Front-Strike Success

I haven't written a lot lately; have been pretty wrapped up in thinking about other parts of my life and there doesn't seem to be much to report here.  I have had a little break from traveling, but it kicks up again for another 2-3 week stretch soon. All the travel has sort of arrested my progress on the exercise reduction, since it's incredibly hard for me to let myself cut back when I know I'm facing several weeks of planes/shared hotel rooms with little chance to work out at all.  I'm really so, so ready to have a life that isn't controlled by workout schedules, though, and want to make progress on that a bigger priority once I'm back from being on the road.  And I do think I have been handling the reduced exercise conditions during travel pretty well, so that's a different form of progress that has been a success.

Speaking of exercise, I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but D., my dietician, gave me the green light to test out running again--albeit with some strict rules.  No more than 2-3 times a week, and for a very modest amount of time each session, and it has to be a substitute for other exercise (not added on top of what I was already doing).  We were talking about my exercise patterns, and sort of hit on something I'd never consciously realized before: my exercise was always very rigid, but didn't really get uber-excessive in terms of volume/time until I had to give up running due to my joint health (basically ran my knees into the ground by the time I was 21--not an unexpected result from going years without any days off during a period of severe food restriction, low bone density, and a few stress fractures/bone spurs).  

After I had to quit running, it was like I was still trying to get that endorphin hit, doing more and more and more of other exercises but never getting the same runner's high.  So D. and I agreed that I can start testing myself on runs again in order to help me tolerate larger cuts in overall exercise time.  My knees were the main reason I'd stayed out of running for 4ish years, so I studied a lot on proper form, bought some special front-strike running shoes (not the funky vibram toe shoes, though!), and gave it a try.  And so far....absolutely NO joint pain! Nada.  I'm amazed and thrilled.  It's murder on my calves, because with front-strike stride they absorb a lot of the impact that my knees used to take, but they'll get stronger.  Especially since I'm being good and taking plenty of non-run days between sessions.  Also, I started on the couch-to-5k program for designing runs, so it's really not strenuous (considering I was definitely not starting from "couch", cardio-wise).  

Anyway, of course I do NOT mean to imply that taking up running is recommended as a recovery strategy, and I don't think anyone should add to their workout in recovery at all without approval of their treatment team, but the point here (sanctioned by my team) is for me to learn how to add back in an activity I enjoyed pre-ED, but in a healthy and balanced way. I've been doing pretty excellent with the food side of things, especially given my recent travel schedule. I had a recent health workup that showed I'm very stable medically, even if I do have some weight left to gain. I definitely feel myself shifting more towards a fitness than thinness/calorie-burn oriented workout mentality, which is really refreshing and empowering.

(NOTE, though, that bloodwork can sometimes be misleadingly normal for people that are doing poorly with an ED, it's weird like that.  The only things that ever came up abnormal for me, even at my sickest, were liver enzymes and T4 levels).

In other news, I met a friend for breakfast this morning and had a nice catch-up session, which made me feel great and amazingly normal.  I need to start working on my thesis defense talk, which means it looks like a great day to clean my apartment. ;)

Despite the sky-high background stress, my mood has been great recently.  I credit the days getting longer and the huge relief that I am wrapping up this era of my professional life and moving on to something bigger and better soon.

That being said, where I'll be at the next step is still entirely up in the air, as is Match's, which is stressful as hell but we can't do a whole lot about it at this point.  I'm getting very worn out on some aspects of the long distance relationship setup.  It's just not ideal emotionally, financially, hormonally, schedule-wise, etc...but it's been worth it so far, and we're taking/enduring it a day at a time.  I'm not sure at all how things will play out at the next stage.

I hope everyone had a great weekend, love y'all.