Have you ever been injured?

I’ve been working out on a busted heel for about a month now. I take Advil twice a day, I tape my foot up before I teach, I ice it after every class I teach, annnddd every night I pray that it will get better. This past Thursday I presented at a BIG Fitness Conference in Miami. Prior to the conference I told myself once I got through it I would take the next steps in the recovery process… Rest.

Over the course of this past month I’ve been very proactive… Sitting down whenever I get the opportunity, icing… Some days my heel feels fine and other days I can hardly walk. For an active person injuries are TORTURE. I’d rather workout until it breaks then put myself on the sidelines… I know it sounds crazy but it’s just how I’m built.

It’s my job to workout so for me and many of my colleagues injuries are not an option. Unfortunately, this heel spur is not going away… I’ve done everything in my power to curb the pain and it’s still there. Today I subbed out my cardio drills class and it just near killed me. Not only is TheBigGAME! one of my favorite things to do in the world; I created the class, I’ll miss seeing my peeps in my class… Some of The GAMERS are my best friends, AHHHHH!!!

But I guess I’m thinking short term… If I don’t rest my foot it’s just going to get worse… And the recovery process could last months. The reason I haven’t gone to the doctor is because I know what he’s going to say, “take two weeks off aaannnddd if it’s not better we’ll give you a cortisone shot.”

Oh woe is me!!! I’m going to be a big girl and suck it UP! I am a HUGE supporter of when the going gets tough the tough gets going… What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger… BUT sometimes the most effective strategy is to slow down and take a minute to recover, to rest. After all my motto is Passion, Persistence….AND Patience… Oh the patience…

Here’s what you can do for a Heel Injury:

1. Rest – No exercise for at least a week.
2. Ice it, elevate it, Advil it
3. Go to the doctor
4. Wear comfortable shoes… NO HIGH HEELS (Especially you Victor ) hehe
5. And slowly work your way back to recovery – Time is the only real medicine.

As an American New YORKER We live in a culture that’s all about Survival of the fittest, The “Rest when I’m dead” mentality. We run ourselves ragged for the glory of being the winner! I’m as guilty as anyone… rest, what’s rest?

Mentally… Here’s what I’m going to focus on to get myself through.

1. It could be worse, so much worse.
2. Working out is not an option so I’ll focus on eating as healthy as possible
3. Enjoying the moment –I did some laps in the pool this morning annnndddd, because I was in the moment, I thought of something… I could develop a NEW workout in the pool?!

When life gets hard… Here’s one of my favorite quotes, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and if you can go with the flow of life instead of pushing against it miracles happen.

“Whether you believe it or not the universe is unfolding exactly as it should.”

Abusing food

Many of you know that I have struggled with anorexia in the past and many many years of severe bulimia.  Many of you have heard of these ‘real’ eating disorders.  But I also hear and see so many more people struggling with the condition of binge eating, or of the less discussed disordered eating.  Because it is totally possible to maintain a weight within the ‘healthy’ range, or laugh it off as just “loving food too much” sufferers are often able to conceal their issues for years and struggle with the destructive behavior in pain and isolation without ever getting help, or even realizing that there is help.

What links all of these conditions or disorders is that there is almost always a preoccupation with food that can become an obsession.  We think about it all day, dream about it at night, plan out our next meal before we’ve started to digest the one we just ate.  When I was severely restricting my food I would find myself wandering around the aisles of a supermarket, just staring at the displays of food for literally hours.  When I was actively bingeing and purging I would be sitting in class plotting what I was going to buy from each of the different shops on my way home (so the shopkeepers wouldn’t think I was weird for buying enough baked goods to feed the 5000 in all one place). 

Even now I would be lying if I said that in moments of high stress it never occurs to me to order in enough takeout for a small army and go to town.  I’m not sure it will ever completely leave my consciousness. But I do know that I no longer live in fear of food (Too much?  Not enough?). I do know that I’m able to have a real loving and truly intimate relationship with someone other than FOOD.  Because it’s hard, almost impossible to properly love and be loved; to be fully present and honest with someone when you’re hiding food wrappers, or sneaking off to the bathroom to throw up, or endure the agonizing results of the box of laxatives you swallowed earlier. 

I also know that I couldn’t have rebuilt my relationship with food, and my body; couldn’t have recovered to the extent that I have on my own; without help.

“It’s just food, I should be able to figure it out!”  “I’m embarrassed, I’m SO weird about food; people will think I’m a freak.” “I’m fine, I just have a little willpower issue.”

Listen; IT’S NOT ABOUT THAT!

We all have ingrained patterns of behavior; I bet you brush your teeth the same way every morning.  With food, as with anything else we have to learn new patterns, new habits.  And food affects the body similarly to drugs.  That might sound extreme but too much food, or not enough can give us this strange ‘high’, where we feel insulated from our feelings.  And that is the part of the pattern that’s hard to break free from.  That’s the factor that pulls us back into the destruction time and time again. And that’s the part that needs help and support.

I went to therapy.  I went to Out -Patient rehab.  I was very sick and pretty desperate by the time I gave in to the concept of getting better and was prepared to do anything.  And I also went to Overeaters Anonymous (O.A).  I’d like to clear up the common misconception that it’s only for obese, weird people, or for those who “overeat”.  There are people of all ages, sexes, and sizes.   There are teenagers, high-powered lawyers, glamorous fashionistas, stay-at-home parents; those of us that have issue with food run the gamut of society.  It wasn’t until I started going to these (free) meetings that I really realized that how you look, or how successful you are has NOTHING to do with your real relationship with food.

I needed all three support systems to recover as much as I have, but it was the support and understanding of my peers in these meetings that really changed my views on what it was to allow food to make me so secretly unhappy and isolated.  I’m not saying they were fun, but they helped me and I needed and wanted help.

If you are struggling in secret please know that there is support out there. If you have a therapist but have resisted talking about it outside of their office then please consider a meeting.  Try therapy, try out-patients, try OA; try all three!  But please try SOMETHING.  Because if I have learnt anything over my decade plus of self-inflicted food/body misery, it is that it doesn’t just stop.  It isn’t just a case of “doing better tomorrow”, or that extra hour in the gym.  Please don’t carry on suffering in secret, and reading a model’s blog and feeling like it’s YOUR fault because you can’t not binge and eat the way she says she eats. 

I had to learn this life that I have.  I had to be helped to get to this point.  Yes, I’ve worked hard, and I have willpower and I really WANTED to get better. But I still needed help to get here.