October 10th - The Movement Has Begun

It has been overwhelming to see the support from everyone to help me carry on into this next chapter of my journey.  It has helped me to reflect on the experience I had with my birthday hike and what kind of future I want to see myself in not only next year but even years down the road.  Regardless of my nursing background, it is quite obvious that I can't continue living like I am by only eating 1500 calories or less every day and having very little activity.  Or on the other end eating so much food in a day that I two days worth of calories in 24 hours.  I want to be able to be there for my son and future kids to be able to play with them outside and run around outside and be active with them, not have to play with them only when I have the energy.  Furthermore, I have to set the example for them as their father.  As Juliette's song says, it is time to be my own "hero"!

I realized writing this blog that it has been quite awhile since I gave an update to how my eating disorder recovery has been going.  So with that, here we go.  I have continued to make frequent visits with my nutritionist and eating disorder therapist and try to find a happy balance and tactic to ensure I eat for sure breakfast, lunch, and dinner consistently every day.  I felt proud to tell my nutritionist about the breakthrough I made with my birthday hike and my plan to continue being active with more running and activity.  We both discussed that this might be the way to ensure I get my three main meals in each day because in order to make sure my body is able to have enough nutrients to complete even a short run, I will need to have all three meals.  So I am excited to see how things will go.  One area that we discussed that I have some nervousness about is this coming week I will be driving out to South Dakota for clinical and will be out there for 5 days doing 12 hour shifts.  This will definitely through my day to day routine off.  We did discuss some tactics to hopefully give myself the best chance at success and continue on the right path and still allow myself to even get in training runs while out there as well.  Overall, this is probably the most optimistic and positive I have felt about my eating disorder recovery throughout my entire journey.

Lastly, I have eluded to a plan I have throughout this blog and it is time to unveil what my short term and longer term goals are in the future I have set.  In my last blog post, I talked about how one of the best times of my life where I felt so much happiness was when I was able to run for fun and be able to line up at the starting line of races and then feel that adrenaline rush as I cross the finish line have that finishers medal donned around my neck.  With that being said, I have begun the popular training program donned the appropriate Couch to 5k with the plan to finally once again step up to the starting line at the 2015 Turkey Trot with my family at my side to cheer me on to the finish line.  My hope is that this will help me continue building on smaller positives to keep a more positive self esteem built up to combat my depressed feelings that feed the binge eating and/or anorexic feelings.  After the Turkey Trot, I still plan to run other races throughout 2016 but have yet to decide which ones to do.  Even though I am still in school and will not be graduating until December next year, only needing to train for 5k's and 10k's should not cause me to much stress and time commitment to have to train hours on end several days a week in order to have the conditioning to even just finish the race.

In closing, I just want to pass onto everyone another thank you for all the support and words of encouragement you have provided me throughout all this process.  It has been quite the difficult up and down battle and finally things are looking in a more positive light.  To all of you who are reading this blog that have your own battles, I want to remind you of two words to carry with you everyday, hope and hero.  Everyday, remind yourself that no matter whatever struggles you may be facing or how difficult things may be, stay strong and keep hope in your strength and and faith to get through it all.  Nobody is ever alone as there is are always people willing to listen and help when we feel we are in our darkest times.  It just takes that single step to say "help me".  That second word comes from the song that I passed on a few days ago and have recited to myself since then.  Whether if someone is putting you down, you are experiencing an eating disorder, or some other adversity, you can be your own hero.  Even by admitting to needing help, you are being a hero to yourself by using the strength of friendship to better yourself for the community and yourself.  By taking the step of saying you will take life into your own hands and make of it what you will and decide your own future and destiny will put you in the realm of the ultimate heroes.

Below is the link again of Juliette's music video as well as the link for a free mp3 download of the song.  I hope you enjoy and thank you again for all the support.

Juliette Reilly - Hero

Juliette Reilly - Hero Digital Track FREE Download