There is similarly no doubt about how great and vast and wide my love for my husband is.
There is, however, doubt about the love I have for myself--my body--to be exact. This is not something new. Since I hit the teenage years my mind and my body have been at odds with each other. I have rarely been comfortable in my skin. Luckily, as I've grown older, I have learned to try my hardest to accept my body as is while I continue to make efforts to improve upon it. I learned at some point that I cannot let my frustrations with my body be the thing that prevents me from living and enjoying life. Therefore, I put on my two piece and get in the pool even if I don't love my pudge.
Since college I have enjoyed running as my primary form of exercise. Other than the times I have trained for my half marathons, my weight and exerted effort come in spurts of 3-4 month rounds. Winter rolls around, it's dark by the time I get off work so I'm lucky if I run 2x per week. It's winter so of course there is holiday over-eating and within a couple months I realize that all those Christmas cookies actually love my hips as much as I love them. So spring rolls around and I start kicking it in gear to exercise more and try to eat better by the time summer comes knocking. I finally skim some weight off and feel a bit better about putting on a swim suit so I inevitably start letting my eating habits get worse and I let summer activities get in the way of exercising and before I know it I can barely button my jeans come fall and crossing my legs is no longer possible.
This has been the story of my life but when Heath and I were trying to get pregnant with Millie I made an extra effort to exercise regularly and get my body in good shape before I got pregnant, that way I could safely keep exercising through my pregnancy. As a physical therapist I knew how important it was to be active and try to stay strong to help with my tolerance for delivery and to speed up my recovery afterwards. Once that little pink plus line showed up I immediately improved my diet. I not only avoided all the risky foods (i.e. alcohol, coffee, lunch meats, unpasteurized foods, etc) but I started working on consuming primarily "power" foods, the ones that would help with my baby's bone and brain growth. I ate regularly and in perfectly proportioned increments. I was able to keep running into my 7th month of pregnancy. I even completed a 6 mile trail run while 6 months pregnant. I remember being so freaking proud of my body for what it could do and how easily my body was managing growing another human being. It also struck me as crazy that it was so easy to eat well for my baby's sake but I wasn't so concerned about the processed, high sodium, genetically altered foods when it was just me I was nourishing. I made a little vow to myself that I would continue to stay on this healthier eating track after my baby was born. I had never been more in love with my body than I was while I was carrying Millie. My image of my body didn't matter anymore, so long as I was keeping my baby healthy.
But then we learned that Millie was sick and I was no longer allowed to exercise like I had. I was able to keep up basic yoga and walking but it just didn't feel the same and I wasn't as motivated. Besides, all those doctors visits made it difficult to find time to exercise. I also started eating a lot more chocolate fudge ice cream in that last month of pregnancy. Once we had Millie many people told me how well I was doing physically for just having had a c-section but I didn't notice. Being with Millie and caring for her was all that mattered. It also meant eating super sporadically and such awful, awful cafeteria food. Whenever I got to eat homemade food that someone generously brought to our house, I devoured it. Out to eat, the day of Millie's baptism, I ordered a monster Royale with Cheese that was the most delicious hunk of ground beef I think I had every had. I realized that my body was craving protein and I needed to keep my food consumption up in order to get my milk supply up so I wasn't discriminative about the types of food I ate.
Initially after Millie was born I lost the obligatory 6-10 lbs that was associated with her and didn't pay attention to my actual weight for about a month. Life was overwhelming for awhile and then I finally got the clear from my doctor to start exercising and began running right away. I worked really hard and started getting a little more conscious about my food choices. I finally decided to check my weight and to my surprise I was back up to FULL pregnancy weight! I mean come on WTF! I was disappointed but I dug my heels in and upped my efforts. I started waking up early before work to add weight training and yoga to my exercise program. But I still wasn't seeing or feeling any changes in the way my clothes (didn't) fit. I finally broke down crying at a restaurant when Heath and I were out to eat. I was eating the most pathetic tossed salad (roughly chopped iceberg lettuce with 4 cherry tomatoes and a few slivers of carrot shavings) and Heath was eating a cheeseburger with fries. His meal smelt lip smacking delicious and I was stuck eating this crappy, bland salad for what?! I desperately wanted to lose weight by the time I left for my yoga retreat so that I would feel comfortable in my skin again but it just wasn't going to happen. I have tried so hard to be "gentle" with myself and "kind" to myself and I feel like I have in other areas but my weight just had me so frustrated beyond belief.
Luckily after my breakdown, Heath agreed to get kayaks to go out paddling with me, he has started getting up to do kettlebell exercises before work with me and he is joining me in making good food choices at every meal. His efforts and my yoga retreat have been my ultimate motivation to stay on track despite my overwhelming frustrations. Finally, over the past 2 weeks I can start to feel my body regain some of it's strength and that has helped me to start feeling whole again. It makes me care a lot less about the weight when I can feel myself holding better posture and moving in ways I just simply couldn't do a few weeks prior. Heath has also reminded me that my body is what protected Millie from her vascular malformation. That the health of my body helped to diffuse all of her extra blood flow and protected her organs as long as I could keep her in me. Because of this we were able to have a few extra weeks with our baby girl.
I am really so grateful for this yoga trip as a destination in my future that has been motivating and inspiring. I know that I would probably be dealing with depression and overcome by my emotions in a way that prevented physical effort if I didn't have this pivotal moment in the future to look forward to.
I honestly cannot believe that I leave for Winnipeg, Manitoba bright and early Sunday morning. I cannot believe that this much time has already passed. I cannot believe that I am about to embark on such a meaningful moment in my healing process and in my life. I am nervous about traveling alone. I am scared about leaving the comforts of my home and husband and puppy. I am anxious about the journey. I am excited about the new relationships I am going to make, hopefully some lifelong friends. I am overjoyed that my soul will be spending time in beautiful, northern wilderness. I am encouraged by the transformation that I will go through. I am blessed to be honoring my daughter by doing something so brave and so unlike me.
Please pray for me and Heath as I make this journey physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
