I want to start this post out with a few concise thoughts. My concept of fitness is very utilitarian- I do what I do for my functional needs (which change over time) and for my health. As a person with a history of body dysmorphia and disordered eating, I have a very uncomfortable relationship with fitness as a means to aesthetic beauty. Culturally, those standards are constantly changing and the current mainstream U.S. “ideal” for women is generally below healthy BMI and body fat percentages.

I gained 30 pounds in the first 15 months after Tony joined our family. As the severity of his sensory symptoms began to touch almost every area of my life, I quickly abandoned any attempt at exercising or eating well. I was cranking out an on-line order to Papa John’s a few times every week. After the surgery to remove the mass found in my uterus when he was 18 months old, I was put on a medication (the one that is believed to have been the smoking gun in damaging my liver) to prevent me from getting more. Although that mass was not malignant, I have a family history of uterine cancer and my doctor told me that the type of growth I had could go cancerous in time, so the goal was to prevent me from getting more…our life circumstances were too demanding at that time to accommodate the more extensive recovery time a hysterectomy would have required. That medication caused me to gain another 15 pounds or so.

By the time the symptoms of liver problems started in January 2014 (my stools went yellow), I weighed 197.5 pounds in my underwear. After receiving a diagnosis, I was told I needed to loose weight and eat a more specialized diet, and my first reaction was to panic. I knew what our family was going through and I was barely keeping my head above water as it was. I already wasn’t sleeping more than a few hours total a night, and the thought of trying to work in cooking for a fairly restrictive diet and exercise enough to meet the necessary health goals felt beyond anything I could sanely accomplish.

And then, I looked at my children and dug as deep as I could for the strength of will to make the extensive changes that were required. I expected to hate almost every aspect of this situation because of the nearly crippling levels of stress I was already trying to unearth myself from on a daily basis, but I came to enjoy many of the recipes I found and I worked hard to try and find fitness activities I enjoy. I eventually took up strength training in earnest once Tony’s genetic testing results came back, because I recognized that our son’s growth had the potential to greatly outstrip his rate of progress in certain areas for a period of time.

Many aspects of this have not come easily for me, and I have to be careful about what I do. I have a birth defect on my right foot that probably would have remained undetected until well into my adult years, but (as I was told by the diagnosing physician years ago) the stresses placed on my body by a love of tumbling in gymnastics caused a more rapid deterioration of the underlying defects in bone and tendon construction.

I have had two surgeries on my foot, and my Achilles tendon structurally is a pile of junk- I have to be very careful about managing my risks. And yes, I am aware that the best medical advice would be to take up swimming, avoid the strength training, and my response to all of that would be: who comes in and does what is required to support Tony’s growth, care, and progress if it can’t be me? Nobody. I do what I must, and I try and be as safe as I can about it. I don’t make excuses for me and I try not to focus on what remains unchangeable. Doing so wouldn’t help me or my family, so I instead try to focus on what I can do.

As Tony has continued to improve in his reactions in public, I have modified the way I strength train. I haven’t personally needed to carry him on my shoulders in over a year, so I focus less on lifting as heavy as I can and creating upper body muscle and have shifted to just maintaining what I currently need (which is definitely less than it was a year ago).

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For Tony, the progress these pictures show is enormous…I was able to step 10 feet away from his side and look for some books in the children’s section of our local Barnes & Noble this past Wednesday. My eyes were on him every other second to make sure he didn’t run (because historically without an adult next to him he would every time), and at one point Hannah (being the sweet sister she is) tried to interest him in a book, but he sat there like that without trying to flee for more than 10 minutes. For anyone who has worked with Tony, you know how jaw dropping that is. Every woman should get to decide for themselves what they want out of their own appearance, and for me personally I prefer to look more girly than burly. So these positive developments for our son allow me to spend more of my exercise time doing cardio and yoga than strength training.

This picture was taken for a review back when I was still doing my on-line shopping at Amazon. As you can see from the vein popping on my arm I was running a pretty lean ship at one point. Andy told me I looked like I could throw someone through a wall or pound them into the floor. For the first time in my life I am grateful God made my body so that it can do that, but I definitely feel prettier when I look a bit softer.

I also at one point was keeping my weight closer to the bottom limit of the healthy weight range for my body frame and height to minimize the stresses on my tendon…as I need to lift less, I am floating around the mid to upper healthy limit because it gives me a few more curves. While my honey has loved and supported every version of me, I know he is most appreciative of a slightly more curvaceous figure. And at nearly 43, it’s something I don’t take for granted to have my mate look at me and think I am beautiful.

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No matter what is going on in your life, whether you are a parent in the trenches helping a unique individual with overwhelming challenges, or whether you are facing your own private struggles and feel like exercise doesn’t fit into your wellness and self care strategy, I want you to make sure you know numerous studies have shown the benefits of regular aerobic exercise in managing and overcoming depression and stress. I am going to be recommending a book for April’s gratitude and reading post that discusses some of them. The sacrifice in time can feel hard to make at first, but it will pay you back far more than what you are giving up if you stick with it.

Find something you enjoy- I hula hoop half an hour every morning as part of my “wake-me-up-warm-up” while reading because it just feels joyful to me. Sometimes I belly dance because that just feels fun. I love walking outside in the community because my spirit is nourished and fed by observing the beauties of nature. You don’t have to be ripped to be successful or healthy. Wellness is important, but it shouldn’t be about anything other than living the best life you can at any given moment.