Just one lifetime. Yes there's only one.
At Mia and Julian’s wedding last November, it was a priority for me to have 100 percent range of motion in my shoulder so I could perform in the surprise wedding flash mob Adin choreographed. I achieved the range of motion but not so much the actual dance steps! You can see the video here.
Just one life to live
Assuming that we’ll make it
We’ve no choice but to take it - Just One Lifetime (Sting+Shaggy)
Last year, around this time, about a month before Mia and Julian’s wedding, I was sitting in Dr. David Moss’s office telling him that I had a debilitating range of motion issue in my shoulder that was preventing me from performing a dance Adin had choreographed for the surprise flash mob at the reception.
Dr. Moss smiled. He’s a member of the practice at Washington Orthopedics and Sports Medicine that has supported me among their clients that come from the Washington, D.C., professional sports and dance worlds. He removed a joint from one of my fingers probably on the same day he might have fixed a Caps finger.
“A flash mob?”
“It’s with the bridal party and groomsmen and the Mother of the Groom. We’re dancing to Pitbull’s Feel This Moment and I can’t lift my arms, which I need to do.”
“You are the first patient who’s come in here prepping for a flash mob,” he said.
“Let’s do this.”
After steroid injections and physical therapy, ice and heat, cutting my running mileage, I’m nearly at the end of dealing with my shoulder issues. At the wedding I danced full out for that flash mob, even if it’s been a struggle getting back to lifting weights or holding planks.
One of the most frequent questions people asked me when I was promoting Getting My Bounce Back was how to get that endorphin rush now that I’ve got a fitness habit. Now that I’ve got my bounce back.
“Won’t you continue to need to run longer distances or train harder and harder to get the same high?”
At the time, I nodded my head and thought, yeah that’s the challenge, right? Continuing to progress in order to achieve the same rush. I worried openly about this, because I firmly believe especially as I get older, exercising is the single most important factor in helping me achieve a sense of well being.
Would I need to exercise more? What exactly does “more” look like? How would I fit “more” into my work schedule?
Here’s where I’ve come down on this.
Now that I’ve got a meaningful exercise regimen, I have stopped thinking about it.
Exercising is simply part of my everyday life. I factor it into my routine, whether it’s a workday or a weekend or whether I’m on vacation. I don’t make any special accommodations to run or swim or to work out, and although this means I may not be able to exercise every day the way I used to when I was training for a triathlon or a marathon, that is completely ok. I naturally crave moving around, and this is a result of getting a fitness habit. It’s not something I need to do as if it were a chore, which is what I felt early on when I began my fitness journey.
And now exercise is no longer transactional, as in if I want to eat dessert I’m gonna need to run it off, which is how I felt midway into my journey. I thought about this when I was watching Brittany Runs a Marathon on Thanksgiving night. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that you might get obsessive about exercising when you start to take exercising seriously and do something crazy like run a marathon, for example, or perform in a flash mob at your daughter’s wedding. And like Brittany, I needed to experience a little obsession too before getting to a good place.
A few weeks ago I was chatting with my sister Ilene about the constant struggles both of us face regarding maintaining a healthy weight for our small frames when she reminded me what it is she values most about working out.
“I stopped exercising to lose weight years ago,” she said.
“It’s all about feeling good.”
That’s it, right?
And incorporating moving around into my day every day even when I don’t feel like it. That’s when I get the most bang for my buck. That’s when I see the pay off. When I know enough to get in the same room with a doc when I need to address my range of motion issues instead of sitting it out.
And navigating to the parking spot in the last row of the lot, as far away as possible from where I need to go. (That’s a Weight Watcher’s tip from back in the day.)
Or getting off the train a stop early or taking a lunchtime walk. Because for me moving around little by little every single day adds up.
As Adin and I were taking our places at the start of the Prospect Park Track Club’s Turkey Trot in Brooklyn on Thanksgiving morning, a woman turned to me and said, “You’re not going to trample over me, are you?”
She quickly told me that this was her first time “wearing a race bib” and that she was 79. She was with her daughter and they were holding hands. They registered to walk - Adin and I were registered to run the 5 miles.
“Do I look like I can trample over anybody?” I said. She told me her name was Amy.
“Have you done this before?” Amy asked.
“Yes,” I said, without hesitating. I was so excited for her, because I remembered how great I felt at my first Turkey Chase. It was a 10K in Rockville, and I did that one with Mia.
But in a minute, the race was about to begin. We turned on the music as we shared a set of AirPods, and got pumped. Yet although Adin and I put together a great playlist for this one, at least for me, regardless of what we were listening to or talking about, all that was in my head throughout the 5 miles was one thing.
Go Amy.
During my podcast interview with Dr. Chris Friesen on learning to crave what is good for you, Dr. Friesen mentioned that we are naturally drawn to what is comfortable, what is easy, but that we can begin to make a change so that what we’re craving is moving off of the couch instead of sinking into it.
I’ve learned so much on this journey. But the big thing for me now is that I am not thinking about any of it.
I’m just doing it.
And craving it.
In spite of what I’m facing - whether it’s a shoulder injury or a hamstring strain - I’m moving around and making exercise matter.
And while I’m barely noticing the effort it takes to get out there, I’ve never been more present or aware of the impact it continues to have on my day to day. Over the past three years I’ve changed assignments twice in my job at the State Department and each one has required a steep learning curve. Yet gone are overwhelming feelings of stress or worries about being inadequate or unprepared that previously would creep into my psyche as I would embark on something new and challenging. I’m centered and balanced and most of the time filled with a healthy dose of job satisfaction, of knowing I’m doing something that matters and doing it well. Or well enough.
High performers in every walk of life have often talked about the value they place on their exercise regimen.
I get it.
But not necessarily because exercising might make me better at my job, although I believe it does.
It’s more than that. Recently I came across an article that reported on an unpublished study by German psychologist Jennifer Bellingtier who highlighted the role feeling in control has on how young you tend to feel as you age. Psychologists call this your "subjective age," how old you feel at any given age.
In the study, Bellingtier surveyed two groups of volunteers every day over the course of 9 days, asking them how old they felt that day and how in control they felt. While both groups reported changes in their subjective age from day to day, participants in the older group, between the ages of 60 - 90, said they tended to feel younger on days they felt more in control. In the younger group, 18 to 36, fluctuations were related to health and stress.
Even making small decisions for yourself - for example, deciding what time to eat or what to eat or what time to go to sleep - can enhance your sense of empowerment and ultimately enhance your agency and contribute to your sense of well being, the researchers found. And this matters because scientists have found that feeling younger than your age can lower your risk of dementia and that your subjective age may be just as important to your health as your chronological age.
I mention this because while the study focuses on feeling “younger,” I think what’s at the core is continuing to find ways to feel good day after day, year after year. And if that means focusing on what we can control then go ahead, continue to pick your own beach book and decide for yourself what you think about the state of our democracy or when and what to eat.
It’s been 5 years since establishing a significant exercise regimen - to the point where I hardly think about it anymore - and I know exercise is the major driver in how I’m feeling and how I’m dealing with the world around me and how in control I tend to feel moment to moment.
And I bet that’s what was driving Amy to wake up early, dress for a chilly morning, and safety-pin a number to her clothes on a day of Thanksgiving.
Go Amy.
Listen to my Turkey Trot Brooklyn playlist on Apple Music or on Spotify.
It’s a blurry photo I know - but I think it captures the spirit and the joy of the moment, right? About to cross the finish at the Brooklyn Turkey Trot on November 28, 2019, with my son, Adin. So grateful I get to do this!