Invalid to Polar Bear to Svelte

How much real estate has your brain lost to fear? Cutting edge neuroscience suggests that each cut, bump, bruise, broken heart and disappointment act as redirectors of brain cell allocation/use. That pain in your back, limb, neck or big toe might not be what you think. It may be your brain sending a false alarm that needs shutting off more than the smoke alarm in your kitchen when you left something cooking to answer the phone but there's no fire. This was true for me.

First things first, trauma needs treatment, but when pain has become chronic, when it steals pleasure from your daily routine and limits your movements, that may really be your brain and can be corrected.

I spent 3 1/2 years of my life hanging out in a recliner due to pain and neural 'false alarms'. I had read about strength training being of use in rehab for brain injury and C-section issues and went in search of a Strength and Conditioning Coach. When I found my Z-Health coach, my entire life changed in a couple of weeks. Now, 2 1.2 years later, I not only live and move free of pain but when I am actually injured, I can participate in my own healing more than ever before.

The difference? Once I weighed in at 352 lbs. I couldn't walk half a block without feeling overwhelmed and a sense of impending doom. I would become out of breath and filled with anxiety. I could not safely carry my, then 22 lb daughter from carseat to house in the rain. In Seattle, this is a big problem. Can you picture me, a morbidly obese mom, terrified of walking my own body over 20 feet from the disability parking space to my front door? I would wake my sleeping toddler and tug gently while urging her through tears streaming and voice wailing to walk herself those same 20 feet.

Now? At 244 lbs, I can lift a sleeping 48 lb, 6 year old with the dense muscles of the athletically gifted gently over one shoulder, cradled in my left (non-dominant) arm, shoulder bags of heavy groceries and a backpack on the right arm, navigate Northwestern stormbursts, puddles, icy snow and gravel to unlock the door in safety. Once inside, I deftly slip out of my VFFs, put the keys, groceries, coats, etc. away, never having woken the sleeping princess who I can then gently dress for bed and deposit under warm blankets.

I hired my coach to lose 20 inches in my waistline and to start a new behavior, strength training, which I hoped would distract me from incredible amounts of suffering and pain which in 2009 were leading me to interview lawyers to locate adoptive parents for the child I conceived despite a decade of infertility. Having already lost my health, the ability to work and my self-esteem, I was about to lose the only other thing I valued, my precious daughter. Enter my coach, who knew things that my neurologists and other specialists didn't about my condition, how I could learn to improve it and how to hold my hand while I navigated the immense transition from invalid to able-bodied, from impoverished and broken hearted to joyful athlete and mom.

This New Year's Morning (2012), I participated in the Polar Bear Plunge. I have hypothyroidism and abhor being cold or wet. I used techniques I learned from martial artists and runners to super heat my lungs and internal organs before taking the plunge. I went in 3 times as per the custom of the kind folk in Port Angeles, Washington who were seasoned Polar Bears. The first time I carried my daughter on my hip, she wanted to go in with me. On the way down she changed her mind so I did a military press of her while I went under, keeping her safe above the cold water. The second and third trips in were mine alone. While I shivered briefly coming out the last time, I did not for one moment have any feelings of anxiety, only relaxing in the Salish Sea and then elation. My partner was prepared with epinephrine and an asthma inhaler, just to be on the safe side. I never needed them. Changes in my nutrition have resulted in less or no asthma even when exercising or when the air I'm breathing drastically changes temperature.

From 2009 to now, I've moved from despair to hope, from morbidly obese with high blood pressure and Vitamin D deficiency to mobile, brainy athlete with great labs and a Vitamin D level that a Baywatch Babe would envy. I've long since given away all the men's 6X, 5X, 4X, 3X, 2X clothes that I was forced to wear from the Big and Tall type stores because the women's clothing, even in stores that cater to the morbidly obese, didn't fit me. I've transitioned back into wearing women's clothing but now Women's 3X, 2X, XL, are all gone. Last month, I needed to give away all the Size 22, 20, and 18 clothing because it looks gargantuan on me. Even among my US Size 16 clothes, only the ones with lycra will fit. Instead of looking for lycra to stretch over unsightly bulges, it's needed to accomodate my shrinking waistline which is attached to beautiful lean muscled hips, hamstrings and quads.

While I am not at my IBC yet, I don't invest much energy focusing on it either. As I continue to eat fuel that works for my body and delights my palate, use tools like Z-Health, Kettlebells and bodyweight exercises I am metamorphosing gently from weak to strong, from immobile to active and from invalid to athlete, I give thanks. This year is the year I move from obese to overweight to svelte. Come watch me move mountains...and if you're so inclined, I invite you to move a few yourself.

When everyone has given up on you, even your doctors, family and friends, I invite you to ask yourself the two questions that are my new favorite mantras:

1. How does it get any better than this? and
2. What else is possible?