How do you pick and choose what you want to talk about? It's tricky I think I have gotten better at handling it, but it's like my biggest fear is that it's going to get worse. And like, that's just gonna suck. Not just for me but for Christina. But I just go from feeling realy good and happy about life to very quickly just geting sucked into a hole and I can't stop it. It's just this overwhelming sadness that has no purpose. It shouldn't be there, right? So it's really frustrating. Sad, makes me angry. All those kind of emotions. It would last for a long time, like 3 4 5 6 7 days, a week, where I am spending most of the time laying in bed, just trying to sleep it off. Since I've met Christina I've been able to have someone to talk to about it. It's not even that we talk about it, we don't talk about it a lot. But she's just there to comfort me really, that's what she does. She's had her own experiences with it. The biggest change for me was that the biggest time I was in denial I had depression, when I got on these episodes, part of me would be like "You're fine, get your ass out of bed, as simple as that". And it wasn't, so I would fight it. And I think the change was to accept it and recognize that I am going into the hole and just embrace it. [...] Just allow myself to think about this, "It really sucks". And I wish this didn't happen to me. And that has been a huge coping strategy to me. And I've been able to shorten the episodes, as upto as short as a day.
Christopher McDougall, in his bestselling book, Born to Run, compared one group of ultrarunners to beatniks: â... poor and ignored and free from all expectations and inhibitions.â
Establishing a threshold for movement allows for only two options: success or failure. When people believe they must achieve a specific target in order to make movement worthwhileâwhether itâs ten minutes or twenty minutes or forty-five minutes âtheir restricted definition of what success looks like actually thwarts their ability to successfully stick with it when life throws a curveball. [p. 88/264]
I was an ordinary young woman, trying to determine what was best for my body, my health, my spirit, mostly on my own. Slowly, by experimenting, by adding cross-training to my schedule and tweaking my diet, I began to figure it out. I found what worked for me by trial and error. I learned that I couldnât do cardio that had weight training or too much resistance on the machines. I realized how to burn calories without adding bulk to my frame, and I discovered which cross-training helped me to strengthen my core and lengthen my muscles in a way that would not just benefit the structure of my body, but make me a stronger dancer as well. I discovered which foods gave me the fuel that my body needed after expending as much energy as I do every day. I devised a plan for how to eat so that I could keep my body lean and powerful, and I realized that dietary discipline doesnât have to mean deprivation. Now I want to share all that Iâve learned with you. [p. 10/302]
Iâm a woman who as a child used a motel railing as a ballet barre, so I believe in the power of improvisation and being able to exercise right where you are. Your bedroom mattress can be your springboard; your natural body weight can be your ballast. Change is not easy. It took years for me to find the balance of exercise and nutrition that worked best for my physique. But I also know from my personal experience that itâs never too late to make change happen. Each morning, as the sun filters through your bedroom window and you wipe the sleep from your eyes, you can make a fresh start, you can rededicate yourself to your ongoing journey to take control of your body, your health, and your mental well-being. [p. 11/302]