closet. Sometimes I think I have nothing to wear. I have plenty.
My degree in fashion merchandising. It made me realize I wasn't meant to work in the industry.
Girl Scouts. I learned so many things and it shaped me today.
My daughters toothless grin.
The Internet.
My dad teaching me the importance of a firm handshake.
My parents ability to afford braces for me.
Lactation consultants and doulas.
My right to free speech.
My dad teaching me how to play tennis.
Feminists that fight for women's rights
Shoes. Like the clothes, I have plenty.
The heater in our house.
Our home. Sometimes I wish I had more counter space, but we have enough.
Volunteering for the Special Olympics.
Online support groups. When I was pregnant with my daughter and wanting a VBAC, the ladies on that support group were immensely helpful.
Hand-me-downs for my kids.
Laundry detergent.
Recycling.
Facebook. I've reunited with so many important people that I'd lost touch with. And met new ones.
The beach.
My sense of humor.
My fertility. I am so, so grateful to be able to have babies when I wanted them.
My physical health.
My mental health and stability.
Living in a hygienic environment. Sounds strange, but a lot of people don't have this.
Modern medicine.
God in my life.
Entertainment options. I should never be bored.
Coffee.
Believing in the importance of personal growth and development.
The people who will be my clients this year while I go through CTI certification. I don't know who they are yet :)
People that read and comment on my blog. It helps to keep me motivated to keep writing.
Seatbelts.
All the jobs I have had. I've learned so much.
My values and core beliefs. Knowing them means I can honor them.
Being able to be a stay-at-home-mom.
Getting to snuggle with both babies in bed in the morning, watching Sesame Street.
Having reliable transportation.
Having a fridge and cupboards full of food.
Parks.
This crummy economy. It's made me realize how much we have.
Connecting with incredible people. Human contact.
My Beco baby carrier. My daughter practically lives in it.
Not having to take medication anymore for anxiety disorder.
My therapist.
My sister.
Pets. Even though we don't have one right now.
The fact that I chose my own happiness.
Eating dinner as a family.
Service to others. Giving back.
A comfortable, warm bed.
Clean underwear.
Being brave enough to stand up against "the bad guys".
Having a choice.
My education. Eternally grateful for that.
Student loans. They suck sometimes, but without them, I couldn't have gone to college.
Being in a functional, loving, drama-free,mutually respectful relationship.
Bubble baths.
My self esteem.
Classic 1970's rock.
Admitting I'm far from perfect, but doing the best I can.
Learning to be myself with ease.
Laughter.
My family's good health.
Access to fresh fruits and vegetables.
The ability to dream.
The right to vote.
Forgiveness.
That my life didn't turn out as I expected it to.
The fact that I was born in this amazing free country.
My life.

Photo courtesy of Malu Green

I don't have any money either, so let's donate our shoes to Haiti

2010-01-15T10:46:00.001-08:00

While on Twitter the other day something caught my eye. It was "Soles4Souls" and organization that is gathering shoes to send to the needy people of Haiti who have been victimized by such a catastrophic earthquake. Watch the short video on the home page and your heart will tell you it's time to help.

I don't have a lot of money, so I donate my time to things I am passionate about. This organization is collecting shoes, used or new, to send to the people of Haiti that don't have the luxury of owning shoes. These people are walking through all the rubble and debris barefoot. I'll provide the link again,to find a drop off location click here.

Many of you are in the San Diego area and a central location is Shoe Metro, located at 8960 Carroll Way, 92121. There are also 2 locations in Pacific Beach and one downtown. I spoke with a customer service representative and she told me there is a bin for drop offs. It's that easy. Really, I know you have decent shoes laying around that you don't wear. Get them out, clean them off and drop them off. And then tell someone about this or other charities.

Don't forget kids shoes. Our kids grow out of their shoes so fast and the children of Haiti are in need too!

It's time for a change

2010-01-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

This new year I've decided it's time to eat better. I feel as if I've hit my own personal "rock bottom" when it comes to nutrition and what I put in my body. Now I know I probably eat somewhat better than the average American, but for me, it's not serving my body nor my brain. I eat the right amounts, but the foods are mostly nutritionally empty. I don't get nearly enough fruits and vegetables and probably not enough fiber. To put it plainly: I feel like shit.

As an advocate of listening to ones body, I'm listening to mine and she's saying it's time to get it together. More like, "Hey, you. You that keeps putting all this crap food in me. Yeah, please figure it out!" So, I said okay. Sounds easy enough, right? I know what to do, and basically know what to eat, it's putting it into action that's the hard part. So, I set out to do it, made my shopping list and made small changes this past week. I won't bore you with what I ate- that's not important. And what works for me may not be what works for someone else. What I want to talk about is how I, someone with a history of disordered eating, feels about changing the way I eat. It wasn't as easy as just doing it.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my decision to not do the 30 days of no sugar diet in fear that I may lose weight. Sounds crazy, right? What am I, nuts? Afraid to lose weight? I think it's safe to say that many people who tumble into an eating disorder did so by just wanting to "lose a few pounds". A few pounds is easy, so a few more won't be so bad. Then we notice clothes are loose and people begin to notice and the compliments start. Some people end here and others don't. I was one of those people that couldn't stop. So, years later being recovered, food and what I do with it is still an issue. Not nearly as big as it used to be, but I still fear "it" is just dormant. Waiting for me to do something as innocent as want to eat better.

So what is a mom-of-2-wanting-to-eat-better-former-disordered-eating-girl to do? I can only speak from experience and a lot of deep thinking. Here we go:

Don't be afraid. When you get to the point when you want to eat better for the sake of eating better, feeling better and just good health, NOT to lose weight, pat yourself on the back. It's a sign of recovery. You'll know when you get there.
Take it slow. Just like anything, if you make too many changes too quickly, it's likely to fail. I started with breakfast. It wasn't intimidating. Don't look at the big picture, it's overwhelming and may make you crazy. One day at a time is all you need.
It doesn't have to be perfect. Be flexible and willing to make adjustments. If you've battled disordered eating, you may have battled perfectionism as well. Some days I scarf down a huge plate of spaghetti. Oh freakin' well. I don't apologize, I don't have to "make up for it" later. It's just spaghetti. No one cares. Period.
Be somewhat organized. The reason I say "somewhat" is because you don't want to be too organized, too regimented or you may fall into the land of obsessing about every morsel and meal you put into your body. Think about what you need for the next few days and shop for it. Fresh foods usually need to be purchased more often than processed foods.
Get support from others: Your significant other, parents, friends, anyone in your life you lean on; let them know you're ready to make a change nutritionally and it's for the best. They'll be proud.

This may seem like a lot to think about when all you're doing is trying to eat better. I mean, doesn't everyone make that resolution every year? Maybe yes, but for someone with a history of disordered eating, even though we're free from the food and body image obsession and the thoughts and behaviors that surround it, doesn't mean it's not tricky when we make changes in our lives in regards to food. But, it is possible.

For me, I got to the point where if I really do love myself and my body, treating it as such included putting food into my body that nourishes my cells and makes it happy.

Photo courtesy of chotda

Forgiving ourselves

2010-01-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever done something really crappy? Either to someone else, or to yourself? I have. We all have. No one is perfect.

So, now that it's a new year, we all get these fuzzy feelings of "newness". A fresh start! I rubbed my hands together and thought hard about what I should write. Something that has to do with the new year, obviously, so how about forgiveness? Not forgiving others, but forgiving ourselves.

It doesn't have to be anything big that you did. Even believing the negative thoughts we fill our head with at times may be something you need to forgive. By doing this, I believe that we consciously think about the behavior and can start to make a change. I've said before that many times we are our own worst enemies when we should be our own best friend. Being kind to yourself includes forgiving our past mistakes. You are not our past. You are the good that you believe you are now and what you are becoming.

What do you need to forgive yourself for? Would it help you to move on if you did? Think about it...

Photo courtesy of Late Night Movie

Dear Reebok...

2009-12-15T14:28:00.000-08:00

Recently Reebok has been running commercials that I don't like. To say the least. (I will post the ads at the bottom of this post). The first time I saw them I said, "Ew, yuk, how sexist!" and moved on about my business. The second, the third, and so on.....I had ENOUGH. I wrote to Reebok and have pasted the letter below. I hesitated at first, and thought, "What does it matter? They won't pull the ads, or apologize." But then I looked at my 3 month old daughter smiling away at me. I did it for her. Someone needs to stand up for the next generation. I'm not sitting silent anymore. I will carry my soapbox around with me and climb up on in whenever I feel like it and well, just read for yourself:

To whom it may concern:

I wanted to take a moment to contact you regarding your ads. I am an avid runner and in the fitness industry as a certified personal trainer and life coach. I am also a mother of two young children. I am horrified at your latest commercials, three of which are so sexist they are cringe-worthy. Two of the ads feature women and their faces are never shown, obviously an indication that these women are merely tits and ass. And speaking of T & A, one of the commercials shows those two body parts having a conversation. Have you cowered so low that you have to only show this in order to sell what is obviously a fitness gimmick?

I hope that my daughter grows up in a world where companies like Reebok are long gone, companies that view women as sexual objects and nothing more all in the name of the almighty dollar. We have come too far to put up with crap like this. I can only assume that your marketing team is made up of chauvinistic men, preying on the insecurities of women. Well then, good for you. I hope your mothers are proud of you. I am here to tell you that I will NEVER buy your products again.

Shame on you, Reebok. Have some integrity and apologize for your lack of respect for women.

Sincerely,
Andrea Owen

Here is one ad that I suppose it supposed to be funny...

This one promises a better butt and legs, because obviously yours aren't good enough if they don't look like hers:

And this one is my favorite. It speaks for itself:

If you would like to drop Reebok a line, here is the email I used: corporate@reebok.com

***********************************************************************

Edited to add:

Here is the response I received from Reebok:

Hello Andrea,

Thank you very much for your feedback. All consumer feedback is helpful, as it provides us with an understanding of the public perception and opinion of our products and marketing.

The Reebok EasyTone ads were created to clearly illustrate the unique benefits of the footwear in a fun and bold way. The feedback we have received tells us that many consumers look at the ads in exactly that light, however we acknowledge that some consumers do take exception with the content of the ads.

You can be assured that your feedback will be relayed directly to our marketing team.

Regards,
Reebok Corporate Communications

Can we ever fully recover?

2009-12-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

Recently, I finally got around to reading the book, "It's Not About the Food" by Esther Kane. Esther was kind enough to personally mail me a copy months ago and being pregnant and then having a newborn, it has sat in my living room calling out to me every few days. I wanted to touch on one thing she writes while telling her own story of disordered eating because it jumped out at me at a perfect time. She writes:

Recovery has not come quickly or easily; eating problems are complex and difficult to overcome. After all of this time in recovery (approximately eighteen years) and through my years of work as an eating disorders therapist, I no longer believe that one can completely recover from a severe eating disorder. Even after all these years of recovery, I still have a little voice inside my head that tells me life would be perfect if only I was thinner or that I would be more successful in every area of my life if, somehow, I could change the way I look.

I read this and thought, "Thank GOD I'm not the only one!" I write a lot about body image and eating disorders and have been pretty open about my own struggles. I've come a tremendous way in recent years, but every once in a while....I slip. I do love my body and do my best to stop negative talk but every once in a while I find myself wishing something was different in hopes that it would make me happier. I am quick to recognize it and usually laugh it off. But, I wonder how others feel- other women (and men) who find their passion in helping others free themselves from body loathing and/or an eating disorder. I've met some amazing people on Twitter and Facebook who share my passion and I wonder if they feel the same way.

A few months ago I went to see Jenni Shaefer speak here in San Diego. She was promoting her new book, "Goodbye Ed, Hello Me". It's her second book and while I haven't got around to reading either of them (yes, it's on my long list of books to read!), I do look forward to it. I recently came across a review of the book and it got me thinking about recovery from eating disorders. Jenni talks about fully recovering and that it is possible. When I heard her speak I remember wondering if she ever slips. Ever? I know, I should read the book before I assume anything, but I have a hard time understanding how people that have struggled with disordered eating and/or exercise can 100% recover from it. I'm not just talking about people that have full blown eating disorders, I'm talking about the average woman who perhaps has outgrown these behaviors either on her own or with therapy.

Mental disorders are so difficult to paint as black and white. If someone has diabetes, a simple blood test tells them how they are doing. With high blood pressure, another simple test will give you measurable numbers. But any mental disorder is many times difficult to diagnose and treat. I, myself have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Luckily I have been able to manage it without medication, but I never know when it will unexpectedly creep up on me. Sort of like a very unwelcome house guest. I believe the same is true with eating disorders.

I'll share with you a personal example. (big deep breath)

I have been thinking lately about cleaning up my diet. And when I say "clean up" I mean basically just cut out the junk. My background is fitness and I know what I should be eating to feel better, sleep better and all that good stuff. But I continue to covet tater tots galore. And I consume enough sugar to make Willy Wonka blush. I listen to my body and she's telling me I need to at least cut back some on the sugar. So, here I am, eleven weeks postpartum, not thinking strait and carrying an extra 12 or so extra pounds. Perfectly normal at this stage, especially since I am breast feeding. However, with the holidays coming, along with it comes phone book size Victoria's Secret catalogs, and a bazillion magazines at the checkout stand screaming at me about how to lose weight this time of year. Then I hear about a 30 day sugar detox. Absolutely no sugar for 30 days. Or anything that acts like sugar (i.e. carbs) Now, I know better. I even know the physiology about why carbs are good for our bodies. But..........that little voice whispers, "It's only 30 days. You'll feel better AND (wait for it...) you'll lose weight".

At first this all sounds appealing, feel better (ha!) because of no sugar and I'll lose those pesky few pounds so I can fit into my regular clothes again. I mean, how long can I get away with wearing my maternity clothes? Then the voice in my other ear freaks out! "Wait!! No!! Don't do it! You know you can't stop at 10 pounds! 10 becomes 15, then the scale comes back out every day, then old jeans come back out to play...."

It's still a battle. And sometimes it makes me sad. Like the kid with the broken leg that can't play with the other kids in the sprinklers. But, I am grateful I can recognize that something as simple as a 30 day no sugar fiesta is like swimming in shark infested waters. At least for me. And I'm sure for a lot of other people too.

So, I don't know if we can ever be fully recovered. But I would love to know your thoughts.

Photo courtesy of ashley_rose via Flickr.com. Please visit the link to read more about the story and inspiration of to write love on her arms.

Can we really have it all?

2009-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was 25 and it was the year 2000. That birthday was hard for me, because I remembered 10 years prior, when I was 15 years old thinking of all things that I wanted for myself when I was 25. I thought I would have it all. I would definitely be married, have at least one child, have gone to college and had an awesome job. I grew up hearing I could be anything I wanted and I believed it! So, at 15 years old thinking of 10 years down the road; I couldn't wait for the new mellenium and my 25th birthday. I would be happy beyond my wildest dreams. So, when 25 rolled around, I had an associates degree in a field I didn't like anymore, I had been in a so-so relationship for 8 years with no engagement ring, no children and was just completely lost. What happened to having it all? Kids, marriage, career? I longed for it because I just knew it was the golden ring to my happiness.

Nine years later I have the great marriage, two beautiful children, the college degree in a field I love and my career is just within reach. This is it! Right? Then why do I lay in bed each night, thinking and feeling guilty about having both? If I put my kids in daycare to work on a career that I love, I miss out on them. If I give up the career to stay home with my kids I miss out on doing something amazing that I know will leave a positive mark on others. If I do both part time I run the risk of making myself crazy which in turn bleeds onto my kids and my husband. A couple of weeks ago as I told this to one of my girlfriends on the phone, I said, "If this means 'having it all', then I don't want it."

And how dare I say that! With all the opportunities I have. A fantastic education, the gift of fertility and healthy children, and a hard-working husband who is an amazing father. Women would give their right arm to have some of the things I have, if not all! But here's the thing: As women who grew up hearing "you can be anything you want" topped with society's pressure of doing it all well, the overwhelmingness of it all can be unbearable.

I recently read an article by Jill Berry where she states,

"The truth is that modern women can't have it all. They may succeed in their careers and they may succeed as mothers, but to do both at the same time? No, that is not possible without making huge sacrifices which many will find simply too much.
The fact is that life is not a level playing field. Men and women may finally have equal opportunities, but that doesn't mean women should make the same choices as men. The sexes are different.
Most women want children and they want to be the principal carer. Encouraging young women to aim for the top at the same time as raising a family is unrealistic and, I would argue, damaging."

I have to agree with Ms. Berry here. But what do we teach young women? I can't imagine telling my daughter, "Honey, let's be realistic. You just can't do both. Choose one. Go to college, but don't go for your dream job because you'll just end up wanting to leave it anyway when you have children. Or, don't bother having kids, they'll just get in the way of your awesome career."

When I had children, I finally understood what it meant to want to give them the world. They smile, and I want to hand it over. But has a disservice been made to my generation? Courtney Martin talks about the "feminists unintended side effect" in that women who were told they could be anything grew up feeling like that had to do so and do it perfectly. Our mothers only wanted the best for us- better than what they had. But they had no idea that they may have been setting us up for disaster.

I am the first person in my family to graduate from college. I'm so proud of that. And I have always wanted to go to grad school and am encouraged by my fellow girlfriends, most of them mothers. But when I really sit down and think about it, it sounds absurd. Grad school, 2 toddlers, a career, a marriage...with a side order of cranial lobotomy, please. When my son turned one, I went back to school to finish my degree. I bought a ticket for the crazy train and took 21 units. That was the hardest 16 weeks of my life. Regardless of how the gap of parental roles has closed (somewhat), mothers are still the primary caregiver. It was difficult to leave him to go to school, study, write papers, be a wife and a mom to a toddler. I have a hard time believing women who say they don't feel guilty leaving their children 40 hours a week. I feel like they are either lying to me, or themselves. Or both.

So, what's your take? I'm curious what other moms think, or even if you're not a mom, do you feel like you were pressured to do one or the other? Or perhaps you have spent so many years on your education or career, now your biological clock is quietly whispering to you?

Oh my gosh, my life is over!

2009-11-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

Todays post is written by Pamela Candelaria. She and I have become "cyber-friends" through a VBAC support group and Pamela herself has had 3 VBAC's!! Please enjoy this beautiful ode to motherhood. Thanks to Pam for letting me re-post this.

Every time I've been pregnant, I go through a period of blissful happiness, envisioning the sweet tiny newborn I'll be holding, the quiet moments we'll share during 2 a.m. feedings, the soft innocence of that new life cradled in my belly. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, and I swear I can almost smell that precious new baby, so new to the world.

And then at some point, the pregnancy becomes real. The sweetness does not go away, and I'm not unhappy, exactly, but I find myself longing for my life before. I think of all the changes this baby is going to bring- and it's number four for the love of God, not like I haven't done this before- but I think of the changes and I have some kind of premature need to reminisce about my life as a mother of three. And two. And one. And, of course, none. I think of the freedom, the spur-of-the-moment trips, the parties, the concerts, the smoking and drinking and laughing and sex and spontanaeity and overall coolness I had. I think of the career I gave up to stay home with my kids, the financial sacrifices my husband and I have made, the difficulties we've had in our relationship as we've adjusted to our roles as parents. I realize we haven't even found our groove after adding our daughter to our family, and yet we thought it was a good idea to go ahead with another baby- what were we thinking?!?

I remember when I was pregnant with #3, I had left the kids at home with my husband and was driving to the library to check out some baby name books. I was stopped at a light when a song came on the radio- I don't remember which one and I guess it doesn't matter all that much- and in the second it took me to reach for the volume knob and start turning it up, I was overwhelmed with the realization of how much my life had changed, and was about to change again. I ended up pulling into the library parking lot and sitting there in my minivan- so not my Miata- crying my eyes out because this was "me" time. Getting baby name books at the library without having both my boys with me. What had become of the woman I'd been? I felt so lost, so uncertain about the new role I had taken on. Motherhood is so much more than having a child, it is a soul-deep shift that forever changes how I view myself, and the world. Every child I have has increased my capacity for love and learning and life- but every child has taken me further and further from my life before. Every flutter I feel in my womb is a reminder that my potential is being passed down now; the future will soon enough be in their hands and not mine. One day they will exceed my ability to shelter them, and one day I will look into their faces and see all the things I used to have.

So I sat in that parking lot and cried. I cried for the woman I had been, and for the woman I am, and for the woman I will become. I went inside and got my baby name books and drove back home. I pulled into the garage, reached over, and turned the radio down so it wouldn't be too loud when I got in next time, with the boys. When I walked into my house, I was greeted by their little voices shouting "Mama!" and asking what I'd brought them.

And I realized then, as I will again soon, that my life was not over. It had really just begun.

Random musings of my feminist nature

2009-11-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere on a list of rules for bloggers never to start a post by apologizing for not posting to your blog if it's been a while. So, while I won't apologize, I did want to mention it because thinking about it is what brought me to open this blank page and start typing.

As many of you may have noticed, my blog took on a life of it's own as I started writing about body image. I attribute it to my own evolving life and I have to thank my coach, Annamaria Poluha, because over the many months I was coached by her, I was able to pull out my own passions and live them authentically. It's still a work in progress, but coaching sort of thrust me to live for what I was meant to be. Pretty cool, huh?

At any rate, today marks my daughters 8th week of life and as I type this she sleeps peacefully against my chest in the baby Bjorn carrier. I've been feeling guilty about not writing, and many times have forced myself to sit with my laptop and start a post. I have 3 or 4 started that went nowhere. So I started thinking maybe I lost the gusto. Maybe I was just meant to serve cut up hotdogs to my toddler and wipe spit up off my t-shirts and that's it. That I'll just go back to work at a gym training clients that don't really want to work out in the first place for not much more than minimum wage.

Wait a minute. Is that who I really am?

I started thinking about how I got to be so fiercely passionate about empowering women. It suddenly dawned on me that it didn't just happen over night. I didn't wake up one morning and think, "You know, it would be cool to encourage women to kick ass and stand up for themselves and to live their best life." No, I truly believe I was born to do this.

I was a shy child. Believe it or not, I was that kid that clung to my moms thigh and hid from new people. But once the teenage years started I had an awakening. There was something about men disrespecting women that really got under my skin. My friends can attest to the fact that I would flip the bird to any man that would whistle or cat call at us when we were 14. It would embarrass my friends, but I didn't care. I thought it was so rude (and gross) that a grown man would be that way towards young girls. Eventually I would yell back at them to leave us alone. One sophomore year during a spring break trip to Palm Springs a man probably in his mid to late 30's grabbed my butt while walking by with a group of his friends. I promptly turned around, ran after him, hit him in the face and told him not to touch me. His friends laughed at him.

The behavior on my part was obviously immature, but at that age, I didn't know how to channel my feelings. As I got older I learned to censor myself somewhat but I never lost the drive to want to put a stop to what I felt was wrong. When I was 20, I moved out on my own for the first time and had 2 roommates. One of my roommates came home crying and told me some construction workers paving the parking lot asked her where she was going. When she told them she was going to work they said, "Where do you work, Hooters?" She did have large breasts, but that was unacceptable. I called the leasing office and had those men fired. I hope their mothers were proud of them.

Years ago when Howard Stern began filming his radio show to be on the E! channel I saw an episode where women allowed men to throw bologna at their butts. It was a game. I shouted at the TV, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU STUPID?" I didn't get it- why would you think it was funny to be totally degraded? And no, you're not in control. You're letting people throw lunch meat at your butt. It burned me to see women act this way.

I remember learning that 1984 was the first year women were allowed to participate in the marathon race in the Olympic games. I was 9 years old in 1984. I was astounded that in my generation I was seeing historical things like this. I thought sex discrimination was a thing of the past- something my grandmother had to face. But I was wrong.

No woman deserves to be disrespected or discriminated against because of her gender. And as equally as important, every woman deserves to feel beautiful and to live her life the way she wants. To find what lights her up inside and go for it.

Perhaps I was a born feminist. Or just a mouthy girl from the suburbs. Call it what you want but I hope my granddaughters remember me as the crazy lady that crusaded for all women to love their lives and embrace what makes them happy.

Photo courtesy of DownTown Pictures

Fat Free Talk Week

2009-10-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

October 19-23 marks the 2nd annual Fat Free Talk Week; an international 5- day body activism camapign to draw attention to body image issues and the damaging impact of the ‘thin ideal’ on women in society. Please watch the following powerful video:

So I've been thinking a lot about what "fat talk" is. It may be different for everyone, certain phrases we use more often than others to describe ourselves or others. For me, the traditional "I feel fat" is one I used to use a lot. It makes absoultely no sense really because fat is not a feeling or emotion. What I was really saying was, "I feel insecure" which is what I felt a lot. I will never forget one night several years ago, it was the weekend before I married my ex husband. At that point I had starved my way down to my own "thin ideal". We had gone out with friends and were coming home, my ex husband and his brother and myself were walking up our front porch. We were laughing about something, I can't remember what, but out of no where I said, "Wait, stop, I need to ask you something" They both stopped and looked at me, "Do I look skinny?" They both cracked up laughing, and I laughed too, but I never told them that I wasn't joking. As ridiculous as the question was, it was my own fat talk, my own cry for help. I was the thinnest I had ever been, and the most insecure.

The women of Tri Delta are asking you to make an honest effort to stop the fat talk during the week of October 19-23. This goes beyond making comments about yourself, but also about other people.

Do I hear crickets chirping?

Here are some examples:

She shouldn't be wearing a 2 piece.

Ew, he has man boobs.

Is she fat or pregnant?

Holy cow, did you see her picture of Facebook? She's gained like 50 pounds since high school.

I know, I know, we're all guilty of a little crap talking now and then and we may think it's harmless. But I think the damage that is done is that it reinforces the fact that thin is better than fat. And really, isn't that the root of the problem?

I should also mention that fat talk also is also phrases like, "If I only had your thighs, I could..." or "I would give anything to have a flat tummy like yours." Talking badly about yourself or comparing yourself to others is what I consider an all out assault on your self esteem.

So for 5 days let's all try to make a change, and hopefully (fingers crossed) it will make a difference in your life and in someone else's that you tell about it. Hint, hint. Pass it on.

Go to this website to sign the pledge to end fat talk!

Love vs. Peace

2009-10-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

This is a post I have been thinking about writing for some time now, but the topic is something I have been somewhat confused about.

I talk a lot about loving your body. I've had my own body image struggles and have tried hard to heal them. I think I've come a tremendous way and it's become my mission to help others. However, I've come to the realization that as I spew "Love your bodies, girls!" it's a much bigger journey than expected and harder than just saying "let's do it". I have this image of us all running through the daisy fields in our bikinis with rainbows in the background, singing about how much we love our bodies. Not likely, I know.

So how do you do it? Well, I don't have a hard and fast answer. It's a different journey for everyone, but I do have some steps that will help. The first thing I want to tell you is that instead of thinking you need to love your body, first try to make peace with it. Some women really hate their bodies. They've grown up hating the way they look, have trouble looking at themselves naked in front of the mirror and have a hard time being intimate with their partners. If these are some feelings you have, starting out by making peace with your body may be what you need to make the first step to be free from body loathing. These steps are small, and the bigger picture is just that, much bigger, but here are some simple things to get you started.

First off, and this may sound crazy, but start off by admitting how you feel about your body. We live in a world where it has become so normal to hate our bodies, we have become accustomed to it and are not feeling the feelings and emotions that go along with it. If it means having to strip down naked and look at yourself in front of the mirror, go ahead and do it. Take the time to really ask yourself what you think of your body. Don't feel like you have to lie about what you see. Be honest, even if it isn't nice. If you're going to make an honest effort in making peace with your body, you need to start by really understanding your own feelings which may be hiding. If you have to cry, then cry. Trust me, I've been there. This isn't a time to beat yourself up or make you feel worse, just a starting off point. I encourage you to journal about this.

The next thing, which is so important (they're all important, but this one is grand), is to stop the fat talk. Take note of how cruel (yes, cruel) you are to yourself when you talk or think about your body. You may want to do something so you have to stop and notice it. For instance, I always wear a pony tail holder around my wrist. What I do is switch it to the other wrist every time I say something negative about my body or even have a thought about it. This can even be if I am watching TV and see someone that I wish I looked like. The rubber band goes to the other wrist. You may be surprised how often you are switching it back and forth. This is to make you realize how often you beat yourself up and hopefully will slow down.

Hopefully these two things will get you started. Don't underestimate how much body loathing bleeds into other aspects of your life. Once you learn to accept and love your body for what it is, you'll be amazed at how much it will change your life.

I'll close with this short video. I think this 4 year old little girl sums it up best...

Birth Story, Part III

2009-09-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

September 15th, 2009 was by far the most adventurous day of my life.

If you've read the birth story of my son, you'll hopefully understand my thoughts and feelings concerning the upcoming birth of my daughter. I was in personal predicament, being pulled in two different directions; on one side was my obstetrician strongly recommending I have a repeat cesarean section due to "risk factors" and the other side were my instincts telling me myself and my daughter were healthy enough to handle labor and that a natural vaginal birth was best for both of us rather than a surgery, given before she was even ready to be born.

That morning I had an appointment with my obstetrician. I brought my husband Jason with me because I knew it was going to be tense. The week prior, I had agreed to tentatively schedule a repeat c-section for Thursday, the 17th, which was one day before my due date. My OB and a perinatologist recommended I not go past my due date because of risk factors I mentioned in my last post. During the appointment as my OB is telling me he really doesn't think I should push the date back to wait until I go into labor on my own I broke down in tears. I was hoping to not get emotional, but at that point I was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of arguing with a medical professional, tired of unsolicited advice from others telling me what I should do. I felt my body and my daughter were telling me something: That everything was fine. All the recent tests (including one that morning) showed she was healthy. But there was a little part of me that felt compelled to listen to this man who had the medical degree and 25 years of experience. My husband asked him, "Are my wife and daughter in danger?" and my OB replied, "Well, there's always the possibility of sudden stillborn."

As below the belt as that comment was, I still knew, I just knew that we were okay. I went home and cried my eyes out and trying to come to terms with the fact that I should just give in and have another c-section. My doula, Linda, said we didn't need to make any decisions today, and that I had until Thursday morning to decide. She said to do my best to relax. That was much easier said than done.

At 5 pm I went in our back yard to sit with my son while he played. As I tried to get comfortable on an uncomfortable wooden patio chair I felt some movement down below and a warm trickle. I told myself not to get too excited that my water broke and stood up. Sure enough, warm clear fluid raced down both legs and if you've ever had this happen before (the same thing happened with my son), it's pretty obvious that it's not pee. I was in somewhat disbelief. But OH MY GOD IT HAPPENED! All the tears, all the worry, stress, indecisiveness and frustration, all came together and this was it. I still didn't know how it would all turn out, and there was still worry that my daughter wouldn't handle labor well, like the doctors warned me she may not, but at least I was going to get the opportunity to try to labor like my body was meant to.

Jason got home from work about 10 minutes later, we scrambled to eat and get some last minute things together. I called my doula, Linda and she was ecstatic. She said to call her when we got checked into the hospital because it would most likely be a while before my labor began. And away we went.

In the car the contractions started. They were uncomfortable, but bearable and I could still talk through them. But pretty much all I was saying was, "Ouch, this really hurts." They were steady at 5 minutes apart. We got to the triage floor and I approached the front desk where there were 3 nurses there. No one looked up for several seconds and that, for some reason, really irritated me. I suppose I expected them to see me, throw all their papers in the air and start yelling, "Oh my God, she's here!! The girl that wants a VBAC is here! Everyone get ready!" No such luck. They were very busy, but got me checked in and into a room. At that point time started to go really, really slow and I was very impatient. They took entirely too long to do everything, (which in hindsight they weren't, but in my position it was taking too long to do anything). My contractions were getting noticeably stronger and I felt like I had to go to the bathroom (yes, poop). This happened twice and both times I had to unhook myself from the monitors and tip toe across the triage room to the only bathroom. I had to stop a couple of times for contractions to pass.

The nurse came back and checked my cervix. I was 2 cm dilated and 90% effaced. So, no big emergency. Yet. She said they were really busy and would check again for a room. At this point time seemed to go as slow as molasses. People could not move fast enough. The only thing that was moving fast were my contractions and I really, really, wanted to get to a delivery room. Now, I don't consider myself a high maintenance kind of girl, but I told the nurse I needed a room, NOW. The next thing I knew I was getting into a wheelchair (which before then I thought only sissies had to be wheeled from triage to labor and delivery. I thought for sure I would be walking. Insert hysterical laughter on that thought). I asked the nurse to stop twice on the way while I had a contraction.

When we got to the room, I immediately had to throw up. I was trembling and shaking like I had never experienced before and began to feel like I was completely out of control of my body. Like it wasn't even my own. I made it to the bathroom and told my husband and Linda that I wanted some privacy. I sat on the toilet and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I had one hand on the wall and the other clutching the safety handle bar. I was pale white, sweating, and a little confused. Was this early labor? If I was only 2 cm dilated, didn't I have possibly hours and hours before I even make it to 4 cm, when the active labor stage starts? I left the bathroom and the obstetrician was there. For some reason I was relieved to see that it was a woman, perhaps I thought she would be more supportive that I wanted a VBAC. I managed to make it into the bed and the OB began asking me question, after question after question. About my health history, about this pregnancy, about my previous c-section, about my pain. I couldn't talk through contractions and even in between was difficult because all I wanted to do was be still and not utter a sound in fear that my voice vibrations may conjure up another contraction. I finally said, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but isn't all this information in my file or on some computer here?" With that, the OB said she wanted to check me again. Perhaps they know when the laboring mother gets feisty, things are moving pretty quickly, who knows. I finished a contraction and told her to hurry and check. I had my eyes closed and heard her say, "She's a seven".

Excuse me? Seven centimeters? I immediately thought of a book I had read, Your Best Birth where Ricki Lake describes the transition phase of labor going from seven to ten centimeters as something like, "This is the part where you're not fucking around anymore!" And boy was she right. I have also heard women say that at this point you sort of leave your body. It was like that for me. It was all happening so fast I could do nothing but think of how to stop the pain. I had previously decided to have a natural child birth. (Again, insert hysterical laughing here). However, when given the option to have an epidural when my head was spinning around, guess what I said? I would have taken a shot of tequila with a hit over the head with a frying pan.

The anesthesiologist arrived and I had to sit through transition contractions while he administered the medication in my back. He kept saying, "Don't move!" Ummm, okay. As soon as he left the room the OB checked me again and said, "She's complete." I heard the nurse tell me she was sure I was complete before he even started the epidural and that I had just gone through what takes most people 10 hours of labor in one hour. I've mentioned in other blog posts that I've always been the type of person that does things in a hurry. Apparently this was no exception.

I kept asking if the baby was doing well and the nurse told me (after I asked her for the 10th time) that she was doing better than a lot of babies that come in with no "risk factors" like mine. After the epidural kicked in things were a lot more peaceful. They left me alone with my husband and Linda so I could "labor down" and just let the baby come down naturally. After more than an hour the nurse said I could practice pushing and I said, "Like a dress rehearsal?" It was a little strange to push with no feeling down there, but practicing did help. They said they could see her coming. I was impressed with my husband who previously said he wouldn't want to see her come out at all, but he did in fact look. Part of the baby's head showed and I asked him if she had hair. He said yes. The nurse decided to call the OB to deliver. I was ecstatic!

It was 10:30 when the OB came in and sat down. I did about 4 sets of pushing and her head was out. One more push and Sydney Marie was born at 10:37. The OB put her on my chest and it was totally quiet. I didn't cry like I thought I would. I didn't say anything. I was stunned. Stunned that I did it. Stunned that she was here, finally and she was fine. Stunned at how beautiful she was. And stunned at how beautiful labor and birth are.

They let her stay on my chest for at least 30 minutes, I can't remember how much time passed. I think I finally cried, as did Jason. The placenta was delivered with no problems and the scar tissue was still attached to it. I didn't have any tearing. I kept thinking it was too good to be true, that everything went so well, even with the fast and furious labor. I said a few times that I felt like I was dreaming and that I would wake up and it would be earlier that same day. Linda pinched me and said, "You're not dreaming, you did it!"

I want to close this post by saying that the reason I wanted to share all of this was to emphasize the importance of listening to your body. Sometimes it's easier than others, but if we try and open ourselves to it, our bodies will communicate with us. I never once felt like anything was wrong during this pregnancy. There were times when I had to stop and ask myself, "Am I lying to myself?" and the answer was always no. I spent time alone, relaxing to become in tune with the mind/body connection and my body responded by opening up and communicating with me. I had to trust it and let go of fears which was probably the hardest part. In all that I have been through over the last several years, doing this has been the most empowering and healing reward I have been given.

Sydney Marie- 2 days old

*I also wanted to give a special thanks to the staff at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women. The nurses and obstetrician were so helpful and played a major role in the safety and smoothness of my birth. Without them and their support that night, I'm not sure how it would have turned out. I don't believe there are enough words of gratitude.

Photos courtesy of author. Please do not duplicate without my permission.

Birth story, Part II

2009-09-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off writing part 2 to this trilogy of my birth stories, only because the last couple of weeks has not turned out exactly like I had planned it. I'm not sure what I was thinking; pregnancy and birth can never be planned, many times there are bumps in the road and sharp turns need to be made. But if you read my last post, you know that I didn't have the best experience with the birth of my son and that my cesarean section left me feeling, well.....scarred for life.

With this pregnancy I had planned on a vaginal birth. My situation is called a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean, called a VBAC (pronounced "vee-back"). There has been much controversy over the years about VBAC and I won't spend time going over all of the research I have done, but in a nutshell, I felt that a vaginal birth was completely safe for me and my baby and my obstetrician was in agreement and supportive. I was ecstatic to be able to have a baby the way nature intended.

At 18 weeks things began to go slightly downhill. I was told I had what is called a uterine synechiae, basically scar tissue on my uterus connected to the placenta. Basically it was caused by my previous c-section. Another thing to add to my list of "why my c-section sucked". They said they are usually harmless, but weren't going to say a for certain "yes" to my VBAC until they checked it again, at 34 weeks. So I had to wait until then for them to not only check that, but check the baby to make sure she wasn't harmed by this and for them to tell me what they thought about the safest way for me to birth.

Week 34 came around and the synechiae was almost MIA, apparently it's typical for it to get pushed aside at that point. So, my VBAC was agreed by the perinatologist that I would be a good candidate. Hooray!!! I was so excited! I hired a doula and threw myself into researching about VBAC, natural childbirth and just birth in general. I couldn't wait to experince the magic of childbirth. Of course I knew that there was always a chance of another c-section, but I was content knowing that I would be able to allow my body to do what it was meant to do: Give birth.

At that appointment, I was told that my daughter was measuring small for her gestational age. She didn't seem too worried and asked about my son's size at birth. When I told her she said, "You're probably just one of those women that have small babies". Okay. She told me to come back in 2 weeks to monitor her progress. They don't mind if she's still small, but they want to make sure that she's growing adequately. For some reason I wasn't worried. Something told me it was fine and that my baby was growing as she should be and there was nothing to worry about. So I went to the next appointment feeling confident that they would tell me she was still small, but okay. They didn't. The doctor came into the room and said, "Last time you were here your baby was small, now she is officially small, in the 8th percentile for her gestational age. And your placenta is showing calcification, a sign that it's aging".

Time stopped. My mouth feel open as if to say something but nothing came out. I promptly burst into tears.

My head was spinning. Thoughts flooded: "What did I do wrong? I'm 34, I'm too old to have a baby. Why isn't she growing? What is wrong with my placenta? IS SHE DYING???"

I think I asked a question or 2, but the doctor might as well have answered in Chinese because I wasn't listening. I did ask what her recommendation of birth was for me; a vaginal birth or a cesarean section and she said I could go for what is called a trial of labor, they will monitor the baby the whole time, if she's fine I can go ahead with labor, if she seems stressed they will take her via c-section. Fine by me. I drove to my husbands work to tell him the news in person.

So for the last few days I have been going back and forth from being a complete mess about this, to feeling confident that everything will work out fine. The reason I wanted to share this is because of this:

I have learned (a little late) that opinions on this topic vary greatly. It's one of those things that if you have never been there it's impossible to say how you would feel and what you would do. It's a highly sensitive matter. Backing up a little, let me share with you my personal feelings about this. Keep in mind; these are my feelings, and I am not speaking for all women here.

I have come to the conclusion that women are given vaginas for 2 reasons: To make babies and to birth babies. We are put on this earth to reproduce and as a female, it is our inherent right to give birth. Modern technology has given us the gift to make sure our babies are healthy in the womb and have saved many, many lives of both mother and baby. If I had had the same pregnancy I had with my son 100 years ago (breech position and severe hypertension), there is a good chance I would have died during childbirth, as well as my son. I do think the best decision was made when it was decided to have a cesarean section. It goes without saying that I am grateful for modern medicine.

That being said, it still doesn't take away the feelings of failure that a surgical delivery brought to me. I feel like a natural child birth is something I was meant to do and it was taken away. My mother did it three times, and her mother did it 11 times (all at home by the way). I can't help but think: What is wrong with me?

At this point I have no idea how I will end up birthing this baby. The constant back and forth of decisions, feelings and emotions is almost too much to bear. One minute I think I should throw in the towel, schedule the cesarean and deal with the emotions later. The next minute my instincts say, "Wait a minute! I can do this! I was meant to do this! She is healthy and will be fine." Whichever voice is louder at that moment wins, and the process starts over. Sometimes it's unbearable. This is not how I imagined my last few weeks of pregnancy to be. Worried sick about my daughters health and doctors telling me different things about how I should birth. Not knowing what's best and running out of time. The whole time thinking how powerful it is to love someone so much that I haven't met yet. That there are so many people fussing over her and she is blissfully unaware of it all.

Then there's the question of selfishness. Why is this birth so important to me? Is it really best for both me and the baby? Is natural labor really just as safe? Biologically and scientifically I believe yes, I have done the research both ways to come to this conclusion. Sometimes it's not, and in my situation as I type this, I'm not sure what the right answer is for me, if any. I suppose I will find out within the next 2 weeks.

I think as women, many of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have the perfect birth, the perfect magical experience, blissful breast feeding, etc. And when it doesn't go that way, combined with all the hormones, it's the perfect storm. I can only speak for myself in that sense, but I beat myself up a lot over those things. This time I am working on letting it go.....I can only control so much and most importantly I can control my emotions, my reactions and leave the rest up to God.

In closing, I have had to ask myself why this birth is so important to me. For me, I am at the end of my child bearing days. Pregnancy is beautiful and I have never felt anything so alive and amazing as having my child grow and thrive inside of me. I am very lucky to have experienced this. I have always imagined what it would be like to be in labor, to feel my uterus actually contract and begin to push my baby out of me, a new life ready to experience a life of his or her own. For me, this is the essence of womanhood.

*Note: Although I love comments, due to the sensitivity of this matter, please do not comment if you are going to tell me what you think I should do or to be snarky. I posted this because I feel there are other women who probably can relate to these feelings and that it's normal to feel them.

Photo courtesy of soartsyithurts

Old posts revisited

2009-09-01T11:04:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite sites, Girl, Get Strong has posted 2 of my old blog posts recently. You can read, "Sweet Revenge....or is it?" here, and "Every party has a pooper, that's why we invited you" here.

Birth story, Part I

2009-08-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm compelled to write my son's birth story for two reasons. One, I've never documented it, and since he just turned 2 last week I know the detailed memories will fade soon. Secondly, I have high hopes that my next child's birth in a few weeks will be different and I would like to look back on both years and years later.

I remember during one of the birthing classes Jason and I sat through the childbirth educator said that statistically 3 of us in the class would end up having a c-section (there were 9 other couples). I looked around the room and thought, "Ugh, not me!" The teacher herself had 2 c-sections and even my sister had 2 herself because of a heart condition she has. But I knew there was NO WAY I was going to be one of them. This baby was coming out the way nature intended as far as I was concerned.

Fast forward to week 32. My blood pressure was continuing to slowly rise with each visit to my OB/GYN. I was put on a pregnancy safe medication early on for high blood pressure because I have chronic hypertension even when I'm not pregnant. Because of this the doctors also like to check fluid levels in the womb and that turned out fine, but he saw that my son was in the breech position (which is butt first instead of head first). He said ever-so-casually, "Well, if he doesn't flip within the next few weeks, we'll just schedule a cesarean section."

Um, excuse me? I don't think so.

Never having even THOUGHT about this, I asked him if I could birth my son in this position. My doctor explained the risks, the only one I remember standing out in my mind was that the umbilical cord could come out first, get pinched and cause major problems (come to find out later, this could happen when the baby is head down as well). As I continued to ask questions the conversation ended with "No obstetrician at this hospital will allow you to birth a baby that is in the breech position."

I left the appointment with the hope that maybe this little baby would figure it out and flip within the next few weeks. My blood pressure kept getting worse and with each appointment they would confirm that he was still breech. At my 36 week appointment my doctor informed me that they had already scheduled my cesarean section for August 30th. My son was due September 5th. I told my OB that I didn't feel comfortable having them take him before he was "ready" to be born. I wanted to go into labor on my own, go to the hospital and then they could proceed with my surgery. Doesn't a woman's first labor typically last 12 hours or something? Was that asking a lot? Apparently yes, and as I can't recall his exact words, I remember feeling like it wasn't really up for discussion. I also later found out that they like to schedule c-sections at 39 weeks so the mother's DON'T go into labor on their own. In a nutshell, it's more convenient for the doctors and the hospital.

I left there feeling completely helpless and deflated. I was a statistic. My OB also prescribed bedrest because my blood pressure was still rising and I was already taking the maximum dosage of medication. I went home to prepare myself and try my best to come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't get the birthing experience that I wanted. My son had his first appointment of his life: To be born.

The next day was August 11th, 2007. I was at my in-laws house with Jason relaxing and talking to him about these being the last few days of just the two of us. We came in the house after laying by the pool (did someone say something about bedrest?), I laid on the couch and reached over to pick up a bottle of water and felt something shift inside of me, unlike the baby movement. The sound of it was strange too, like something popping. I thought I probably had to go to the bathroom, stood up and took a few steps and felt the warm rush.

"I think my water broke" I said to my mother-in-law. She replied, "Well, don't just stand there, go and check!" I shuffled into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. My bathing suit and shorts were soaked and it wasn't pee. I sat there for at least a full minute, totally silent. Oh. My. Shit. I vividly remember thinking, "How am I going to get out of this?" He was only 36 weeks along....IT'S NOT TIME!!! I poked my head out of the bathroom and told Jason we needed to go to the hospital. When we got there and I got out of the car my shorts were soaked. As we walked in the front doors I could feel it trickling down my legs and asked Jason to walk behind me. He assured me that I was not the first pregnant woman to walk into a hospital with amniotic fluid soaking my clothes and running down my legs. Thanks, honey. We got to the triage floor and I politely told the nurse that my water broke. She asked if I was sure. I said, "Well, I'm standing in a puddle of it so you can come around and check if you want." I don't think they found the humor in that.

I was put in a room and I can't remember much of what happened next except a nurse casually said, "Okay, looks like you're going to have a baby today!" NOTHING can prepare you for a perfect stranger saying those words to you. Nothing. She left the room and I burst into tears. Sobbing I sat on the edge of the bed and put my head on Jason's chest. I said to him, "Why is he so early? Is he okay, what if he's not ready? I'M NOT READY!!!" And I wasn't. Sure, I didn't have a bag packed (I was in my bikini, shorts and a tank top for pete's sake) and we didn't have the carseat ready, but I wasn't ready for surgery. I wasn't ready for this. I had never had a chance to come to terms with the fact that this is how my first born would come into this world. Less than 24 hours before that my doctor told me it was certain that I would not get to birth the way I wanted. I had never in my life even had a surgery before. Never even had a cavity! I was terrified.

I can't remember how we got to the labor and delivery floor, but shortly after we met the obstetrician that would deliver my son. Oh, nice to meet you, you're about to cut me open to pull my child out of my abdomen. Oh, and the anesthesiologist. You're about to stick a needle into my spine. Great! Glad I got to know you both for 5 seconds. I feel MUCH better. Here, let me just pull my heart out of my chest and hand it to you while we wait for an operating room. Wait.....what is that feeling??? Oh-you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me those are contractions starting.

As Dr. About-to-cut-me-open and Jason chatted, a nice nurse prepped me for surgery. I watched the clock as the contractions kept coming. There were 4 total every 5 minutes that lasted about 30 seconds. Knowing what I know now, I was in the early stages of labor and those contractions were a picnic as compared to what was to come. But, I never got to know. Away to the operating room I went. Alone. Jason was not allowed to join me until they were ready to cut me open.

Much of the next couple of hours is foggy. I was given the spinal to numb my entire lower body and I was helped to lay down on the table. I gasped out loud as I felt a nurse pull my legs open (not gently) and slightly felt her looking for where she was going to insert the catheter. No pain, but I could feel something. Then I heard one of the nurses say, "Uh, oh. Meconium." which I knew wasn't good. (Meconium is a sign that the baby has made a bowel movement in utero and could cause an infection if ingested.) I asked the other nurse if that was really bad. She was a heavy-set African American lady that said, "Honey, your baby's butt is wedged in your pelvis right now. Your contractions are literally squeezing the shit out of him. He's fine". Love her.

Jason was let into the room and sat down next to me, the anesthesiologist was on the other side of me. They both had their haz-mat suits on, masks and all. The doctor I had met previously then introduced me to another doctor that would be assisting him. Another stranger digging around in my innards. Fantastic! They told me they were about to start. Then I smelled it. Jason asked the anesthesiologist, "What's that smell?" I knew exactly what it was but was so horrified I could not speak it. The doctor said, "Do you really want to know?" Jason replied, "Oh, nevermind" as he figured it out.

It was the smell of burning flesh as they cauterized my skin open. Gross. The smell is unmistakeable. I focused on the huge bright surgery light above us and just prayed. Prayed that it would be over soon. Prayed that my son would be healthy. A few minutes later they removed him from my womb and held him up for me to see. I memorized his face right then and there. I knew I wouldn't be able to hold him until God knows when, so I wanted to be able to recognize him in case they accidentally switched him with another baby like you see on Oprah. I really don't remember details after that. I was sewn up, taken away to recovery, and suddenly there was Jason and my sister. I kept telling Jason to go and be with the baby instead of me because I didn't want him to be alone. It BROKE MY HEART that I couldn't be with him right away. His first minutes of life and he was in an incubator, being held by someone else, in a kangaroo pouch bouncing down the halls, I didn't know!?!?! All I know is that I couldn't move and I kept thinking, "Am I sleeping? Is this real? Dreaming?" I really couldn't decipher between reality and dream-state. I don't know how much time passed and they brought him to me. I was able to nurse him and finally be with him. But it was still strange. I never felt fully awake until hours later.

The point of this whole post is this:

It took me a long time to be at peace with the birth outcome of my son. I do believe a cesarean section was the best decision, given that I had a breech baby and hypertension. Had I not had high blood pressure I know in my heart I could have given birth to him vaginally if given the chance. But I can't take it back so I had to come to terms with it. Both for my own sanity and preparing for the birth of my daughter.

Which brings me to my next point. As mothers giving birth, we are taught to focus solely on the outcome of our baby. There is little regard to the feelings and emotions of the mothers. Cesarean sections have become so common and part of birth that our society has accepted it as almost as normal as a vaginal birth. And it's not even close. I can't tell you how many times I have heard, "Well, at least you have a healthy baby. And that's all that matters." And I nod back with a lump in my throat. There is an overwhelming feeling of shame for being unhappy about your birth outcome. It's looked at as selfish. Of course I am happy I had a healthy child and that I was safe. That goes without being said. But giving birth is one of those things that most of us know we are going to face someday. It's a monumental day, one that will live in our memories forever. I think it's not unlike our wedding day, it's something we think about and hope that day turns out perfect. And when it doesn't, it can be devastating.

I just want to put it out there that it's okay to be angry, frustrated, sad and just plain pissed off about your birth outcome. Feel the feelings so that you can move on. If you hold it in, it doesn't go anywhere and will just get worse. It wasn't until I admitted how awful it was, then I was able to shrug my shoulders and say, "Okay, I'm done and ready to move on."

If you have a similar story or even a different opinion, I would love to hear it!

*I should note that not all mothers have these feelings after a c-section. I personally know a few that had easy recoveries, and even elected to have c-sections rather than a vaginal birth. I think it's fantastic that these women can be happy with their birth outcome. I can only speak for myself and the many other women I have talked to that have had the same feelings that I've had.

Photo courtesy of David Maddison

How pregnancy has helped my relationship with food

2009-08-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

In the past few months I've talked a lot about eating disorders and my own struggle with disordered eating and exercise. I've had to really think about my relationship with food and quite honestly, I thought it was a crock that people even had a "relationship with food". I thought that was only for over-eaters who used food as a coping mechanism or for other various reasons personal to themselves. Then I took a good, hard look at how I viewed food and realized that it probably wasn't the healthiest. I have a history of sporadic bingeing and purging (either vomiting or exercise, or both), and would ration the amount of calories I would eat every day. For instance, I would starve all day if I knew I was going to go out and have a big dinner with friends. And when I lived alone, I would look forward all day to coming home and eating an entire pizza all by myself. It's laughable that I thought I didn't have a terrible relationship with food.

When I became pregnant in early 2007, I truly felt what it was like to be hungry. Yes, I'd been hungry before, very hungry, but the kind of hunger that wakes you up in the middle of the night and speaks to you. Literally, I would have to get up out of bed and get a snack because I was so hungry. So began the "eat when you're hungry" notion.

Wow, it was just that easy.

At that point in my life I was just beginning to honor my body by listening. Listening when I was tired and truly needed to rest instead of exercise. Listen when I was injured and needed an ice pack or a doctor instead of pushing to run more miles. Listening and enjoying how good it felt to be fit for reasons of taking care of my body and nothing else. But food, eating and nutrition were still confusing, somewhat disordered and the last thing to fall into place.

When I was pregnant, I truly had to listen to my body when it came to feeding it. I was lucky the first time in that I had minimal morning sickness, and quickly I learned that I had to pack with me snacks to be able to eat at a moments notice. One minute everything would be fine and the next minute it was like my body said, "IF YOU DON'T GET SOMETHING IN THIS STOMACH IN 10 SECONDS ANY STOMACH ACID YOU HAVE WILL BE COMING OUT THE FRONT DOOR! 10....9.....8....7...." And the dry heaving begins. I am not exaggerating. If you've ever been pregnant or been around someone in her first trimester of pregnancy, you probably know the feeling.

The second time I became pregnant, I was much farther along in my recovery of disordered eating and exercise, so I became more conscious of all things related. During the first trimester I again noticed having to eat when I was hungry and it was smaller meals more frequently. But a huge "aha" moment I had was in the third trimester when the uterus gets so big it begins to push all the internal organs up and basically just smushes them. Therefore, the stomach and intestines are being sat on. Literally. There is nothing, I mean nothing, fun about over-eating during this time. A few weeks ago I did it once. I made lasagna and served myself way too much. As I'm slowing down and looking at the bowl my mind said, "You're full, please stop, no more. Can't. Take. Any. More. Pasta." But it was sooooo yummy, and there was only about 1 or 2 (okay 10) more bites, so I went for it.

Big mistake.

I had to hold my hand over my mouth and stay still for about 10 minutes while my husband cleared the table. I was afraid it I moved that my baby would do a David Beckham soccer kick and it would all be over. It was truly uncomfortable and I learned a hard lesson.

Hmmmm.....eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Who knew?

So, I'm not saying the secret to healing your relationship with food is pregnancy nor am I saying I'm completely the expert when it comes to eating and nutrition, but my main point is there is something to be said about listening to your body for all things including food. Simply put, when I gave my body what it needed in terms of nourishment, I could almost hear it say "thank you".

Photo courtesy of TowerGirl

Miley Cyrus at the Teen Choice Awards

2009-08-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

I recently read an article about Miley Cyrus' "pretend pole dancing" at the Teen Choice Awards. Miley is 16 years old. I finally saw the video of the performance and although it wasn't as bad as I originally thought, but as a mother, I definitely raised an eyebrow.

This story made me think back to when I was a teenage girl growing up in suburbia. I had my first french kiss the summer before I started high school, so I must have been 14. I waited that long because I simply did not feel comfortable doing it before that. Ironically, the boyfriend I had at the time ended up breaking up with me because that's as far as I would go with him. I remember being 15 and 16 being the ages that the hormones really kicked into high gear. I believe I can speak for most girls when I say this is the time that we go bonkers in the boy-crazy department. Some are in tune to the attention they can get from boys, some are not (I wasn't). Some love the attention and seek it out to no end where as others, like myself wait a few years and then finally realize "the power". So, that being said, I suppose Miley is just doing what comes naturally to herself and along side her is her management team with their tongues wagging, nodding in agreement.

I thought about it more and really had to decide if this bothers me. As a woman, not so much, but as a mother, yes. I remember years ago, before I had kids and the whole Janet, "Miss Jackson if you're nasty" Superbowl incident happened. I saw it live and didn't think it was a big deal. So what? A boob. But now as a mom, and although I have years before I will have an impressionable young daughter (she's still in the womb as I type this), I would be peeved with Janet for this.

I never thought I would say this but here it is: When I was young--things were different. And I'm not that old. In the mid-80's our version of Miley Cyrus was Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. We had the Saved by the Bell girls, Alyssa Milano and Kids Incorporated. When they were 16, they kept their clothes on, didn't pole dance and to my knowledge, weren't hyper-sexual. What happened so quickly to change all of this?

Is this just how it's supposed to evolve? I had a friend (a guy) tell me to "lighten up" about Miley. I just feel that if we lighten up so much...what's next?

Hiding behind the notion of control

2009-08-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve recently done some thinking about control. In my “old life” I was a complete control freak. Before my wedding to my first husband I even controlled everything about my bridal shower. I was so picky about the decorations I went out and bought them myself. I wanted everyone to wear pink and only pink. And the wedding itself was even worse with all the details that I was obsessed with.

In the last 10 years or so that I have known someone or known of someone with an eating disorder, I have always thought it was about control. I would think about the persons life and see something going wrong- a dysfunctional relationship, perfectionistic traits or just plain unhappiness. It made perfect sense that someone with disordered eating (weather it be calorie restriction, purging or binge eating) and/or exercise was really the persons way of controlling something in their life. And in this case it was the food they put in their mouth and their weight. For me, I don't think it was something I ever analyzed when it was happening, but it started out as something I thought I could control. I controlled what and when I ate and how much (that was the most important part). I controlled how much I exercised, therefore I controlled how I looked. Unbeknownst to me, my disordered eating and exercise took control of me. Very, very quickly.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, Kendra Sebelius and I asked her what she thought of this, having experience in recovery herself. I asked her if she thought that people with disordered eating that tell themselves and others that their issues with food and exercise are their own way of being in control is actually bullshit. I thought it was and wondered if she agreed. She had been doing some reading about this particular topic and told me, "if you have to control something, it is out of control". And I totally agree. She went on to say,

If they [people with disordered eating] only could control the other people in our life, control external stress, control work, control life - THEN our life would be "perfect"... it's once you say you are powerless - over people, things, situations, that is when you recover. The illusion of control is false in all aspects of addictions, and it is often misplaced on external issues versus internal strife. I don't think it ever controlled anything for us - it always controlled us. It became a coping skill to CONTROL the outside things affecting us. A very self centered approach, in my opinion. We care only about ourselves, this illusion of control - thinking if things are in control will mean we are OK. We can not control an eating disorder, just as people can't control drinking - the whys are bullshit. We could be addicts, impulsive by nature, come from shitty pasts etc. It is an illusion - a big fat smokescreen. it becomes the red herring - a way to AVOID the actual issues. A way to place blame & make excuses.

For me, it wasn't until I was well into recovery (in many aspects of my life) that I realized that saying my disordered eating was something I had control of was total BS. The outcome that I wanted- perfection, thinness, beauty, the illusion that I was strong- was all something that controlled me. It had a grip over me that was suffocating and it lied to me. The feeling of power that I had when I could restrict my eating and the feeling of superiority of watching my body change was enormous, but both of those things were very temporary feelings that I constantly had to think about and work for. I've also come to realize the control was something I thought I had over others. My ex would make comments about the way I ate (not how much I ate, just that I should eat healthier), so I would binge just to spite him. Many times he would never even know. It was my way of hating him. The illusion that I had control of my life because I could control my eating and exercise then led me to believe that if I let that go, everything else would fall apart. It would be like falling down a ski slope with no hope of stopping. And there was no way I was going to let that happen.

Years later, through many experiences, therapy and other ways of healing, I have come to know that real life is monumentally better than a life that I thought I had to control. When making plans for my baby shower my mom kept asking me what I wanted at the shower. A theme, colors, etc. I told her I didn't care, that whatever she thought was fine and I would be happy. I said, "Mom, I'm not 'that girl' anymore." She half-jokingly replied, "Thank GOD!". We both got a laugh out of that.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please get help. NEDA can help.

Photo courtesy of Esther_G

Jessica Simpson gets revenge by losing weight?

2009-08-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

This is my first post about a celebrity. I usually avoid this because I think the sensationalizaiton of Hollywood is ridiculous and out of hand. And you probably already know how I feel about the media. But this struck me for 2 reasons. One, how my heart goes out to this girl and two, that I have done exactly what she seems to be doing.

I heard that Jessica Simpson got dumped the night before her 29th birthday by her football star boyfriend, Tony Romo. Now, backing up a little, Jessica was recently blasted for her weight a few months back and some photos emerged. These images were splashed across magazines and bloggers went crazy.

Fat? Really? When I was looking for a photo for this post, I happened to see a comment on a blog that read: "If you think she's fat, you ain't ever met a fat chick." It's amazing to me that something like this can cause so much discussion. What was she, a size 8?

A few months goes by and the news hits that she was dumped. Then while grocery shopping I saw this magazine cover while waiting in line:

I rolled my eyes and didn't pick the magazine up. But I couldn't help but think about her and what she was going through. At 29, she's probably ready to settle down and have a family. Being dumped anytime in life sucks, but this was probably a real ass kicker.

In my experience, as soon as it became a reality that my first marriage was over, my own disordered eating and exercising spiraled out of control. Part of it was depression, but most of it was not. I'll never forget about a month after my ex and I officially split, I had stopped by his parents house to wish my former mother-in-law a happy birthday. I didn't know my ex would be there and he asked if he could talk to me. I reluctantly said yes and the first thing he did was look me up and down and ask, "Have you been eating?" He looked genuinely concerned and I immediately replied, "Not much". I instantly regretted my response in that I didn't want him to feel that it was because of him. I suppose I thought the reason was because of him, but in reality looking back, it was all because of me. For a brief second I loved the concern he had about me, but 2 minutes later it was gone. And I was still left with me.

Haven't we as women all done this? Or if not, at least thought about it? A guy you're in love with dumps you and you make a pact with yourself that you are going to be the hottest, thinnest most amazing looking woman EVER! And if he dumped you for someone else, watch out! He'll want you back! ......won't he?

So upon seeing this magazine cover, I couldn't help but think of myself. I googled the story, read the magazine article online and saw a quote from her "friend" saying, “She doesn’t want to give anyone more reason to not take her seriously. She’s tired of weight being a talking point.”

Wait, what????

Yes, I think it's ridiculous that a female celebrities weight determines everything to her, and that's how it is in the real world as well, but does she really believe that she'll be taken more seriously if she is thin? Sadly, YES! The poor girl was made fun of less when she was portrayed as stupid and even did commercials capitalizing on this. But I can bet the comments of calling her fat hurt her feelings more than ever and that's when she really thought people weren't taking her seriously. Wow.

I keep reading that Jessica is coming out with a new reality show chronicling a trip across America that deals with body image. Well, I've got news for you Ms Simpson: Your first episode needs to be about your realization that losing 10 pounds in 10 days because your boyfriend dumped you is not the way to heal your body image issues. Tony Romo is not going to see you and say, "Oh man, she's so thin now. I want her back!" It doesn't work that way, and if it does, he doesn't deserve to see you naked anyway.

I hope Jessica finds peace with her body, and herself.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

2009-08-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before in previous posts that in 2003 I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (click here for an explanation of what GAD is). It was very hard for me to accept this because of the the sheer close- mindedness I had at the time of all mental disorders. In the very back of my mind I knew that something was wrong or different about me, but even that thought made me angry so denial was just a more comfortable place. I suppose I finally reached my breaking point, made the appointment with my doctor (after the urging of my therapist) and was my anxiety disorder was classified as "severe".

Several years later I am happy to say that I don't need medication anymore, but every once in a while it creeps back up. Interestingly, in both of my pregnancies in the first trimester my anxiety came back, but the episodes are few and far between now. I felt it coming back once when I had a coaching session with Larry Laprade and decided to bring the topic to my session with him. This is probably not a topic I would normally bring up, it's more of a therapy topic, but Larry was up for the challenge. As I told him about my worries, he asked me, "What is worry?" I asked him to elaborate and he wanted to know how I would explain the concept of "worry" to an alien from another planet that did not know what it was, or had never felt it. As I tried my best to explain it, I realized just how ridiculous all of my worrying really was.

Later, as I thought about it more, I wondered if all my worrying and anxiety was some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Wikipedia defines a self-fulfilling prophecy as: "a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior."

Hmmmm.......

Now, I don't want to undermine the severity of GAD or any other mental illness, what I'm talking about here is general worry, stress, etc. That being said, my session with Larry got me wondering if all of our thoughts are little announcements to the universe of a desired outcome that we may or may not want in our life. Especially if a thought is repeated over and over again in our mind (or out of our mouth), that it gains momentum and energy. I don't think that it's a coincidence that when I worry and stress about about something in particular that things seem to fall apart, but when I concentrate on how well things are and all the positive, it breeds just that.

I'm a firm believer that anyone can train their mind to bring what they want into their lives. I also think that it takes more positive energy to counteract whatever negativity someone has manifested about a certain topic. Sort of how we remember the bad and hurtful comments someone makes to us much more than we remember the compliments. Affirmations are a great way of doing this.

If there is anything you do to help with this, or any experience you've had with this, let me know!

Photo courtesy of spaceodissey

Baggage

2009-07-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

In early 1994 I sat in a therapists office for the first time. I don't remember how my parents talked me into going, but there I was, 18 years old, a couple of months after I found out my parents were officially getting divorced. I was stone faced, arms crossed over my chest. The therapist was very nice, drinking her tea and her first question was, "Do you know why you're here?" I can't remember how I responded exactly...but casually told her I came because my parents wanted me to and that they wanted to make sure I was "okay". I spent the rest of the hour telling her, "I'm fine", "It doesn't bother me", and "I'm totally okay with it". And I clearly remember never, ever shedding a single tear. I was tough. I was strong. And no one would think otherwise. I had a few more unproductive sessions with her and the only thing I remember (and was very proud of) was that I never cried once.

The only person that saw any of my inner turmoil about it was my then-boyfriend who later became my husband (then became my ex-husband). He was 19 at the time and did not sign up to be the one to take all of my messiness on. I told no one but him. I guess at the time he was the only one I trusted to still love me even though I was such a mess. I expected so much from him and at 19 years old, he gave me as much as he could, which wasn't a whole lot. And when he didn't provide for me what I needed, I was wrecked. I had no coping skills. I would rather die than have the world see me fall apart, so I stuffed it all away and told everyone "I'm fine".

Now I know why they call it "baggage".

I carried that shit around for years. Taking it out on my boyfriend who encouraged me to talk to someone, anyone (besides him) about it all. But instead, I stuffed my bags as full as they would go and carried it around until I was too tired and too weak. Finally, one day I snapped and it all came crashing down in my doctors office in 2003.

During those teenage years I had no idea what perfectionism was, that I struggled with it or that it was even a bad thing. In my mind I thought if it all looked great on the outside then it had to be okay on the inside, right? I mean, everyone else had it all together, so it was imperative that I did too, whatever the cost. I was disgusted at weak people and thought people that had hang-ups really needed to get over it, and themselves and simply move on. Seriously, I thought that. And now, today I see people that think that way and my heart goes out to them, only because I know they are struggling with their own baggage, their bags are spilling over and they are getting tired. I wonder how much more they can take. How many more times they can roll their eyes at people that have struggles and difficulties and that are simply just human.

Through my own experiences I've learned that it's okay to ask for help. To say that you're overwhelmed, hurt, afraid or confused. Or tired and need a break. Or whatever. No one is perfect and feels nothing. Transparency is beautiful. It doesn't make you weak or a baby. I don't apologize anymore for it. And my baggage is unpacked.

Photo courtesy of Noel Zia Lee

Redefining Beauty

2009-07-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

I was a guest blogger for a friend of mine on his fantastic site, "It Starts With Us". Please check it out here.

Feel free to comment on his blog and thanks for reading!

What would you do?

2009-07-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I received an email from a dear friend of mine, Heather. Heather is a laid back, fun, smart and active mom of two little boys. I was a little surprised by the franticness of her email. She gave me permission to share it with you:

"Andrea: sign me up for volunteering for one of your workshops. Today at the mall (not my fave place) there was a 12-ish year old girl shopping w/ her mother for a swimsuit. She looked like she was in puberty where body was changing and she was a little overweight. However, she was adorable and beautiful. I could hear her mother pushing suits for her to try on. A bit later, I was in the dressing room and I heard someone crying quietly. Her dress was on the floor so I knew it was her. She was crying b/c she didn't like any suits and didn't want to try any one. Her mother asked "What are you going to wear to swim in tomorrow?" And through her tears she said, "I just won't go." I lost it. I was so sad for her...and I really wanted to say something but I didn't. And now I am bummed. I wanted to tell her how adorable she was or maybe let her mom know they could find cute boardshorts rather than a bikini...and I didn't! I wasn't sure if the mom would tell me to buzz off or if I would have made the girl feel worse. ARGGgghhh....I got in my car and called Dan crying and he thought I got jumped or something. But it was so sad and I appreciated your mission before but now that I saw it in action I think you are a super dooper rock star. Anyway, I had to tell you...what do you think I should have done? Does your training give advice on that type of situation????"

I'm posting this for 2 reasons: First, to share with you how common this is. To me, it is unacceptable that a little girl feels so uncomfortable with her body that she doesn't want to go swimming with her friends to what I am assuming is a pool party. And secondly, to ask you to comment with what you would have done in this situation. I told Heather I really didn't have an answer. I would have wanted to tell this little girl I thought she was adorable too. But it's such fine line when we tell strangers things of this nature. Can we possibly undo with one nice comment what year of teasing, media influences and whatever else this girl has seen has done to her self esteem?

I would love to hear your comments! What do you think, and/or what would you do?

3 Steps to a Healthy Relationship

2009-07-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

I was a guest blogger again on the very cool website, Girl, Get Stong! You can read the article here.

Stop by and leave a comment!

Operation Beautiful

2009-07-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

I'm dedicating this blog post to anther blog that I found, written by a 25 year old woman named Caitlin Boyle living in Orlando, Florida. She has two blogs, one where she chronicles her fitness and nutrition lifestyle and the other one which she calls, Operation Beautiful is what I'll be explaining. Caitlin's mission is the following:

One of my biggest personal crusades is ending Fat Talk. If my little blog only does one productive thing, I hope it helps readers realize how truly toxic fat talk is — it hurts you emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I want to reach as many people as possible with my End the Fat Talk message.

I encourage you to watch the video in the above link, or here:

Caitlin's project is simple: spreading the word of making people feel good about themselves with just a pen and paper. She encourages others to write notes, usually on post-it notes, anywhere someone may see it. The most common places are bathroom mirrors, gym locker rooms and on the covers of women's magazines. Check out her blog to see some great examples of people in action.

So this morning I had to go out to Walmart to get a gift for my friends twins for their birthday. I threw my post-its in my purse and made my way to the magazine aisle. It didn't take long for me to find a magazine that would make any average woman feel badly about herself. It was Abs Magazine (which by the way, there is really a magazine dedicated to abdominals? Having a fitness background myself, I know that abs are for holding yourself upright, supporting your back and they help in childbirth. That's it. Is it completely necessary for us to HAVE to have flat, six-pack abs just for that? Sorry, I digress...). Here is my post it:

This magazine promised to give us flat, sexy abs in 6 minutes, shrink our bellies, and talks about liposuction. Oh, thank you, Abs Magazine! An answer to my prayers! So my note reads, "You're beautiful...just the way you are!" I hope someone reads it, smiles and feels good about herself instead of looking at the headlines and the photoshopped model on the cover and feels like crap. I intend to post many, many notes!

I encourage you all to spread this simple, yet powerful task. You may be surprised how it ends up making you feel better about YOURself too. Make sure you have your camera ready and send the picture to Caitlin so she can post it on her blog!

My relationship with a drug addict

2009-07-10T06:11:00.000-07:00

In my post about how I got over my divorce I talked about how I began dating too soon. I think that bit of advice deserves it's own post because of the catastrophic mistakes I make at choosing my dates when I made the decision to date right after my ex of 13 years and I split. If you read the whole post, I'll share what I learned at the end.

At first I dated guys that were nice and normal, but in my crazy mind, I wasn't ready to date anyone normal just yet. I wasn't recovered (or sane for that matter) from my break up with my ex, so a few months later I walked away from the nice and normal guys and met someone just as crazy and codependent as I was. I believe in the Universal Law of Attraction, that what you put out into the universe is what you get back. So, in the mindset I was in right after I split from my ex husband, I attracted exactly what I felt, but of course at that time I didn't know it.

I met Jack* online. He emailed me and at first I wasn't all that interested in meeting him, but he was persistent and I guess I was a sucker for persistence. I actually cancelled our first date (maybe the universe was already trying to warn me), but we ended up going out the following week. I don't know if it was the wine, the expensive restaurant or the lines he was feeding me, but I chalked it up to the best first date I had ever had. Not that I had had that many up until then, but I was drawn into his intensity.

He told me he loved me within 2 weeks of us dating, although I didn't say it back for a while. He wanted to spend every second with me and I ate it all up. I spent 13 years chasing love from one man, and here was a man giving me all the love I ever wanted. I was enamored.

Then Jack told me he had cancer. I was devastated. I decided to stay in the relationship even though he may be terminal. The months past and Jack lost more and more weight, I spent many sleepless nights nursing him back to health through vomiting, night sweats and physical agony.

He quit his job and lost his health insurance. He was at odds with his family so he couldn't ask them for help. What was strange was that he had no friends except for the new friends he had met in his building. He said he had lost touch with them because they turned their backs on him. I never questioned it.

He began relying on me more and more financially. He found out he could get his cancer medication in Mexico and since we were so close, we went down there almost every weekend. We went to the same pharmacy every time and I would wait outside. On two occasions he was so sick he asked me to make the trip alone. I didn't even need to talk to the men working at the pharmacy, they recognized me and gave me the medication. One time it went fine, the second time not so well. Jack had told me to meet a man that we always said hi to that worked at a bar and he would have it. I couldn't find him and it was getting dark. I asked another man if he knew where he was and he began approaching me, speaking Spanish. Suddenly I was surrounded by 5 or 6 men and alarms are going off my head saying, "GET OUT NOW!" so I ran all the way back to the border crossing. I called Jack to tell him what happened and he told me to go back, that I had to get his medication. I told him I don't have to do anything, and that my life was in danger. That was probably clue number 26 that something wasn't right. I ignored that one too.

I started to get more and more suspicious about Jack. I spent one night in the ER with him and a doctor pulled me aside. He asked me if my boyfriend had a history of drug abuse; more specifically prescription pills such as Vicodin and Oxycontin. I felt so stupid at that moment. I knew what was happening and hated the person I had become. I had been in complete denial all along.

About a week later I confronted Jack about his addiction. He admitted to it all, admitted that he was severely addicted to both Vicodin and Oxycontin and said he would seek treatment on his own. I knew I wanted to end the relationship but needed to hand him over to his family. I still cared about him and did want to see him get better. I called his aunt whom I had never met. I told her about his addiction and she said the family knew but thought he was better since he had been with me. I told her I thought it had really gotten bad when he was diagnosed with cancer. She said to me, "Oh honey....he doesn't have cancer. And you're not the first girl he's lied to about that."

I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. I had my suspicions about his cancer, but I never thought someone could be so cold as to lie about something like that. The weight loss- drug addiction. The vomiting, night sweats, muscle pain- withdrawals. All the trips to Mexico- Vicodin or Oxy. I got him on a plane to see his family, they had an intervention (I was there) and he went away to rehab. I went to see him during family week where he manipulated me more. He met another woman in rehab, fell "in love" with her and moved to Florida. In the end he ended up conning me out of almost $8,000 (which thankfully his mother paid me back) in about 9 months.

My purpose for this blog post is two-fold; first to share how easy it is to make bad decisions in relationships during times when we are vulnerable. I hadn't healed from the first relationship I was hurt in, I hadn't even picked myself up off the ground yet so it's no surprise that I got hurt again. I didn't know who I was, what I needed or what I wanted. I didn't love myself yet either. I also have really beaten myself up about this. I kept telling myself I should have been smarter, been more careful and was very embarrassed about the whole thing. But I have learned to give myself a break. I learned a huge lesson from this. And if this had never happened, I probably would have never met my current husband.

Secondly, I wanted to share part of my journal that I just found which I thought was interesting, because it shows my progress in becoming me again. The fog was clearing and I was finally starting to "get it". When he went away to rehab I wrote, "He does not dictate my self worth or anything that has to do with who I am as a person. He chooses his own reality and makes his own decisions, not me. It’s not my job; it’s his for the rest of his life. Only I can dictate my own happiness and positive self esteem and I am happy about that. In the past, relying on others for it was unrealistic, unhealthy and fake. I make my own reality."

I wish I could go back in time and high-five myself for writing this and believing it. I was finally starting to understand that I had relied on other people (mostly men) to make me happy. I could almost hear Dr. Phil asking, "And how's that working for you?" Ummm, not so well. But it took that for me to figure it all out.

Photo courtesy of John and Keturah

Why I decided to not graduate with honors

2009-07-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read the title right. I actually made the decision to not graduate with honors. And I'll tell you why.

Upon returning to college in 2003, it was my goal to get kick-ass grades and graduate with honors. It would be one more reason for everyone to know just how perfect I was. I can honestly say that back then, my main motive was what other people thought and not my own. Life happened and during my journey I got a divorce, got pregnant and got remarried. Not only did my priorities shift, but so did my outlook on life. I understood what self-love was and intended to follow its path. It was still importnat to me to get good grades, but knocking myself out to be the best in my class just wasn't important anymore.

In my second to last semester one of my classmates asked me, "Why aren't you at Honor Society meetings?" I told him I didn't want to be in the Honor Society, that I couldn't take on another responsibility. He replied, "Oh. I guess you just struck me as an over-acheiver."

I have to admit I was completely flattered. It was like telling me I was fantastic! My old ghost appeared in my ear and whispered, "See? You're still 'that girl'. What's one more responshibilty? How could you say no to belonging to the Honor Society?" So I went to a meeting.

I recognized other students there (because they all sat in the front rows of my classes with me) and they were all the other "smarty pants" people that I knew. They talked about all the events coming up and I was completely overwhelmed. I would have to have my son spend more time at his babysitters so I could go listen to speakers or help others present research. Ooooh, but for graduation you get to wear special gold tassels. Well, sign me up!!!

I went home and thought about it, and decided not to join. I knew how hard I had worked to get there. My family knew too. And that was all that mattered. My legacy and achievements will not care that the "with honors" is on my resume. And that's okay.

Photo courtesy of rachel_titiriga

"Healthy is the new Skinny: Obsession with body perfection"

2009-06-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

Today I had my call with Dr. Andrea Pennington on blog talk radio. My portion is the first few minutes of the show, and you can listen here.

I wanted to mention something that I briefly touched on. I mentioned the term "Mommy makeover" and realized I may have offended some people by talking about this. This was not my intention, and I apologize if I may have offended anyone who has undergone a tummy tuck and/or breast augmentation after having a baby. My overall point is that after having a baby, many times a woman's body is not the same as it was before. Fat is in places it wasn't before, extra skin may be on the tummy and breasts sag. One of my good friends has even told me her husband calls her breasts "udders". Nice. What I want to emphasize is that if we work on accepting these body changes for what they are: body changes and nothing else, we can learn to live with them instead of relying on plastic surgery to give us back what (we thought) we needed. Whose standards is it that we have to have a flat stomach and perky breasts? That's what I'm asking. That when did it become so important that we all look like Barbie? I'm not ecstatic that my body doesn't look like it did before I had kids, but I'm working on loving it for what it is instead of going under the knife. I'm not better than anyone who does get plastic surgery; I know many smart, beautiful, amazing women that have, but I want all women to know that you can have body peace and happiness without plastic surgery. It is possible.

Photo courtesy of Angelina :)