Snacking on Elephants

  The other day I found myself in the middle of a steep hill climb on the Peloton.  We were instructed to "build our road" meaning add as much or as little resistance to fit where you were in that moment.  The instructor used the time to draw a parallel between this literal road to her personal road in life and described said personal road as "sparkly".  This got me thinking about my own personal road and what that might look like.  Oh, pre-COVID I had that road figured out.  Upward trajectory at work, growing business, the height of fitness, kicking ass on the Spartan course....  Oh yes, I had it all figured out, and no, my road was not "sparkly"  it was more a sleek black fast track road to the top.  Then COVID hit like a cyclone, the world shut down, healthcare changed forever with burn out rates at an all time high, myself included.  I developed life long issues as a result of my own battle with COVID, and my business was placed on p...

 I now have been traveling for work full time for 13 months.  I would say from a wellness perspective it has been tough to navigate to say the very least.  Now, I know what you are thinking...is this where the previously crowned Mama Shark admits she hasn't worked out in 13 months and has lived on a steady diet of fatty takeout and now has fallen off the horse completely, setting the stage for a glorious story of redemption? Actually, no.  None of that is true.  I have stayed on the horse, maybe sitting a little side saddle, but still on the horse.  Since developing gluten allergy and having to go gluten free months ago, fatty takeout most assuredly will make me sick.  Instead, I have opted for hotels with kitchens to keep my diet on point.  No, this little elephant snack is more a story of consistency and balance.  When I went back to review my workouts over the last year, there is never a week there is less than three, and in some weeks as ...

 Swimming through mud.  Yep that’s the best way to describe the last few weeks. I just was not able to get from point A to point B in any task. Take my broken furnace for example. Three trips out from the furnace guy, the first was the assessment, the second was the "fix" only he had the wrong parts, third was the same.  Good news though, it is now “rigged” to work until they can make a fourth trip out to fix it for real, date of said repair to be determined. Shall I give an update on my bank hack? Let’s see. Initiate a transfer from old bank to new bank. Denied. Initiate from new bank, marked as fraud, twice. Paychecks placed in the wrong accounts. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. We are nearing a month of this and it still isn't taken care of. Try to travel to the west coast for work?  Sit on a connecting plane for 40 mins only to be grounded have  to be routed to a different city before finally getting to my actual destination, for a total of 16 hours of travel. Thing...

Funny thing about the notion of self care.  It seems to be out there everywhere.  It's splashed all over social media as THE thing to do.  The metaphorical refilling of the empty cup slowly drained in response to the stressors of life so that you can help others.  What is self care anyway? Is it something where we participate in, an activity that gracefully fills our empty cup with gentle flowing water like a glorious waterfall to achieve balance with the rest of our lives and bring our soul into center? Or is it really more of a self preservation measure done in fits and spurts when the world becomes so heavy we just simply shut down until we can hurriedly find that proverbial eye dropper to put just a few drops in the empty cup so we can keep going just a little while longer, a quick mani here, a quick pedi there....  I gotta be honest. I really resemble the eye dropper.  I work on the road every other week, 6 days on, ten hours at a time, often on the ot...

 Fucking COVID. I suppose all new blog launches should begin with profanity when it matters, or maybe it's just my jaded view when it comes to the pandemic.  Heading into the pandemic I had so many great things in my life.  I had finally left my lifelong obesity behind for good.  I was in top physical condition for a 50 year old.  I ran Spartans of every distance like a badass and even completed the Dopey Challenge, 48 miles in four days just before the world shut down.  I had a successful online support group, I ran a charity that was growing by leaps and bounds, with my professional life as a nurse practitioner taking off in ways I never dreamed possible.  Yes, I was taking on the world like a proverbial great white shark with a no excuses mentality when it came to tackling issues.  I even had, dare I say it myself, a fairly inspirational blog that drew from popular song lyrics to teach valuable life lessons I myself had learned throughout that ...