​I recently read a study linking a person’s gym class experiences as a kid with their interest and enthusiasm for exercise as an adult. Not surprisingly, many of those who had negative experiences in gym class had greater difficulty finding or maintaining the motivation to participate in a regular exercise program. As someone whose gym class experience was anything but positive, I want to share my story and assure you that like me, you can be an exception to this finding. As I approach my 38th year as a fitness instructor and personal trainer, I offer you this:
 
How it has been for you in the past does not have to dictate how it will be now or in the future.
 
My earliest gym class experiences induced an elevated heart rate and profuse sweating not from physical exercise but from anxiety, humiliation and fear. I developed a very specific amnesia, never seeming to remember my sneakers on gym days. In my early teens as I became more concerned about my appearance, I started jogging, considering exercise to be something I had to do to undo “going off my diet”
 
But when I began college in 1981, I had a transformative moment that changed the trajectory of my life forever. (For more on this, read Sneakers on the Sidelines from my book, Working it Out: Drills, Thrills and Spills of an Aerobic Life available here. I want to reach out to those of you who, like me, dreaded gym class or never played a sport. I want to encourage those of you who didn’t wake up young and agile this morning, who know they should eat better and exercise regularly, but don’t… I speak to those of you who do the heavy lifting of being responsible for other people’s care and wellbeing, who have powered through some of life’s most difficult challenges and come out the other side, sometimes okay and sometimes not, whose circumstances have gotten in the way of taking better care of yourselves.
 
Look, let’s be honest here. It is a very different kind of effort to be, become or stay fit at 20-something than it is in our later years. At 55, I’m not going to tell you that your reasons for not making your health and fitness a priority are just excuses. I’ve had a full plate of reasons myself, ranging from sheer vanity (my knees look too fat to be in shorts today) to devastating grief, from significant physical limitations, injuries and conditions to serious medical considerations. I totally get it.  But I have found that even in the face of real world challenges and a real life body that ages and fatigues and breaks down, I can still create space for my own wellbeing with modifications that allow me to get moving given the way things are and the way things aren’t.  With Fitness By Loren (www.fitnessbyloren.com), I’d like to help you create that for yourself with workouts, fitness tips and the inspiration to help you get fit and stay fit.

Check out my latest 90-Second Fire Drill here and stay tuned for new workouts coming soon!
 
Get ready. Get sweaty. Get fit!

Back in 2013, my mother, the healthiest person I knew, was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer with metastasis to the liver. We were stunned, terrified, gutted. Her grandmother had lived to be 99, her mother to 92 and now at 72 years old, she was given 3-6 months to live, perhaps a few more months with traditional chemotherapy. Fortunately, if such a thing exists when talking about the death of your best friend, my mom survived on experimental treatments for 2 ½ years before succumbing to this brutal disease. 
     
Because we had a family history of breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers as well as being of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, upon diagnosis, my mother’s doctor advised her to have genetic testing which revealed that she was BRCA II positive. She urged my sister and I to be tested as well since we also had a 50% chance of carrying this gene mutation which has been linked to an 85% increased risk of breast cancer, a 25% increased risk of ovarian cancer and an 8% increased risk of pancreatic cancer.
     
For me, there was no debate about being tested. I considered knowledge to be the only power I had to be proactive in this situation which, to be honest, I fully anticipated would reveal that I was also BRCA II positive. When, as I suspected, I tested positive for the mutation, I quickly met with a genetic counselor and researched the options they suggested. One of these was to submit to a mammogram and breast MRI every 6 months. The other was to remove a part of my body that was inextricably a part of my self. 
     
My decision to have a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction was a tough love moment for me but like the testing, the necessity of it was immediately clear.  It was not that I thought it the “smart way” or “right way” to handle this situation, but rather, the only way for me to continue living in my own skin. I am not courageous. More aptly, you could call me The Cowardly Loren. This choice was plainly about self-preservation, the only way to maintain my mental and physical wellbeing. For women faced with this decision, I will tell you, the most important thing you need to know is YOURSELF. 
     
My husband was adamantly opposed to my decision. He argued that I was a healthy person and could be proactive by testing frequently. He referred to the fact that my sister who had also tested positive, was choosing that route. He reminded me that I did not have breast cancer and that breast cancer, when caught early, can be successfully treated. As a physician, he reminded me of the risks I was taking to undergo major surgery as well as the toll it would take on my physical appearance. To him I said emphatically, I would rather be disfigured for life than have a doctor say to me, “good news, we caught it early” Early is too late for me. Given who I am, I knew I could not endure the mental assault of being frantic and upset, ruminating about the possibility of cancer lurking within me. I feared that my worry would remove me from enjoying the very things I loved most about my life: being a mother, a wife, a sister and friend. 
     
Still, with all my certainty about what I needed to do it took me two years to do it. Logistically, it was difficult to allocate the time off from work to recover (I am a fitness class instructor and trainer) And  because of my health insurance coverage restrictions, I had to choose my breast oncologist and reconstructive surgeon not by preference or recommendation but out of a list of in plan providers. My procedure involved a complete bilateral mastectomy and placement of breast expanders, which would be followed by about 5 months of doctor’s visit to gradually fill the expanders to my desired breast size. Once this was attained, I would have a second surgery to remove the expanders and insert gel implants.
     
I will never forget the first time I removed the bandages after the initial surgery. One look in the mirror and I erupted in tears. I was misshapen and scarred, drains dangling from my body. I looked like a victim. I looked like a survivor. I reminded myself that fortunately, I am neither. What I am is committed to living the healthiest, fullest life I can create. Choosing this surgery was what I was willing to do to beat some very bleak odds. 
     
Like I said, I am not brave, but I am strong, and this, too, I inherited from my mother who faced far more difficult obstacles with grace, dignity and determination. I am Ellie’s girl, from my head to my toes, from my skin to within. And in her absence, I choose to honor the strength she gave me to make the hard choices. I feel quite blessed to be alive and healthy with family and friends that remind me of exactly why I didn’t want to risk losing a single minute. And I hope that in sharing my story, you will be empowered to make the best choices for yourself.
     

Stab me once, shame on you.
Stab me twice, shame on me.
Stab me three times and you’d better run ‘cause I’m comin’ after you…

Such was the situation after Nurse Joe was unable to insert the IV into my hand, then my wrist, then my forearm. Mind you, my veins are raised like Braille; a raised-relief hematologic map. After his first stab at it, I got the feeling that Pin the Tail on the Donkey without a blindfold might be a problem for this guy. And I, currently the aforementioned donkey, had had about enough random skewering for one day. Sensing from my glare that he was in impending danger, he wrapped things up and said he would leave the task to the anesthesiologist. He just wasn’t having a good day.

And given that my day had started at 4:30am without coffee or breakfast, neither was I.

Nurse Joe, a burly bearded man who looked way more like a country bartender than a nurse, packed up his IV kit and retreated down the hallway. He returned with some ice packs for my punctured right arm, now covered in gauze bandages. He then turned his attention to my left hand, still adorned with my wedding band. I had attempted to remove it prior to leaving for the hospital, however, after twenty-five years my finger had grown around it like tree roots around pavement. Given his lack of concern for concepts such as: First, do no harm, I gave him my dagger eyes and firmly stated, “It’s not coming off”.

Joseph Nightingale, undeterred by my negative energy, had “an idea” and wandered off again. This time he returned with a handful of string, possibly dental floss, which he threaded through my ring and began to wind tightly around my finger. “Have you ever seen this trick?” he asked.

Bartender, a shot please…

I had most definitely NOT ever seen this trick; especially the part where, abracadabra, my finger was turning purple and the string was cutting through my skin.

“Ow!” I yelled as he began to unwind the string from the bottom, trying to force the ring up and over the bound area. “Ow”, unfortunately, was not the magic word to make the bad man stop. “F##k, you’re killing me!” was not either. You might have thought at least one person would have pulled the curtain back just a tad to make sure I was okay, but no, my outbursts elicited no reaction from anyone, including my husband who sat quietly beside me as Nurse Joe proceeded to wedge the ring over my knuckle where he reached an impasse.

“Huh” he said, “this trick usually works”.

Huh.

Surely he would push the ring back down into its place now, you know, before he dislocated my finger.

“You got to know when to hold up, know when to fold up, know when to walk away, know when to run…”

But Nurse Joe was no quitter. No sir, he just kept tugging, and I daresay had that ring not finally ripped over the knuckle and off, he would sooner have tied the string to the back of his Chevy pickup than given up.

Satisfied with his successful “trick”, he handed me a cupful of pre-op pills, and wished me good luck on my surgery. I gave him a final scowl and slumped back in my recliner, placing another ice pack over my ring finger, now the girth of my thumb.

By the time I got to the operating table, I was just thankful to lie down and be put out like an old injured racehorse.

This day was a long time in the making. Nearly two years ago, my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer with a metastasis to her liver. Her tumors were inoperable and her diagnosis terminal. The doctors advised us that most patients at this stage would live only three to six months without treatment, perhaps an extra two or three with traditional chemotherapy.

The diagnosis took us all by surprise. My mother was unequivocally the healthiest person we knew. After a lifetime of exercise and a healthy diet, she was fit and strong and appeared decades younger than her 72 years. But her cancer cared not about her lifestyle. The disease surfaced from a defect in her genetic code. As a woman of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, with a family history of ovarian and pancreatic cancer, there was reason to believe her cancer was hereditary. Her genetic testing confirmed a mutation in the BRCA2 gene. The genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, are involved in cell growth, cell division, and the repair of damage to DNA. Mutations in these genes can cause DNA damage to go unrepaired, increasing the risk of developing certain cancers. Breast and ovarian cancer are the most common, but there is also an increased risk for colon cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma and pancreatic cancer (For more information, see https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/risk-assessment-screening/hereditary-genetics/genetic-counseling/inherited-risk-breast-ovarian).

Miraculously, my mother is still alive and battling her pancreatic cancer some twenty months after it was discovered. Despite her petite frame and ever-diminishing weight, hers is a strength and grace I have never witnessed in another human being. Her quality of life is generally good for someone in the advanced stages of this deadly disease. But it is unquestionably a day-to-day struggle, fraught with exhaustion, fear, and physical deterioration as the cancer continues to menace from within. Nevertheless, she manages to climb out of bed long enough to hit the gym, spend time with her family and friends and engage in artistic projects. My mother is a tiny, radiant diamond shining in a dark mine; a guiding light by which we are all inspired and driven to carry on and embrace life in any and every way that we can.

After her diagnosis, my mother’s genetic counselor suggested that I also get tested for the BRCA gene since there was a 50% chance that I would have inherited the same genetic mutation. I was not the slightest bit surprised that I, too, tested BRCA2 positive, as for all intents and purposes, I am a clone of my mother. The action to take after your genetic makeup is revealed is a matter of personal choice. Some women choose to do nothing more than keep a watchful eye on their health. You may recall that in recent years, actress Angelina Jolie decided to have a bi-lateral mastectomy and oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries and fallopian tubes) after testing positive for BRCA1. The risk factors of BRCA1 and BRCA2 are nearly the same: Women with these mutations are about 85% more likely to have breast cancer, about 25% more likely to develop ovarian cancer, and about 8% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer (than someone who does not have the BRCA gene mutation).

As I came to learn, there is little that can be done to prevent or pre-screen for pancreatic cancer. It is considered one of the most virulent cancers, affecting over 46,000 people a year, with over 39,000 succumbing to the disease each year and only 5% living to five years. Typically, as was the case with my mother, the cancer is not discovered until the patient is in the end stages of the disease. The best testing currently available to detect early pancreatic cancer is an MRI or upper endoscopy though neither can detect the cancer until it exists. I have opted to be in a study at Columbia University Hospital that provides annual testing, alternating between MRI and endoscopy, in an effort to be as proactive as possible.

Addressing the high risk of breast cancer has more options. For many women, a breast MRI alternated with a mammogram every six months is sufficient to put their minds at ease in detecting the early signs of breast cancer. Screening and treatments for breast cancer have improved vastly in recent years, allowing women the option to address the issue if and when it arises. For me, however, the concept of having any cancer, for even a minute, does not sit well. I never want to have the conversation with a doctor in which he says, “Good news, we caught it early!” Early is just too late for me. I am in the process of scheduling a prophylactic bi-lateral mastectomy, which will as nearly as possible eliminate the potential for that scenario.

But this week’s visit to the hospital was to address my risk of ovarian cancer, a disease for which there is no reliable prescreening, treatment or cure. The prophylactic solution is to remove the ovaries and fallopian tubes. This, of course, is a big decision for any woman, but particularly for those who still wish to have children. I am fortunately well beyond that stage. My children are already in their early twenties and I am in the midst of perimenopausal hot flashes. This is an easy choice for me. Eggs out. Final answer.

During my appointment with an oncological gynecologist, he explained the procedure and what to expect after the surgery. I would be out under general anesthesia. My ovaries and fallopian tubes would be removed laparoscopically through four small incisions in my abdomen. My uterus would be left intact since BRCA2 is not generally linked to uterine cancer. Cell samples would be biopsied during the procedure to insure that no cancer was already present. If testing were normal, I would be closed up and sent home the same day, advised to “take it easy” for two weeks and refrain from vigorous exercise for six. This occurred to me like a punitive sentence, but I quickly gained perspective when I was told that because I had two previous C-sections, there was a possibility that the surgery would have to be an open incision. This alternative would mean an incision similar in size and location to my C-sections, and would warrant a two-night stay in the hospital and two months of recovery at home (Read: no exercise, emotional hysteria, violent outbursts).

While I had no hesitation about having the procedure, I was filled with trepidation about the downtime afterward. For some people, a doctor saying “take it easy” for a few weeks, even months, is a hall pass to skip class. But for me, being physically active and fit is a vital source of my mental stability (well, can you even imagine how much worse I’d be if this is what I consider stabile?). It is also my job, my source of income and a big part of my identity. The thought of not being able to do what I love, what keeps my head from spinning around like The Exorcist, just near about knocked me over. I had to keep reminding myself that this was not about looking or even feeling good. This was about doing everything I could to avoid developing ovarian cancer. This was about following my mother’s bright light, carrying on and embracing life in any and every way that I could. And with that, I set my surgery date.

Today is three days post-op. My surgery went well, which is to say, the procedure was laparoscopic (I had a womb with a view!) and the biopsy revealed no sign of cancer. I went home to recover just a few hours after surgery. The discomfort of the four new incisions on my abdomen far overshadows the three failed IV stab wounds of the morning. Since the surgery, my abdomen has been blown up and out. Today, in my yellow oversized shirt, I look very much like Sponge Bob Square Pants. My belly obscures my view of everything including, on occasion, common sense. I’ve had some moments of concern that my six-pack, now replaced by a keg, is gone forever. For a second, I toyed with changing my business name to Fatness By Loren.

Fortunately though, these moments pass quickly. There is nothing quite like watching someone you love battling cancer to remind you of what really matters; that health and fitness are about so much more than a bikini body. I have been knocked out physically before and found a way back. In the scheme of things, my discomfort is just a little nuisance, not a calamity. It may be cliché, but it’s simply true that life is too precious and limited to wallow here. And so, I will use this “take it easy” time to take in what’s really important—that my mother is still alive, that I have no cancer, that I had no surgical complications, that I am home with my family and friends—that I had my eggs over easy with just a side of achin’.

“My sister invited us for Thanksgiving” my husband Brian said, grinning like he’d won the lottery. “The whole weekend, and my cousins’ families too. The kids are going to have a blast!”

     The possibility that I would have a blast, however, was questionable. We’d been going up to his sister Wendy’s house for Thanksgiving ever since my twins were born. This would be my eighth year as designated cook for the extended weekend. And like a designated driver, it was not for my love of the activity that I volunteered; it was simply a desire to avoid disaster that had me take control.

     As I contemplated our first Thanksgiving meal at Wendy’s house, I was a bit concerned that while my family indulged in a five-star food extravaganza, my husband’s family could conceivably be consuming a meal inspired by a Swanson frozen dinner entrée. Envisioning a canned assortment of diced starches named Vegetable Medley, I picked up a knife.

     Should I turn it on myself, or wield it against some butternut squash?

     These were my options.

     Fortunately, my survival instinct kicked in and we feasted like kings in a formal dining room overlooking the ocean. My brother-in-law dutifully toasted his wife, thanking her for the lovely meal and for hosting the affair. I shoved a few forkfuls in my mouth and then rose to clear the dishes, wrap up the food, and drop into a coma some time around 11:00 pm.

     “It was just fantastic to be all together like this. I think this should be a new family tradition!” Wendy had said after our first Thanksgiving.

     And so it was. Each year, like the year before, we would travel up to Massachusetts where I would plant myself in the kitchen for so long I grew roots.

     But this year would be different.

     This Thanksgiving would be Wendy’s last. Diagnosed with stomach cancer and in the final stages of this terminal disease, she would not live to see another bountiful table surrounded by her family. I wanted to prepare this meal to give thanks for the fantastic tradition she had begun. And so, I loaded up the minivan with my husband, the kids, some groceries, and the spirit of gratitude for which this holiday is named. 

     Thanksgiving morning as I was preparing a bowl of hot cereal for my kids, my sister-in-law bustled into the kitchen. “I’ve already put the turkey in so all we need to do are some side dishes. Here’s what I thought we’d make,” she said as she pulled out a half dozen pages torn from The New York Times and Gourmet Magazine. There were a whole lot of directions. And I don’t really do directions. Still, I always looked forward to cooking together. “I thought you could get them started and I’ll be back to help after my swim,” she said in her easy, breezy style.

      Help?

     She gave me a little squeeze on the shoulder and departed, leaving me alone with a pile of culinary ambition, my menacing eight-year-old twin boys, and their five-year-old raised-by-wolves sister, who were just now loading oatmeal missiles onto their spoons.  Then, as though someone had yelled “And action!” The Cousins began filing into the kitchen, dodging the now air-bound whole grains as they asked what was for breakfast. Apparently, my standing closest to the counter made me It. And once you’re tagged, you’re It, touch black, no penny tax, no going back. We all know the rules. I dutifully responded to their requests, spinning out buttered bagels like a pitching machine. But for a minute there, I got the spirit of gratitude knocked out of me.

     After breakfast, I cleared the plates left behind by the morning rush and returned to the recipe pages I had been given. This here was some fancy food with names I can’t pronounce phonetically and ingredients that I’m not even sure are really food like say, violet petals. And then there were those pesky directions involving techniques that were somewhat beyond the scope of my incredibly masterful Mix It Up and Flip It Over.

    The thing about Technical Food is that it requires Technical Devices, which technically, we didn’t have. Basics like a sharp knife, a carrot scraper, or a can opener were nowhere to be found, let alone electrically powered gadgets like a mixer or food processor. A meal prepared in this kitchen was made in the spirit of Girl Scouts on an overnight cookout, stopping just short of rubbing two sticks together to make a fire.

     I searched through the recipe pages for something limited to a mere twelve steps and recited the Serenity Prayer:

     God, grant me the serenity to skip the things I cannot make, the courage to choose the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

     I rifled through the recipes and paused at Chocolate Meringue Cream Pie. Just like me to start my technical binge with dessert.

     Step 1. Melt chocolate in a double boiler.

     I filled a saucepan with water and covered it with a handle-less frying pan.

     Step 2. Wisk in cream and sugar.

     I forked it.

     Step 3. Separate eggs for meringue.

     It now occurred to me that whipping up a meringue by hand would be an activity of Olympic proportions. I had not trained for this event. I trembled; a fork in my throbbing hand as I assaulted a bowl of foamy egg whites.

     Faster, faster, I must produce speed, wind, centrifugal force. Meringue these eggs. Do it for Wendy!

     My biceps bulged as I flexed and rotated my wrist at top speed for nearly thirty minutes, at which point I became concerned that my right forearm would become disproportionately large. I attempted to switch into left gear to even out my limbs but this proved to be a bad decision as the barely frothy egg whites leapt from the bowl and slid in a mucousy trail from the counter to the floor.

     No meringue for you today. I thought of Wendy. No meringue, ever.

     As promised, the Girl Scout leader returned from her swim just in time to see me scooping up the egg whites. I apologized for my inability to be a human Cuisinart and poured the remains into the drain, watching the disaster slip down the dark tunnel along with my heart. Wendy gestured a Don’t-Worry-About-It wave and opened the oven to check on the 27-pound turkey.

     “Oh no.” she said.

     I want to say emphatically that “Oh no” is not what you want to hear when you are looking at a 27-pound Thanksgiving Day turkey scheduled for decimation by twenty five hungry relatives at 4:00 pm. “Oh no” should not be an option.

     No “oh no’s.”

     But she said it again and I came up beside her have a look at what appeared to be a featherless, beheaded, and possibly still living bird in a STONE COLD OVEN.

     “You forgot to turn it on?” I asked hopefully.

     “It’s ON she replied, but it’s not ON.”

     Oh no.

     So the Girl Scouts were now up to the Rubbing Two Sticks Together part of the cookout. There was no getting that oven started. It was old and tired and just not in the mood for turkey, I guess. But Wendy was no quitter and she had an idea. A scary little delusionally optimistic idea. I wanted to run but then I remembered my non-resentful, spirit of gratitude and dug in my heels.

     “We can put it in the microwave,” she said confidently. 

     I looked at the big foul fowl, out and about since sunrise, and then glanced over at the small microwave oven.

     Oh no.

     Wendy hoisted the turkey out of the oven and up toward the microwave. The turkey, in all its slippery, pimply glory scoffed at the small opening, but Wendy did not falter. She simply removed the bird from the roasting pan and jammed it in the way one might overstuff a suitcase. Her breasts (the bird’s) were pressed against the ceiling, thighs and wings against the door as Wendy shouldered it closed. Illuminated and mashed up against the microwave window like a convict in an armored bus, the turkey appeared to be pleading to get out. Wendy set the cook cycle for three hours; a number selected not because this would be an adequate cooking time but because that’s when dinner was supposed to be.      

     Well, now that we have that settled…

     When the timer rang three hours later, I opened the door with sadistic curiosity. “Wendy,” I said, “There’s no juice in here. It’s not cooked. No juice is no good.”

     “No, I’m sure it’s fine”, she said. “Look, see how it’s brown on the outside?”

     I was going to point out that it wasn’t brown but actually black and blue from our earlier altercation, but I didn’t have the heart to quash her optimism. Instead, we let the bird rest and cool for thirty minutes and then she began the carving ritual.

     “Oh no, no, no”, she mumbled.

     I think maybe I heard a cackle of some sort but perhaps that was just me trying to suppress a gag reflex as I witnessed an autopsy right on the kitchen counter. I am quite certain that a wild turkey run over by a car and left to bake in the sun in the dead of winter would be more thoroughly cooked than this unfortunate platter of road kill.

     It hurt my heart in this deeply remorseful I-Can-Never-Fix-This kind of way. My offering on this final and most precious Thanksgiving was to be nothing more than some beaten up bird pleading; can’t you see I’m not ready yet? Which is just precisely how I was feeling.

     Then there was a thumping, pounding beat in my brain (was that my heart?) and Donna Summer’s voice (which I cannot explain).

“Someone left the cake out in the rain.
I don’t think that I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it,
And I’ll never have that recipe again…
Oh, nooooooooooooo!”

     I was beginning to get a little absorbed in what lyrics came next, something about a yellow cotton dress, I think, when a scary situation whipped my brain back into the kitchen.

     My brother-in-law was kneeling in front of the disabled oven; his head plunged deep inside like that old woman in Hansel and Gretel just before she gets shoved in. There was some muttering inside the chamber and then extracting himself, he announced that the oven was back in service again. It was a little late now, what with the tepid turkey just festering on the counter, but at least now we could have more than salad for dinner. Maybe a multitude of sides could fill in the gaping hole in the center of the table normally reserved for completely dead birds.

     I turned to show Wendy a nice recipe I’d found for grilled vegetables with balsamic vinaigrette. To my horror, she had slid the brutalized victim onto a stretcher/baking pan and was shoving it into the now hot oven. Even the bacteria dancing around in pools of blood were pleading for mercy.

     “I don’t think you can do that,” I said as politely as I could, trying not to let my revulsion leak. “I mean, because it’s been basically sitting out since about 7 am, with a couple hours of radiation and at least an hour of relaxation here on the counter and…”

     I got the Wendy Wave. “It’ll be fine” she reassured me.  

     I forced my head to move in an up and down nod. “Oh…”

     No.

     The turkey had endured our relentless attempts to make a meal out of it, and still, if we’d called a veterinarian, I’ll bet it could have had its gobble rehabilitated. At this point, we were running out of time and preparations took on a decathlon quality.  Somewhere around side dish number six, I hit The Wall, my legs cramping up and my back in spasm. But still I forged on, mincing onions with a butter knife, shaking up a batch of whipped cream in a plastic container. On occasion, a well-meaning cousin would come in to compliment me on how good everything looked or offer to lend a hand but before I could lunge forward and grab them, they would suddenly be called out of the room with an emergency like I-Don’t-Feel-Like-Doing-That or Excuse-Me-But-I-Have-To-Go-Relax-Now.

     Nine hours after the starting gun, I limped across the finish line, my kids still in their oatmeal-hardened pajamas practicing karate chops on each other. The turkey was still screaming as I pulled it from the oven, stuffed it in the trash, and hailed The Cousins in for dinner.

     Thanksgiving without a turkey is hard to swallow. It’s unnatural. It’s tragic. I looked at the table, a sea of side dishes and salads, and I felt queasy. There was no focal point. Just a gaping emptiness where the turkey should have been. But that poor bird was

gone now, ravaged beyond recognition, and there was nothing I could do to fix this disaster.

     Wendy had a different take on the situation. “Oh, look at this table! Everything looks so amazing, just spectacular!” She said it like she’d won the lottery. She smiled as she looked around at the family gathered at the table. Then she leaned over to me and whispered, “It’ll be fine without the turkey. We have so much here. It’ll be fantastic.”

     Three months later Wendy was lying in a hospice bed in her bedroom. Brian and I had gone up to see her knowing that it was time to say goodbye. Family and friends surrounded her, praying and crying and wishing as she lay there, ravaged by cancer. We had tried so hard to turn this disaster around. There were studies and books and specialists and inspirational stories. We shared our photographs, our insights, and our hearts. We propped her up, and fluffed the pillows, and smoothed the covers, and combed her hair. We brought the rabbi, the guru, the Evangelical home care attendants, and the gospel choir. We offered macrobiotic meals, chemotherapy, morphine, and a Thanksgiving feast. We tried and we tried and we tried and we didn’t give up, no matter how ill equipped we were or how bad it looked, but we couldn’t fix this disaster. In the end, we stood by weary and heartbroken as she strained to keep her eyes open, begging for each breath as if to say, can’t you see I’m not ready yet?

     Which is just precisely how we were all feeling.

     We have continued our Thanksgiving tradition every year since Wendy’s passing.    Even as I fill my plate, my heart feels a little empty.  But as I look around the table, I feel the air shift as her memory surrounds me.  “It’ll be fine” she whispers, reminding me that even when disaster strikes and our best and most heartfelt efforts have been in vain, our traditions will guide us back to the bounty of being a family. And when we gather together what we still have left, we can make it like winning the lottery.

For so many of my clients, weight loss is their primary goal. Exercise certainly plays a big role in helping to shed unwanted body fat, build muscle, improve flexibility and balance, and often provides an outlet for stress. But no training regimen is complete without giving serious consideration to the foods you are consuming. I am not trained as a dietician or nutritionist so I cannot offer you a professional opinion on diet, but I am often asked what I eat, how much I eat, and if I cheat. At this point, my eating habits don't really feel like a "diet" so much as fuel choices that work for me. But it wasn't always that way. Here's how it all started...


To the naïve optimists, vindictive sadists and genetically gifted specimens that suggested that I would Bounce Right Back after hauling around an eight-pound human being inside a space that normally accommodated maybe a salad and a half a cup of tuna: Kiss my fat ass.

But I digress. After the birth of my daughter, I was determined to get back into shape. I had eaten well and exercised throughout my pregnancy, hopeful that I would quickly return to a shape I recognized as human. I was so committed to my comeback that I even took to running a few miles on my two-week post-due non-arrival date. Perhaps you have seen my video, Wombs of Steel? Eventually, when squatting out my daughter on the street no longer seemed viable, I conceded to have her evicted at knifepoint. Unfortunately, as far as I could see, the only bounce back was from a protruding pouch of external afterbirth hanging around my waist like a front-facing fanny pack. Horrified, I promptly joined a popular weight loss program and subjected myself to the humiliation of public weigh-ins --with my shoes on!

What?

Unfortunately, after two weeks of counting points and measuring portions, I watched my weight go up five pounds while bingeing on ten-calorie rice cakes and simultaneously, starving to death.

But then.

My mother passed along a hot diet tip.

Lest you question her expertise, I assure you, my mother is the undisputed champ in this arena, the unequivocal Diva of Diets. My mother’s meticulous measurement of meals has been as regular as a religious ritual. The woman can convert from grams to tablespoons to cups without a calculator and recite, on demand, the calorie, fat and sugar content of any edible substance. I have witnessed her testing the Cabbage Soup Diet, GM Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Deal-A-Meal, Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, Slim Fast, Diet Center and Jenny Craig. I have seen her whip unruly cottage cheese curds into a dreamy, creamy confection faster than you can say “Eew”. My mama wiped her palate clean of red meat, white meat, and fish from the wrong side of the ocean. She’s shunned sugar, freed herself from fat, separated from seeds and divorced dairy.

My mother invented The Big Salad.

But nothing could ever prepare me for the day I saw The Queen of the Greens herself, dwarfed behind a two-pound mound of turkey breast without so much as a leafy garnish anywhere. I, who as a kid had been involuntarily converted to vegetarian on a “family vacation”/Gary Null health retreat, couldn’t believe my protein deprived eyes.

“What the…” I stammered as I prepared for Hell to freeze over.

“I’m on protein,” she said, “Dr. Atkins’s.” Then a draft from the air conditioning vent lifted her up and carried her now size two body over to a monstrous wheel of cheese on the counter.

“Atkin’s?” I repeated in a whisper, “Is that okay?”

She explained how she’d been to see the guru himself and was confident that the diet was healthy because she felt good. And Lord knows, she looked good.

“No limits on quantity and whenever you want!” she exclaimed like a kid who had just discovered a coin-free vending machine next to her bed. She then proceeded to fill me in on the details. “You just have to limit your vegetables and fruits”.

Right. Surrender salads, banish bananas.

I believe I blacked out for a minute, but when I came to she was saying something like  “…protein with butter, protein with mayo, protein with oil, protein with sour cream…”

Protein with Satan…

“The only things you can’t have are sugar and starch. “ It occurred to me that this eliminated everything I currently ate. “But it’s really not that hard. I’ve lost 15 pounds since like yesterday.”

This is the Devil’s work. And I will labor for the cause because I also want to be a size two.

A size six, even.

I was pretty excited about this radical change in my diet. And as with every other exciting plan I’ve ever had, I began with a little shopping, running out to the market to buy some foods I hadn’t eaten in thirty years and some I’d only dreamed about.

Check out my cart:

Mayonnaise
Heavy cream
Butter
Steak
Roasted chicken
Turkey breast
Muenster cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Eggs
Bacon
Sugar free Jell-O
Fried pork rinds

For me, buying fried pork rinds was more embarrassing than buying condoms, Tampax or thong underwear from a cute male cashier. Buying fried pork rinds signaled to the world that I was mentally unstable and that Child Protective Services should make a home visit ASAP. And bacon? Well, I actually turned the package over hoping that the Nosy Nancy behind me would think it was just a turkey substitute. Of course, what with the quart of heavy cream, pound of butter and bucket of Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise set amidst ten packages of sugar-free Jell-O, she likely concluded that I'd had a psychotic break from reality and that nitrates were the least of my problems.

I must tell you how quickly I gave up my long held dietary convictions when faced with the possibility of weight loss. Over the years you might have heard me uttering mantras such as, “I can’t eat red meat anymore. I can’t digest it” and “I’m not kosher, but I wouldn’t go so far as to eat bacon”. And yet, by the end of the first night, I had devoured two pounds of shrimp with melted butter, a bacon, egg and cheese omelet, a cheeseburger (no bun) and a skirt steak. Strangely enough, I had no more trouble devouring and digesting that juicy, rare side of beef than say, cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer.

And let me also say that the diet worked. In two weeks time, I had lost eight pounds, despite the constipation of my meat-impacted intestines (for which I mentally deducted an extra two pounds). For that kind of success, I would readily suffer grocery line humiliation and irregularity.

My “health-conscious” friends were appalled by my dietary habits. I could tell them that I was intolerant to wheat, nuts, dairy, humans and oxygen and they’d never blink, but mention Atkins and a high protein/low carb diet and they became irate enough to march on Washington. For a Tyrannosaurus Rex like me, this was problematic because I could not eat in public or shop before 11 pm without fear of being attacked by carniphobic militants from the Fat-Free Society. My transition to openly carnivorous was so emotionally and physically challenging that I decided to keep a journal.

Here are the entries from my first week:  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Day 4:
Today is the fourth day of the Sugar Hostage Crisis. I could not write on Day 1, 2 or 3 as not a single waking minute has passed in which I did not have some sort of sacrificed livestock in my hands or mouth. Having consumed everything on Old MacDonald’s farm in just the last 72 hours, I am not the least bit hungry. But the stress of heaving a whole bag of Swedish Fish into the trash without swiping even one has given me a wicked headache. I assume this must be how it is when you’re trying to get off crack. I want to go lie down and sleep until I’m thin.

My carbohydrate withdrawal has apparently made me delusional as I have taken to imagining a troop of little energy soldiers storming my fat reserves, feasting to their heart’s content. I am getting leaner and meaner by the second (Just ask anyone about the latter). I am peeing like a fountain –weeeee, see me pee out the fat! For added intrigue and entertainment, I routinely plunge a ketone indicator strip into my liquid fat urine and root for a winning color (purple). Today I have decided to go all out and Weigh In. One sec…4 pounds! Feast on, my little fat fighting friends. There’s more where that came from.

Day 5:
Having a bit of a Setback. To my horror, the scale is reporting that all of my lost weight has been found after just 24 hours. You can’t even report a person gone if it’s been less than 24 hours, much less a fat ass. I tried shifting my feet on the scale to get a more accurate (lower) reading, but unfortunately, the scale is sticking to its original evaluation. Defective piece of garbage. Oh, I want to speak to the manager. But then, I guess that would be me.

The brutal thing is, I really didn't cheat. I worked out. I stayed in the steam room an extra five minutes. And I did not have a single cookie from that heaping plate of pleasure that the Devil Incarnate brought to my house. Not even the crumbs that fell off the babka onto the table. I HAVE NOT HAD CHOCOLATE FOR 108—no, 109 HOURS, and this is my thanks? This is my reward? This is an outrage.

Day 6:
This is the day of reckoning. I have come to the conclusion that the return of my unwanted weight is just more crap than I can handle right now. And I do mean that literally. By my calculations, I have consumed an entire cow, a brick of cheese, a coupe of chickens and all their eggs, and all I’m dropping are rabbit pellets. A Serious Situation is developing and Serious Situations call for Serious Solutions. It’s Tea Time. 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

This was no delicate English breakfast tea served up with scones. This was an ancient Chinese, all-natural remedy given to me by the Diet Diva herself, who will not be toyed with when it comes to weight loss. I'm not gonna lie; I was nervous. It was rumored that this stuff could thrash your colon around so violently that it ended up around your neck. But the whistle on the kettle was screaming and you know when, um, duty calls, you have to go.

I sat for a minute and waited for a reaction. Nothing.

I wrote for a while. Nothing.

I straightened up the house a little. Nothing.

I ate a half-pound of roast beef, a slice of Swiss cheese and a handful of fried pork rinds. Nothing.

I downed another bottle of water and then, well now, wait, maybe something. Hmm…a discernable murmur. Oh, a gurgling--no, more like a growling. And yes, yes, those are definitely the rumblings of gut wrenching cramps, nausea and atomic gas pains.  Now that’s Something.

After the eruption, well, you know just what I did. Four pounds! And as with every other exciting plan I ever had that worked, I went out shopping for my new slender self, thus ending another day in the life of this thinning, carb-free carnivore. Bring on Day 7!

**Note: I continued on the Atkins plan for the full two-week induction period and lost a total of eight pounds. Gradually, as the diet proposes, I added back in certain fruits and vegetables but still continued to lose weight, finally leveling off at my goal and have been quite comfortable adhering to a high protein/low carbohydrate diet ever since. Since 1994, when I first wrote this piece, I have seen many diet trends come and go, but on July 7, 2002, the next best thing since Jennifer Lopez made the big tush a big deal happened. The New York Times published an article in the Sunday magazine section: What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? by Gary Taubs, vindicating Dr. Atkins and his recommendations. Basically, it said:

Hey, Doc, you were right after all. Sorry we stigmatized you for thirty years, but it seems we made a bit of an error in the food pyramid. Turns out, we were holding the picture UPSIDE DOWN.

The article was controversial and downright inflammatory for anyone who “believed in” a low calorie, low fat diet. I still remember sitting down at the table that Sunday morning with my cheese omelet and real bacon, while some members of my own family became hostile and utterly incensed by the heresy I was gleefully reading aloud.

And now, twelve years later, science still seems to be on the side of low carbs as was again noted by Anahad O'Connor in The New York Times on September 1, 2014: A Call for a Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat. I’ve been eating a low carb/high protein diet for twenty years, trading in the diabolical tea for increased water consumption, and have found it to be a simple, satiating way to maintain a relatively lean, strong body and healthy heart. I am no scientist or nutritionist, but I know what has worked for me. To find out more about low carb diets, below are links to the 2002 and 2014 articles. 

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? 
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/07FAT.html

A Call for a Low-Carb Diet That Embraces Fat 
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html?_r=0

Stay tuned for some new Fit Fuel Low Carb recipes coming soon!

“Around, around, around, around…over, under, through”-Grover, Sesame Street

It’s been a year since I put my best foot forward and leapt into uncharted territory. Lying in a heap on the sidewalk, I began my journey with an avulsion fracture of the patella and complete rupture of my quadriceps tendon, which is to say, my drumstick got yanked off my thigh. Each step since my surgery has been like some sort of emotional Mud Run; trudging through pain, wrestling weakness, hurdling fear, questioning my ability to prevail over a seemingly endless set of obstacles. People have asked me if I’m “all better” now. And given where I was, now is definitely better.

But am I all better?

God, I hope not.  I mean, this cannot possibly be the finish line, right?

My strategy for recovery has been simple: Walk the line from Point A to Point B. Upright and moving forward, every day. I vowed to practice patience and maintain a conservative pace. I determined that I would know when I arrived at point B because I would feel the way I used to feel. My legs and heart would move like they used to move, and I would look like I used to look.

But maybe.

Maybe the challenge is not really linear. Maybe there is more than one direction, like a dance, a lap, a loop, and I am neither ahead nor behind. It has occurred to me that my position is more like a You Are Here notation on a trail map. Perhaps this is the only spot for me to be in because, as it happens, this is the only spot I am in right now. I can’t un-run my race or be where I used to be because that point in time no longer exists. My pace, stride, direction, distance traveled, even those who have cheered me on from the sidelines, have transformed who I am now.

I have to keep reminding myself: When you go around the track, Loren, even when you get back to the starting point, you are decidedly NOT the same as you were when you started.

I have clients who come to me, lamenting that they used to be thin or fit or strong. Before the baby, the husband, the death of a loved one, the stress, the job, the injury, the heartache. There was a setback and now they must start all over and try to, in the words of the great Captain and Tennille “Get right back to where we started from”. But despite this catchy seventies hook, I think it’s time to consider that we can never go back to where we once were. What we can do is create a new possibility for ourselves, who we will be in this moment and the next, with what we have and what we haven’t, with what is and what isn’t.

I am not completely comfortable with this concept. But with each passing day, it becomes clearer to me that the only point is the one I am standing in, toes on the starting line every day. So here I go, around, around, around, around…over, under, through.

If you are ready to put your toes on the line, join me at www.fitnessbyloren.com/get-started.html

My mother once cautioned, “Loren, there are outside jobs, and then, there are inside jobs. An outside job is when someone else screws you over. An inside job is when you do it to yourself.”

This is the story of an inside job.

I was a sun worshipper. I spent much of my youth on a vinyl chaise lounge, redirecting stray rays with a foil sun reflector. Hour after hour, I basted in a baby oil and iodine rub like a rotisserie chicken. It was not until I became the mother of children with translucent skin that I purchased my first tube of SPF 30. I tried my best to protect their fair flesh, although occasionally I missed a spot, marring them with a scarlet tattoo and a public record of my maternal incompetence.

As for my own protection, well, I used sunscreen sparingly. I viewed SPF 30 like a total eclipse of the sun. Desperate to avoid looking pale as the moon, I became obsessed with self-tanning lotions and the prospect of a year-round faux glow. Suffice to say that I amassed an inventory of products. Though self-tanners had come a long way since the Coppertone QT of my adolescence, some still turned me streaky orange, others had an unpleasant odor, and most left me with stained palms and clothing. Nevertheless, I continued my quest for the illusion of a healthy sun-kissed glow, disregarding the fact that there was nothing actually healthy about having one. Finally I struck gold, or more precisely, L’Oreal Sublime Bronze Self-Tanning Lotion, and have looked like an old bronzed baby shoe ever since. Thank you, L’Oreal, for knowing I’m worth it.

I developed a sublime bronze through methodical, if not compulsive, application in my bathroom. But I wanted more than just a tawny hue. I loved the sunshine, the heat, even the smell of sunscreen. Come summer, I couldn’t wait to hit the beach, and though I added a schmear of SPF 30 before I left the house, my tan lines indicated that I was not reapplying it frequently enough. I reasoned that as long as I didn’t get burned, it was okay.

And then came a dark period.

For my 42nd birthday, my husband gifted me with the promise of “sleeping in”. Excusing me from the madness of getting my kids up and off to school was a small gesture, but I had come to appreciate even the few extra seconds of sleep garnered by keeping my eyes closed while walking to the bathroom.  Unfortunately, I awoke that morning to a loud thud and some yelling, followed by way more yelling, and then if I’m not mistaken, shrieking. I shrunk back into my covers and tried to enjoy the last milliseconds of my fleeting birthday gesture.

“Shh, you’re going to wake Mommy. I want to let her sleep in for her birthday!” my husband shouted in a whisper.

“I’m going to tell Mommy…” one of the boys threatened.

After my husband ushered the kids to the bus stop, I dragged myself to the bathroom, eyes closed, to take a look at my new older self in the mirror. I had gone to bed feeling okay about my 41 year-old self, but to my horror, my nocturnal metamorphosis to 42 had been harsh. My face had erupted in clusters of cystic acne and red blotches. Dark puffy circles loomed like storm clouds under my eyes, and a bumper crop of gray hair had grown ripe for harvest. 

When had I become so ugly, so haggard? How long had I been walking around with my eyes closed?

I tell you all of this so that you might understand the grim situation I faced when I made a Bad Decision. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it anyway, and to this day, I remain shrouded in shame. There are those who binge on food, alcohol or drugs. Others steal, cheat or lie.

I went tanning.

That birthday morning, I purchased an unlimited month of body baking at the Tanning Oasis. I willingly slid myself into a perverse human size toaster oven, and lay perfectly still until the timer dinged and I was golden like a chicken nugget. I offered my conscience the rationale that I would look and feel better if I got a little “color” and vitamin D, but I knew bullshit when I heard it. Especially when I made it up myself. After my third visit, I remember looking out to either side of the storefront entrance to make sure no one I knew would see me leaving the joint. It might as well have been a crack den. Thankfully, my Jiminy Cricket convinced me never to go back again. 

For the last decade, I have been careful to protect myself in the sun. Unfortunately, I cannot undo the years of damage. Cute freckles and beauty marks have become age spots, moles and pre-cancerous legions. One such legion on my forehead prompted me to make an appointment with the dermatologist. While I was there, I asked about another flat, pink spot on my neck that had persisted for several years. A biopsy of that spot revealed that I had a full basal cell carcinoma.

Yes, that’s skin cancer.

Inside job.

With the discovery of cancer crawling around my collarbone, the doctor recommended MOHS surgery. This procedure begins with a small incision, scraping of the area and then in-house testing of the tissue to determine if all malignant cells have been removed. Additional cutting, scraping and testing continue until the tests come back negative.

I was a little nervous when I arrived at the office, but eager to have the lurking demon excised. I will admit, I would have preferred to be knocked out with a brick to the head first, but evidently the plan was for me to experience the procedure as a waking nightmare. Initially, I tried to keep my cool, tossing out a few wise cracks to lighten up the conversation between the doctor and assistant. Oh, I was witty, witty, witty, all right, until all hell broke loose and I smelled the Girl On Fire. The scent of burning flesh set off my persecution alarm. I guess maybe cancer and Nazis occupy the same space in my mind. In any case, I thought it best to play dead while they welded my neck closed.

After the charring, I was sent back to the waiting room to wait for test results. By the time they called me back in for a second round of snipping, scraping and cauterizing an hour later, I had begun to think of the procedure as a medical exorcism. Markedly less jovial, I envisioned the next series of experiments Dr. Mengele had in store for my severed head. This time around, we were not on speaking terms. When they called my name for a third time, my wit and hallucinations had vanished and all I had left was:

This is your own damned fault.

Waiting for the results, I tried to get a handle on what it was that had me ignore better choices for my health and well being, and further, ignore the signs that something was wrong. I mean, I knew better. I also knew, however, that self-condemnation would not change my current circumstances. There is always only now, where I am at this minute, with an opportunity to create and commit to what is next for me. As the nurse called my name, I braced myself for whatever was next; more cutting or a clean slate, and I vowed to take care of myself the way I would take care of those I love.

The good news is that the last round of tests came back negative and that the procedure is about 96% effective at fully removing the cancer. The bad news is that there is a 70% chance that my stupidity will bubble up to the skin somewhere else on my body. It is also unfortunate that I have a three-inch gash and twenty stitches across my neck as if someone attacked me. It was as unsettling to feel that I had slashed my own throat as it was to feel the sutures being pulled through my neck like a Raggedy Ann whose head had been yanked off.

See, I lost my head for a while there, but I think I’ve got it pulled back on now.

I am committed to taking care of the body and mind I live in. I encourage you to do the same. We have all had times when we have slipped up and done ourselves in. There are regrets about how we handled something or didn’t handle something, and consequences either way. We have all been guilty of the inside job. But whatever our confessions are about, they are history now. There is no going back, nor any point in dragging your past along with you as you go forward. Look down at your feet and note that you are standing at the starting line of what’s next. Choose where you’re going to go and how you’re going to get there, no matter where you've been. Me? I’m going to CVS to get a little more self-tanner. 

And then I’ll be here at www.fitnessbyloren.com if you need some help getting started--

In Judaism, there is one day a year when you are forgiven for a whole year’s worth of really bad behavior. I don’t have all the specifics but I believe that God, aware that persistent persecution can make a person a little ornery, agreed to give us Jews a Do Over if we just cut it out and said our Sorries. Whatever the deal was, let me tell you, it was a bargain, because some people I know might not otherwise be forgiven.

On this holiday, we are supposed to fast from sundown to sundown, to give ourselves twenty-four whole hours to remember all the people we’ve done wrong in the last year. Believe me; some people I know need way more than twenty-four hours. My rabbi explained that fasting shows our commitment to putting our physical concerns aside to address matters of the heart and soul. Unfortunately, I am pretty darned devoted to eating and never really think my soul is in such bad shape. That is usually the sign of someone who should be especially sorry.

At first glance, this fasting deal may seem like a piece of cake. After all, we are only giving up breakfast and lunch here. Can’t I just take a great big nap until dinner, wake up a few pounds lighter and call it a Happy and a Healthy New Year? Well, no actually, I can’t. Instead of hibernating, it seems I am required to hunt and forage for the contraband all day; shopping for it, looking at it, preparing it, smelling it, but God forbid, tasting it. I might venture to say that I am never around food as much as I am on this day. The entire holiday has become a series of tests to see if I am really sorry or just dieting. 

By 9:00 AM, I was already good and cranky at the thought of not being able to eat even if an Emergency were to arise in which I might become extremely stressed out, like maybe finding out that four extra people are coming to Break-Fast, the traditional fast-ending meal; or that my kitchen has suddenly and inexplicably become moth-infested; or like if some people I know were really misbehaving. I was also a little concerned that I might actually have to modify my own self-righteous, judgmental ways, which, quite frankly, are working for me.

At 9:05 AM, I began preparations for the siege of the Yom Kippur War. As years of training for this battle had taught me, I first hopped on the scale to see if, per chance, I’d lost a few pounds in my food-deprived sleep.

Obviously, the scale is wrong.

Next, I slipped into my Somber Suit—a black wool skirt, turtleneck sweater, suede jacket, and patent leather shoes. I do not normally dress this way. My daily uniform consists of a Lycra gym ensemble and sneakers. But today I was trying to convince God and 400 fellow congregants that I am a modest, professional type who has got my act together and taken it to temple. I even combed out my naturally snarly hair in a grand gesture to the Lord that I was ready to straighten things out.

All suited up, I proceeded to assist my kids in the selection of a suitable Sorry Ensemble. My daughter was already dressed in the skirt and top I had laid out for her and was standing before her open closet facing what has become our annual Shoe Situation. Once again, I had failed to remember to purchase appropriate fall footwear for the kids until the actual Day of Atonement. Our options were of a pair of scuffed white sandals or a muddy pair of sneakers. I was filled with appropriate remorse and braced myself for the deserved condemnation of my synagogue sisters.

“What kind of mother lets her kid wear white sandals in October? Doesn’t she know the rules? Is she even Jewish?”

But what was percolating in the next room was sure to turn this mere cup of criticism into a silo of censure. My son had chosen an outfit that included a pair of over-sized, wrinkled cargo pants, a polo shirt and a hooded sweatshirt with a bold PUMA transfer on the front.

“No.” I say looking at this child dressed for an Extreme Games competition at the skate-park, “No words. It’s a rule. No sports words on clothes in temple. It’s not allowed.”

Thou shalt not wear sports logos in temple. Am I wrong?

My decree incited a wardrobe hurling war, tension rising so high as to cause the nerves in my neck to twitch like Frankenstein during an electrical surge. I bombed him with a cable knit sweater and ran for cover, dodging into his brother’s room. Not taking any chances, I handed him his clothes and told him to dress quickly as we were already an hour late for services (although in Jewish Time, this is not all that late). Then what happened was I blinked, and when I opened my eyes the clothes were on him, but not in their normally designated places. His pants were slung way below his hips with his boxers puffed up above them, his un-tucked button-up shirt open to reveal an unauthorized Hanes t-shirt.

“No.” I say, looking at this child who appears to have leaped from somewhere up above and landed in a pile of laundry, “No low pants. It’s a rule. No underwear-exposing clothes in temple. It’s not allowed”

Thou shalt not display undergarments in temple. Am I wrong?  

My request to pull up, button up and hurry up was met with formidable resistance. I watched impatiently as he wrestled his shirt over the boxers and into the waistline he had hiked up somewhere under his chin.

“Is this better?” he asked wickedly. But there was no time to argue. Hearing my husband’s summons down stairs, I said a few words I would soon be apologizing for and rushed him out the door.

Out onto the street they tumbled, the motley lot of them. Why is it that on this most blessed day, my beloved children, the very same ones I boast are really pretty well behaved most of the time, turn into the most wretched demonic vessels ever to walk the earth? I could develop a whole new question section for the Yom Kippur service, like The Four Questions on Passover.

On all other days, we respect our parents. Why on this day do we act like we don’t have any?

The boys had shifted into high gear, and were swinging each other around by their shirttails like a WWF version of Ring Around the Rosie. The PUMA sweatshirt had resurfaced as a whipping rag, and my daughter was executing an Irish step dance routine to save her bare toes from frostbite.

These children have been raised by wolves. Where is their mother?

I was taking all of this in and practicing deep breathing exercises when I noticed a fellow approaching us. To my horror, it was my husband, the alpha wolf, sporting a wrinkled pair of blue pants, a tattered black suit jacket and a spiraling grey tie. Vagabond Man grimaced and told the boys to tuck in their shirts, which were now billowing like parachutes in the autumn breeze.

Vagabond Man and wolf children on Yom Kippur. Oh yeah, I’ve got plenty to be sorry for.

It is this way every year, like a regularly scheduled appointment for electro-shock therapy, jolting me from my starving stupor into a code red, full state of alert; as though we all need one final grand purge of our hideousness. Throughout the services, the kids fidgeted and giggled and I found myself conjuring up punishments to dole out to everyone seated within a ten-foot radius of me. Though lame in comparison to the Who shall perish by plague-fire-flood thing the rabbi is talking about, I settled upon a long list of No’s: No new tennis racquets, no more Nintendo, no TV for the rest of your life, etc. Every now and again I pointed out an important Take Home Point for my husband in the prayer book. Helpful stuff like, I am weak and I have not lived up to my responsibilities and commitments to remind him of just how sorry he should be.       

Learn from me, Vagabond Man.

I lean over to my children and shush them for the hundredth time. 

Hush wicked little wolf children.

Signaling the end of the service, the Shofar blows its final rousing call, and I hurried home for the next event in the annual Fast and the Furious Festivities. The first of my challenges began with my kids who were too young and too skinny to fast, reaffirming my suspicion that young, thin people do, in fact, have it better than me.      

The children had suddenly become hungrier than they had ever been in their lives, rivaled only by maybe those kids in Sally Struthers’ Feed the Children commercials. Limping into the kitchen, they whined, “What do we have to EAT?”  I rattled off the entire contents of my refrigerator and pantry, only to be met with, “Wait, what do we have again?” Then, as an extra test of the purity of my soul and emptiness of my stomach, I was held hostage in the kitchen to grant special culinary requests and watch them eat.

My children, however, were just the hors d'oeuvres for this festival of forgiveness. The next course involved preparing an all-you-can-eat buffet for a dozen or so relatives that are always just a little too pleasant to have actually been fasting…I quickly zipped through preparations like The Road Runner while muttering things that must be beeped out and then waited for the guests to arrive. Some people I know always arrive late as they have probably stopped for a little nosh along the way.

Finally, the stubborn sun resigned behind the horizon and my family was seated around the table. Vagabond Man and the wolverines had vanished and in their places sat my loving husband and three delicious children. The diverse cast of characters that is my family has gathered once again for the meal to be enjoyed, the stories to be shared, the jokes to be botched, and memories to be reinvented. And we laugh and we learn and we love.      

It is a struggle to stay together, wrestling for that pure space in which we can share our love for one another. Perhaps the palette really must be cleared, our bitterness purged, before we can taste the sweetness of our families again. All I know is I am really grateful for the Do-Over. 

"Bad news never had good timing"--John Mayer

On my 5th lap around the Cinnabon concession at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, I’m fairly certain I saw a security guard whispering into his collar:

“Uh, yeah, looks like things are 'bout to get pretty sticky right here…”

Fortunately, my flight back to New York was called before I could carry out Operation Bun and Run, but suffice to say, it was that kind of week.

It started out just like the third week in August always does: a multi-day scavenger hunt for random things my kids "need" before returning to college. These are items that no one should really have to buy more than once a decade, and yet, I inexplicably replace them every year. Might you be able to explain how someone could lose, for example, ALL of their underwear, or say, misplace a refrigerator?

I absolutely hate the end of summer. For me, it signals the nearing end of things I love; conversations with my kids over Sunday dinners, the beach in the summer sunshine, the freedom of my outdoor workouts. But year after year, I try to remind myself that it's not really an ending. It's a circle, a cycle. Eventually I surrender to the natural orbit of things. It will be just one hellishly exhausting week getting the kids back to school. I will screw together the Ikea bed made entirely of popsicle sticks, ignoring the manual illustration of a portly man with an X drawn through him which is apparently the international symbol for YOU ARE AN IDIOT TO ATTEMPT THIS PROJECT ALONE. I will whack one final illegal nail into the wall, securing both the crooked bookshelf and the fact that I will not be getting my security deposit back. Soon enough, there will be time to recover and grieve that my babies are gone. Give me an hour and I'll get back to whatever is next.

I was two days away from taking my son down to Texas for grad school when my sister called. "Did you speak to mom today?" she asked. My mother had been having some stomach pain and lightheadedness while lying in bed and was waiting on some medical test results. My sister warned me that she had some news and it wasn’t anything I would be expecting.

It was the kind of news that could not be heard the first time it was spoken. It could not be processed or digested, but rather, sat in my mouth like a giant wad of tasteless, disgusting, chewed up gum. I couldn’t wait to spit it out.

"There is a tumor on her pancreas."

Yeah, no, I don’t want to chew on that at all. Feh. I’m spitting that out right now. 

My sister probably said other stuff, too, but I don’t know what it was. There was clearly a mistake here, anyway. My mom is Not a Regular Mom. She climbs mountains, runs marathons, eats well, takes her vitamins and looks young enough to be my sister. She is vital, active, healthy and strong. She doesn't do tumors.

So I hung up the phone, taught a boot camp class, and prepared an omelet for dinner. As I reached for the eggs, I told my husband about my mom. I said, "The doctors think my mom has..." matter-of-factly, like I was going to say, gas, my mom has gas—And then I said "pancreatic cancer", dropped the egg, choked on my words, and ingested the biggest most painful glob of terrible I have ever swallowed.

A meteor had struck me, but we were still in orbit so I went upstairs to help my son pack for school. I also packed up my mother's diagnosis, which was too difficult to hold while Space Bag shrinking my son's bedding into something the size of a toaster. Two days later, we arrived at his new apartment in Austin, Texas. I ignored the portly man with the big X and built a bed, a bookcase and a desk made entirely of wooden ice cream spoons; then headed back to New York, exhausted and grieving the end or the circle or the cycle, or whatever was next.

And this is how it came to be that I was stalking the sticky buns at the airport. I really just wanted to smother the taste of that rancid news before I went home. Mercifully, my flight was called before I committed carbo-cide. Retreating reluctantly from the counter, I flew home to get one more child off to school. After that, I'd heave myself into an entirely dark and unknown orbit.

August 22, 2013
Taught my ROK Tabata Blast class in the morning. I just love these gals! They show up and play all out. There is a palpable energy in the room that connects us and generates more power than any of us have alone. They light me up. Under the crushing weight of my mother's illness, this is the only place I still feel powerful.

I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for my daughter who is going back for her sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania tomorrow. After replacing her fall jacket (I don't know how, Mom, but I lost all four of my jackets...), I headed home to pack up and pile her stuff in the living room. Round about 11pm, I began lugging it out to the car. Lest you be wondering, how come your husband isn't helping you out here? Well, conveniently, he just had major back surgery and can't lift, bend, or twist. And also, he has never helped me pack a car because I won't let him. I could pack all of a small nation's belongings into a Honda Civic.  My husband would have trouble getting three items to fit into a mini-van and then have something to say about the poor design of the interior. I suspect he was also the kind of kid that tried to jam a square peg into a round hole and deduced that the hole was inadequate. As for the possibility that my daughter might be involved in her relocation, let's just say that I have been setting a bad precedent about doing everything for my kids since about the time the pee stick turned blue.

There's just one more sleepless night and the move-in tomorrow. Then I can focus on caring for my mom, I thought. I hoisted up a large box filled with some 50 lb. of textbooks and began the trek down my front porch stairs.

                                                   Let the record show: I STUCK THE LANDING.

I really cannot stress enough the importance of completing The Very Last Step. This, I have found, is true of everything, but especially with regard to stairs. It was dark and the large carton obscured my view. I thought I had made it down to the last step when I extended my right leg out, goose-step style, to proceed to the car. Unfortunately, I was on The Second to Last Step when I launched forward. This is no place to be if you are planning to continue your stride without calamity. For your visual edification, picture someone walking off a diving board only to realize there's no water in the pool. Where the hell is the sidewalk? I thought, a split second before I found it. I landed squarely on my right foot, box of books intact (which for reasons that cannot be explained without a shrink, I am very proud of), and experienced a sensation not found in nature. What followed was a wild woman writhing on the sidewalk, screaming and cursing, an EMS ride to the hospital, a five-hour emergency room visit. And a quadriceps tendon that had torn clear off the bone, taking with it a keepsake piece of my kneecap. As I was being wheeled in for a CT scan, the orderly asked cheerily, "How ya feeling tonight?"

August 23, 2013
We arrived back from the ER at 5am. The house was in a state of semi-move, with about a quarter of my daughter's things in the car and the rest awaiting transport. I mentioned to my daughter that now that she had two invalid parents, she would have to pack the remaining items herself. This suggestion was met with less than enthusiasm, but to her credit, that girl loaded everything in and my husband drove her back to school.

I am having my first quiet moment and my brain will not shut up.

You are going to get so fat.
You are going to go insane without a workout.
You are going to lose all your clients and classes.
You are going to lose your mother.

Yeah, no more quiet moments for me, thanks.
Get up and clean up, right now.

Got a crutch on my left and a Swiffer on my right. Got a rolling office chair in the kitchen so I can sit while cleaning the counters and loading the dishwasher.(Why didn't I figure this one out sooner?) Got a backpack strapped on my front so I can load and haul stuff back to restore order. I feel ten times better now. Being productive makes me feel powerful, even when I've been cut off at the knees.

August 25, 2013
Better spirits today. It's gorgeous out and there's an arts and crafts fair on the boardwalk. The game plan is to drive over and vault myself across the boards on my crutches for a little triceps workout/recreational shopping. I am so excited by this that I am going to crab walk down a flight of stairs to my gym to workout first...Get ready my one-legged friends, The Gimpy Girl Workout is in the works!

August 26, 2013
I am none to happy right now. Just came from the doctor who has told me that I definitely need surgery, and soon. I have been informed that I will be in a brace for eight weeks and have about six months with limited mobility before I can resume my old leg and cardio workouts. I fear I will be locked up in Bellevue long before that. But fortunately, I have a client coming tonight. I always feel better when I boss other people around.

August 27, 2013
In what seems to be a perpetual mood swing, I am full of pep and vigor this morning. I catapulted myself into my Rok Tabata Blast class and did my best to lead by example. I tell them every week: Play full out, 100%, whatever that looks like for you, regardless of your circumstances. I tell them: Do it because you CAN, because you are blessed to have a pair of legs that got you out of bed and got you here where you have the strength to propel yourself upward from wherever you are stuck.

And so I played, if not with my whole body, at least with my whole heart. I am grateful that I didn't hit my head, that I am not paralyzed, that I am not in terrible pain. I am fortunate that this is just a temporary setback. I am blessed that I have someone who loves me enough to drive me to the gym. I am lucky to have the opportunity to train a group of women that play full out and inspire me to propel myself upward from where I've been stuck.

August 28, 2013
The waking up is the hardest part. I am sleeping better now even with the brace on, probably because the crutches are so damned exhausting. But when the alarm goes off, for a split second, I don't remember what has happened. Until I pull off the covers and see my lifeless Velcro appendage lying there. It disregards my call to action, leaving me to manually lift it and place it on the floor. Kinda kills my giddyup-and-go.

But today when I did The Big Reveal, I was a little quicker to let go of the knee-jerk reaction to be depressed. I am starting to get that whether I like it or not, this is what IS. I can scream at the top of my lungs that it isn't fair, I can wallow in the darkest depths and be right that this is terrible. I can eat till there's not enough Velcro to close the straps around my thigh. But it doesn't make one bit of difference. My kneecap is still cracked. My tendon remains untethered. What's next is surgery, so it's time to step up, crutches and all, and just get on with it.

My Deal-With-It approach worked very well for about 30 minutes. But my husband entered the kitchen and disrupted the solace of my digestive morning ritual: coffee and flax protein cereal.

You just don't mess with a digestive morning ritual. Am I wrong?

First, he set up a Mud Run course, opening every cabinet door. Next, he newspapered all counters and the tabletop. Then, for the final challenge, he created a crutch-vaulting event with the cell phone charging wire. By the time I got through all the obstacles and sat down to eat my breakfast, the window of opportunity was gone. If you have a digestive morning ritual, I know you know what I am talking about.

No time to fret about it though, because I had a client coming in to The Lorture Chamber. I was feeling a whole lot better, hobbling around, cackling like a crazy, crippled witch while running her through an obstacle course of my own: Box Jumps, Over the Top Squats, One-legged Lunge Kicks...After we finished, my plan was to sweat myself up with my new Gimpy Girl Workout. But you know how plans can change in a heartbeat?  I answered the phone to hear that my mother's pancreatic cancer had metastasized to her liver. Google-ing that fact is a heart stopper.

August 29, 2013
Today I picked up my MRI results and dropped them off at the hospital where I had blood work done in preparation for surgery next week. Here I received my new favorite compliment: You are so graceful on those crutches...Not as graceful: Getting dressed by myself in the morning. This requires a triple major in geometry, physics and gymnastics.

Just got another phone call to let me know that my mother's liver biopsy will be on the same day as my surgery, in the same hospital. For some reason, this oddly comforts me.

Didn't get a workout in today and I can feel the mental soreness setting in...

August 30, 2013
Awoke this morning with urgency about working out. All I can really handle are some upper body exercises and abs but I will take what I can get. I have to do everything I can to minimize this overwhelming feeling of helplessness. I actually have to come to terms with the fact that for some things, I really do need help, and so, I took a friend up on her offer to drive me around and get some errands done. When we returned, my husband had a little surprise for me. Gather round and have a look at my brand new wheelchair. here to edit.

August 31, 2013
You know what? I am done feeling sorry for myself. In a few days, I will be having surgery, and in the days that follow, I may not be able to move around very well. But right now, I am not in pain and it is a solid summer day. I am packing up my wheels and taking them on the road. My husband is going to deposit me at the park where there is a .6 mile path along the bay. I am going to teach myself to drive a wheelchair like a race car. You would all be wise to stay out of my way...

Have just returned from a 1.2-mile ride during which I terrorized a family of five on bikes, three seagulls, and a pit bull. Very good call to wear my weight lifting gloves which are now noticeably worn thin on the palms. I have a new appreciation for what it takes to be mobile when you are incapacitated by injury or physical disability. I did enjoy the sweat and the wind in my face but this was a SERIOUS shoulder workout. Someone along the way suggested I get a motorized chair. But that's not the way I roll.

September 1, 2013
As a friend of mine noted the other night, my injury is, as they say in sports, a season-ender. I suppose it does limit my playtime, but I will not wallow today. My friend is coming to pick me up to "do something fun". Will report on this later. The possibilities are endless...

The fun thing my dear friend picked me up to do yesterday was have a pedicure. This is an incredibly loving gesture for anyone, but particularly for me, with the prospect of exposing my feet to an operating room full of medical professionals, it is also the only responsible thing to do. We don't need anyone other than me passing out in there. My hooves are horrible. They aren’t so much toenails as they are talons. My toes are like a traumatized troop of soldiers; bruised, disfigured and awaiting medical attention.

Poor Esther, my nail artist/attending nurse. My friend had given her the heads up that she was bringing in someone with a knee injury that would need special care. I have been thinking about this", Esther said, like maybe she had diagrammed it out on a drafting table.  Esther ushered me to my seat and grabbed some lovely cushions to support my bum leg in the massage chair (which, let me say, loved me better than my husband). My aggressive Velcro brace, which behaves like a pit bull, gnarled at these fine satin supporters whilst Esther, poor dear, got a look at my Little Piggies.

Oh, she was probably gagging about something else.

"Just a moment", she said, excusing herself to the back room.

Oh, she was probably just wanting to fix her ponytail.

She returned with an electric burr tool--the kind used in high school wood shop--and began sculpting my gnarly roots into a proper foot. She made them classy too. French, even. I left there with my new fancy feet, feeling relaxed and relieved. If only I could shake this pit bull off my leg.

September 2, 2013
Today is the 22nd birthday of my twin sons (I know that is a weird way to phrase it, but I just couldn't figure it out grammatically, any other way...) On this day, 22 years ago, I had a baby in my arms, a baby in ICU, and a painful incision from a C-section. I desperately wanted to get to my son in ICU. The nurses wanted me to wait for a wheelchair. But a patient patient I am not, so I grabbed my IV pole and hobbled through the hallways till I got to my son, Brandon. He was frail, enclosed in a glass box with an IV of his own taped onto his see-thru little arm. For a kid that had been basting in my oven for an extra two weeks, he sure looked undercooked--no eyelashes, no fingernails--but I remember thinking as i held the whole of him in the crook of one arm, I'm here now, sweet boy. It's gonna be okay. Frankly, I could have been set on fire, and I would have gotten my flaming butt into that ICU to be with him when he needed me most.

And now there's my mom, and my knee, and I can't get to her. I feel like an animal trapped in a cage. I am near about ready to chew my own leg off.

September 3, 2013
Today I took my wheelchair out for a 1.25-mile roll on the boardwalk. I may not be able to get my heart rate way up, but my shoulders are going to be ripped. And my hands...oh my God, my hands are shredded! Tore through two pair of gloves in three days. Today, I grabbed a roll of duct tape and reinforced the palms and fingers of a pair of garden gloves, confirming any suspicions you might have had that I am bat shit crazy. Nevertheless, not a drop of blood was shed. Unfortunately, it was a bit windy up there. Imagine for a moment you are sitting in an armchair. Now imagine that you make a decision to strap this armchair to your tuchas and drag yourself into a headwind along a series of wooden planks while singing Ride Like the Wind along with your IPod.

I've got to ride, ride like the wind, to be free again...and I got such a long way to go (such a long way...)

September 5, 2013
No time to write yesterday. First night of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, at my mother's house for a family dinner. According to my rabbi: On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed. I am already not too happy with how this year is being written so far. Tomorrow I am having surgery to re-attach my quadriceps tendon to my kneecap. Coincidentally, my mom will be having a biopsy of her liver at the same hospital, on the same floor, at the same time. I have been overwhelmed by the amount of support I have received from my friends and family. Praying for the best possible outcome for my mother and me.

To be more precise, I am praying that when I wake up at 4am to leave for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, I discover that this has all just been a bad dream.

September 6, 2013
4:30am...off to hospital to have my thigh reconnected to my drumstick...

September 7, 2013
I arrived at the hospital yesterday morning at 5:30am. My mom, who was coincidentally scheduled for a laparoscopic biopsy of her liver that morning, was already sitting in the waiting room when I arrived. There was absolutely nothing positive about any of this scenario--my mom having a suspected pancreatic metastasis to her liver, and me, about to have some holes drilled in my kneecap so as to lace it together with my quadriceps tendon like a pair of NIKEs (Double knot it, for God's sake...). But still, my mother and I were each buoyed by the sight of each other. Throughout my entire adult life, my mother and I have been making the same purchases and selections--pocketbooks, shoes, dishes, paintings, food--without prior consultation, showing up for family affairs wearing the same color, or style, and more often than not, the same outfit. Matching hospital gowns was just the natural order of things and I think we both took some comfort in it. Party in the O.R.!

When I woke up in recovery, opening my eyes occurred to me like a strength move. Eyelid curls with heavy weights. I could only manage one at a time. But there, directly across from me in a stretcher of her own, was my mother. A moment later, she opened her eyes, and we waved to each other. My mom, she is just always there for me.

My doctor had wanted me to stay overnight in the hospital to make sure my pain was managed, but my insurance company had another idea, so the nurses came in to get me ready for discharge. I had been given a femoral nerve block so I couldn't actually feel my leg at all. My doctor told me that the block would likely last about 24 hours, getting me through the worst of the post-surgical pain. So I went home and set up my own little recovery room in the house. Around dinnertime, my mother called to see how I was doing. She also told me that her doctor had confirmed her metastasis, limiting her treatment options to chemotherapy. The news couldn't have been worse. I couldn't even respond to it. I was just completely numb, from the brain down.

A few hours later, however, some of my sensation came back. Seems there had been a slight miscalculation about the nerve block, which wore off abruptly after about 12 hours, leaving me to endure 15 relentless hours of mind-bending agony. I have always thought myself to have a high threshold for pain, but this started at the ceiling and escalated to levels I did not think I would live to tell you about. Mind you, I was heavily medicated, but I might as well have just taken a couple of gummy bears. When the pain finally subsided enough that I could unclench my teeth, I opened my eyes to the reality of my mother's cancer. I actually have no threshold for this kind of pain.

September 8, 2013
Still have a lot of leg pain today but it's tolerable so I am going to get myself into gear and attempt some sort of exercise. I just need to feel like I am in control of something. I have to stop fighting the reality that I will be in this damned brace for eight weeks and create a more powerful way of dealing with what IS. I have an injury. It has to heal. But my life cannot be on hold or a series of excuses while I recover. Likewise, I need to accept my mother's cancer for what it is. Recently, someone suggested that my mother needed to choose her cancer for what it is and what it isn't, so that she could be free to create a possibility for what's next in her life. I couldn't really get that until today. But now I see; I can only choose that my mother have metastatic pancreatic cancer because that's what she has. There's nothing else on the menu. But in accepting the diagnosis, there is the possibility of seeing what's next in the realm of LIVING with cancer. No more knocking on doors that are already closed. We are looking for the openings. Today I am going to research new experimental approaches to pancreatic chemotherapy. Shoulders back, chin up, eyes on the horizon, Loren. You got this.

September 9, 2013
My leg is feeling much better today so I got in a little workout this morning.  Spent the rest of the day with good friends. I am not a big believer in "things happen for a reason", but I do believe that I can learn and grow from all things that happen, good and bad.  I have had, as they say, a lot of "teachable moments" these past few weeks. And they all come down to this: It's not that "living in the moment" is better; it's just that the moment is all there actually is to live in. Every other place I go to distract myself from what's going on in the present is just like taking an excursion on a boat that's still tethered to the dock. Eventually, I float back to the place that's got me hooked. And it is only in my pulling apart that twisted knot that I can really move forward. For me, untangling the knot has been figuring out new productive ways to relieve stress while my leg heals, and researching advances in pancreatic cancer treatment that might offer her more time.

September 10, 2013
My mother is beginning an experimental treatment for pancreatic cancer that has been shown to extend survival rates an average of two years. With her treatment plan moving forward, I must follow her lead. So here it is: Tomorrow, I go back to training my private clients. I will also create a workout regimen for myself that includes cardiovascular training in my wheel chair, upper body strengthening with weights and bands, and seated core work with a weighted ball. This is no time to fall apart, and I know that getting fat and flabby is just going to make a stressful time worse for me. I am really looking forward to getting back into my gym with my clients and hopefully in about a week, I will back to my classes.

September 16, 2013
At some point, I have to stop giving myself pep talks and just get on with it. I haven't written an entry in nearly a week because I finally stopped the locker room chant and went out to play. Or more precisely, out to train. My injury has pushed me to find new ways to challenge myself. I have come up with a few options for cardiovascular exercise that allow me to expel some serious stress. The first of these workouts is in my wheelchair, rolling my little heart out on the boardwalk. If you've seen me out there, I apologize...I know I look crazy. I sound crazy. And most likely, I am crazy. But I feel so much better when I am in action, rolling forward, so to speak.

To the two-legged show off on the bike who screamed at me, "You're in the bike lane!" like I was driving the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway, I say: , this IS my bike, thank you very much. Your ignorance has inspired me to pick up the pace and lap you and your wimpy wheels.

I have resumed training my clients and have come to see that it requires another level of coaching to teach without being able to fully demonstrate an exercise. In ways I never expected, my injury has given me new insight into training for myself and for coaching my clients. Mentally, being back in the gym, pushing my clients to push themselves has been very therapeutic. Next week, back to the classroom at NYSC and Rok Health and Fitness. I am determined to play full out, 100%, even if it is on only one leg.

October 1, 2013
It has been a few weeks since my last post and that is because I have been super busy! I have returned to my full schedule of exercise classes and private training sessions and feel extraordinarily grateful for those hours of the day that are filled with something other than contemplating my "situation". Now about a month into my new life as a one-legged wonder, I am starting to see the results of my lapse in rigorous exercise. Body parts are hanging where they have never hung before. I am doing my best to accept that this is temporary and that I will be able to reclaim my strength and tone when I fully recover from this injury. But I am struck by how dependent I am on intense exercise to keep my stress level from spiraling out of control. I have been exercising routinely in one form or another since I was 12 years old. While I never played any sports, I was quick to suit up for the seventies running craze and was an early participant in Swedish Gymnastics, a weightless calisthenics class set to music. Once aerobics arrived on the scene, well, I haven't stopped sweating since. Until now. These days, I don't even recognize myself without my glistening skin, without my pounding heart, without my aching muscles. And I don't recognize the screaming maniac that seems to show up in my new sagging skin either...Gotta find another way to blow off steam. Will work on that tomorrow. 
Scratch that. TODAY.