SNA at UVU New T-Shirt Designs

Hi SNA friends,

This year we are ordering new shirts for the SNA. We would like to get input to know which designs everyone would like! Here are several options. Please go to the Survey Monkey link to complete the questions so we can get the shirts that people are the most excited for! Thanks!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y2L97KZ

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What Running Has Taught Me (So Far)

I don't post enough on this blog; just two posts ago I talked about my experience running the AF Canyon half marathon 2 years ago, and here I am training for it again! I think about this blog often and I wish I posted on it more. I enjoy writing and hearing from everyone who reads it.

Anyway, I wanted to write about training for the half. I've written here and there on Facebook about the music that inspires me to keep going, and several people have told me that I'm inspiring for being so dedicated and taking on such a hard thing. Well, I appreciate that. I'm glad that my hard work helps anyone feel inspired to do hard things in their life. Here are some of the things that I've learned along the way.

1. When I have a hard time getting started, there are always people there to support me and push me to get going. The other day I asked Facebookworld for any inspiration when I was feeling completely unmotivated to run 9 miles. I honestly considered not running that day because I simply didn't want to. However, with comments like, "You have a nice booty," "Look at where you came from," "Just one step at a time," and "Just run 1 mile. Nine times," I couldn't help but feel the love and the inspiration to go. Sometimes I feel so alone, but whenever I reach out, I'm overwhelmed with support and love.

2. With that being said, nobody can run the miles for me. I think this is why I like running (despite also hating it, but that's a different story): I feel proud of myself when I cross the finish line, because nobody did it for me. Every step is my choice to keep moving forward.

3. There are so many small things that make the miles a little bit more bearable. Music is by far at the top of the list; nothing compares to its influence on my running. However, here are some things that give me an extra boost along the way.

•  Every time someone gives me a thumbs up or says something nice to me when I run, like,
  "Wow, you're ambitious!" or "You're doing a good job!"
• When I run with a cool breeze blowing on my face. The heat really takes a lot of energy out of me, so this rainy weather the last few days has been really nice.
• Stopping for a second to smell the lilacs that have been so beautiful this year. Lilacs remind me of my mom and my grandma. Not that I really knew my grandma very well before she died; I was only 2 at the time, but I hear that she really liked them. I haven't been able to resist the urge to stop and take in the beautiful smell when I run past a big bush of them. Seeing them reminds me of how loved I am. I know it's a really cheesy sentiment for a bunch of flowers, but it's true.
• Every time a driver stops their car and waves me forward at a crosswalk or whatever. I know most people are doing it because I'm a pedestrian and it's the law... but I like to think that some people are doing it so that I don't lose my momentum and can keep going. Kind of like they're rooting for me a little bit. 
• Okay, this one is really silly. But every time I'm running and someone passes me in their car, I think to myself, "You know? The whole time that that person in the car has known me (the 30 seconds that they've seen me on the street), I've been a runner." There are a lot of cars on the road and it makes it so that I don't want to stop, because then the people in their cars will know me as the runner who stopped. For some reason that's motivating to me.

4. Breaks and rest days are important, and I'm not about to be hard on myself because I need them. Sometimes I truly can't keep running. If I try to run a hill, I promise you I will burn out within minutes, and I won't have the energy or the stamina to run the entire hill. Sometimes I have to walk. The other day, I hurt my ankle running. I walked about half of my miles that day, but I finished. Another day recently, I was scheduled to run 4 or 5 miles, and my legs were so sore from running and work the day before that I could hardly walk. So I took that day off. And you know what? The next day I was feeling great and was able to do the 7 miles that I was scheduled. 

Sometimes I feel like we're all trying to be so perfect and do so much that we forget that breaks or rest days are essential to our health. Along the same vein, mistakes or mess ups don't mean that we're failures if we're trying to reach a goal. Just because I didn't run one day doesn't take away from the fact that I've run 4 days a week for 6 weeks up to this point. It doesn't mean I messed everything up and have to start all over. Goals are not an all-or-nothing deal. 

5. I run really slowly. I'm sure there are plenty of people that could walk briskly at my pace. But even my slow pace is hard for me and I know I'm pushing myself to even go that fast. And you know what? I'm okay with that. 

6. Boob sweat is a problem, y'all. I learned this a couple years ago when I ran a 5K and stuck my cell phone in my bra because for some reason workout pants don't have pockets. After the 5K I was horrified when I realized that my phone no longer worked due to "water" damage. That's no lie, folks. That actually happened to me. I had to buy a new phone after that. I wish there were a better solution for boob sweat than the current solution, which is nothing. 

7. You guys, this next one is really important to me: when running is at its hardest for me, when my legs feel tight, my feet are aching, and my lungs are burning, the best thing for me to do is to lean into the run and keep going. This idea of leaning into the hard things has had a profound effect on other aspects of my life. 

Don't forget that I'm a believer in breaks and rests. You have to find out for yourself when it's best for you to rest and when it's best for you to push yourself. But these moments of pushing myself past what I think my breaking point is have been the most rewarding and the moments of the most growth.

I have a love/hate relationship with running. It's hard, it takes so much time to train, I complain the whole time that I'm doing it. But I'm learning so much from it, and I'm so grateful to be healthy enough to actually be able to run. 

Happy Birthday to ME!

Back in 2015, I had the most depressing birthday ever. I was turning 30 and NOT happy about it at all. Fat, poor, single, and working a job that I hated made me reluctant to admit that that was really my life and that’s how I was leaving my 20s.

Well, today is my 34^th birthday, and things are different. Not completely different; I’m still poor and single, but I’m much less fat, and I have a job that I care about a lot. I’m probably healthier than I ever have been in my adult life. I even have a couple of 5Ks and a half marathon under my belt.

34!!!

On top of that, I get to go to school. There’s a quote that Google says Isaac Newton said (I don’t know if he really did or if that’s just an internet thing, but regardless, I still like the quote), “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Whenever I lug around 50 pounds of textbooks, I think about that quote. With the scientific geniuses, the healthcare advocates, and even the billions of people who have lived and died who we’ve been able to learn from, we can see more and do more to improve lives. Hopefully that makes sense and doesn’t just sound like rambling gibberish. What I mean to say is that I’m amazed every day that we know so much about the human body and how it works. It’s amazing to me that we’ve come so far. I know, I know, we have SUCH a long way to go still, but that doesn’t take away the miracles that have led to where we are now.

Just as incredible to me is that I get to spend my time with some kind, generous, talented, smart, and fun people in the nursing program. I mean, seriously, how lucky can one person be?

I’m a firm believer that 99% of the time, there are things that I can do to make my life and my situation better. There are things out of my control, of course, but if the last 4 years have been proof of nothing else, it’s been proof that the power to improve was in my hands. I chose to have bariatric surgery. I choose every day to make healthier choices. I chose to apply to UVU’s very competitive nursing program. I choose every day to study, do my homework, and take advantage of the educational and professional opportunities given to me. As difficult and frustrating dating can be, I choose to try it, anyway, in the hopes that I can find someone that can be a good match for me (and who I can be a match for). In “The Princess and the Frog,” Tiana sings, “I remember Daddy told me fairy tales can come true. But you gotta make ‘em happen, it all depends on you!” Despite the fact that I never thought that my own fairy tale would involve a life-altering weight loss surgery or changing a whole bunch of adult diapers, I couldn’t agree more. Here's the song, by the way. I listen to it when I'm almost done running on the treadmill at the gym. 

The point of this post is to say that I’m in a much better place at age 34 than I was at age 30. I genuinely believe that all of the improvements in my life have stemmed from making the decision to have bariatric surgery. Because of the work I put into losing 150 pounds, I realized that I’m capable of doing other hard things. Health, dating, school, and a cool career are all blessings that have come because of the surgery. I wouldn’t have, and COULDN’T have done these hard things without the experience of having surgery. I'm so grateful that I had the surgery and for all of the blessing that have followed it. 

I’m a lucky 34 year old, that’s all I have to say.

Hello, My Name is Erin, and I'm a Foodaholic

I've been thinking a lot lately about food addiction. I know that food addiction is a controversial term, some people saying that everyone is "addicted" to food because we can't live without it, and other people saying that it's a glutton's justification for eating whatever they want. I don't know how to argue with people beyond saying that my behavior with food mirrors that of someone with an addiction to alcohol or drugs. Here's a list from WebMD describing signs of a drug addiction, and in parenthesis I'll add how it applies to me:

• You're not using medications in the way they're prescribed. You take larger doses, or take the drug more often than the prescription calls for. Or you use the medicine in a form not prescribed, such as crushing pills.  (Eating food other than the "prescribed" way, like eating all day long,  eating too much, always eating junk food rather than healthy food)
• You go to more than one doctor to get prescriptions for the same drug or problem. (Going from restaurant to restaurant ordering food at each so that I'm not judged for buying a lot at one place or for eating at one place multiple times a day. Yes, I'm that person.)
• You use meds prescribed for other people. (Eating other people's food. "Are you going to eat that?" is a familiar question.)
• You avoid telling the doctor about all the drugs you're taking. (Nobody knows how much I used to eat. There's no way I wanted to tell anyone when I ate an entire cheesecake in a day and then almost bought another one because I was craving more.)
• You keep taking a drug after it's no longer needed for a health problem. (Eating food when you're not hungry anymore, or even when you're completely stuffed you still want more. Enough is never enough.)
• You need more and more of a substance to get the same effects, and you can take more before you feel an effect. (Again, enough is never enough. I could eat all day, every day, and still feel like I HAD TO HAVE THE FOOD OR I WAS GOING TO GO INSANE.  It's the elusive "high" that people talk about that gets harder and harder to reach.)
• You feel strange when the drug wears off. You may be shaky, depressed, sick to your stomach, sweat, or have headaches. You may also be tired or not hungry. In severe cases, you could even be confused, have seizures, or run a fever. (Obviously I wouldn't have seizures from going without food for a couple of hours, or even days, but yes, depressed, angry, or having obsessive thoughts about food. Actually, when I eat a normal amount of food (e.g. not eating until I was stuffed to the gills), the way I would describe the feeling is just "empty." Not physically; I'm not saying that I'm still hungry. Just emotionally and mentally empty. So you could probably call that depression, I guess.)
• You can't stop yourself from using the drug, even if you want to. You are still using even though it's making bad things happen in your life, like trouble with friends, family, work, or the law. (YAAAAAHHHHHHHHSSSSS. I can be SO good on a diet for a long time, and then it's like an out of body experience watching myself scarf down a box of donuts and 2 pints of Hagaan Daaz.  I know I don't want it, I don't even like it that much, and I know it's bad for me, SO BAD, but there have been times where I felt that I LITERALLY COULD NOT STOP MYSELF. )
• You spend a lot of your time thinking about the drug: how to get more, when you'll take it, how good you feel, or how bad you feel afterward. (I think about food constantly, from the minute I wake up, to the minute I fall asleep. If I'm having a converstaion with and seem invested, I am, but just know that a part of me is trying really hard to keep eye contact with you so that I don't stare longingly at whatever it is that you're eating, and another part of me is planning on buying some of whatever it is for myself after we're done talking.)
• You have a hard time giving yourself limits. You might say you'll only use "so much" but then can't stop and end up using twice that amount. Or you use it more often than you meant to. (There's no such thing as portion control. There is no such thing as having "just one cookie instead of 18." Like I said, there are times I could not stop myself, even if I start the day with the best intentions.)
• You've lost interest in things you once liked to do. (Eating takes over everything else. There have been plenty of times I've turned down invitations to do things with friends and family, because I was planning on bingeing that night.)
• You've begun having trouble doing normal daily things, like cooking or working. (Okay, cooking is a dumb example in this case, because that's probably what I'd be doing. I guess I could always do what I needed to, like going to work or church, but food is always a distraction. Probably because, as opposed to other drugs, I can get food at work or church.)
• You drive or do other dangerous things when you are on the drug. (I saw a sign on the road the other day that said "Put down the burger and fries and just drive," so it must actually be a problem.)
• You borrow or steal money to pay for drugs. (Uuum, yeah... Stealing food from other people is probably one of the more shameful and embarrassing things I've done, and I'm so sorry about it, so please be kind, because this is really hard to talk about. I have a handful of memories from childhood relating to this, actually. Stealing a mini Tootsie Roll from a gas station; stealing cinnamon bears at my grandma's house when later I found out she was going to give those to us, anyway;  swiping food from family or roommates that obviously was not meant for me.)
• You hide the drug use or the effect it is having on you from others. (Yep. Like I said, nobody ever knew how much I ate, and even with how much I ate, that was me showing restraint. Nobody knew how much I actually WANTED to eat, which was even worse.)
• You're having trouble getting along with co-workers, teachers, friends, or family members. They complain more about how you act or how you've changed. (Nobody complained about it, but SO many people expressed concern)
• You sleep too much or too little, compared to how you used to. (If I wasn't eating, I always wanted to sleep to pass the time until I could eat again)
• You look different. You may have bloodshot eyes, bad breath, shakes or tremors, frequent bloody noses. (Weight gain. Duh)
• You have a new set of friends with whom you do drugs and go to different places to use the drugs. (I have friends and family who I can depend on to eat junk food with me, and who let me get away with it. If someone calls me out, I can be manipulative and sneaky enough to get my way, or I'll just go hang out with someone else, or be by myself. It's absolutely not something that I'm proud of. They're habits I'm trying really hard to break.)

Things are slightly better now. I wish I could say that the surgery has cured me and that I don't have these problems. Since my surgery, I've had times where I've been really good about defeating these, and times where these habits and feelings have crept up on me. This is a conversation and a battle that constantly goes on in my head, and it is RELENTLESS. Sometimes I feel like it's such a burden that it's squashing me. Other times I feel strong and that I can actually defeat it.

I don't know how exactly I wormed my way so far down this rabbit hole. There's no one thing that I can pinpoint and say, "This is why I'm fat and can't get away from things that are bad for me." It was gradual over a lifetime. As such, I know there's no one thing that will help me overcome this addiction. And the truth of the matter is that I don't think that these problems will ever leave me. I don't imagine that I'll ever be 100% free. But I'm trying really hard to make sure that I have more good days than bad.

Hopefully you guys who read this post will better understand what I mean when I say that I have food addiction. Whatever the official stance is about food addiction, I believe that it's real and it's something that I have. Please don't write it off, or underestimate how difficult this is. And do me a favor and don't tell me that you have it, too, when you're eating your third cookie and worried about losing 20 pounds. I want to be perfectly understood when I say that food addiction could have killed me if I hadn't had weight loss surgery, and it was ruining my life. It still does, some days, and unless I'm careful and work really hard, it could still do both of those things. 

I don't want to end this on a negative note. Despite the difficulties, life is better than it has been for a long time, and it'll continue to improve if I keep working hard. I've lost 145 pounds, I'm more active, my dating life is better, I have a cooler wardrobe, and I have a healthy life to look forward to. That's nothing to sneeze at.

It's a Race, I'm Winning!

Last Saturday I did what was UNTHINKABLE last year. I ran 13.1 miles! It was the American Fork Canyon Race Against Cancer. I just wanted to share some of the highlights.

1. My awesome cousin Sarah and I woke up crazy early in the morning around 3:30 AM, to meet at the finish line of the race to be shuttled up to the starting line, which was at Tibble Fork park up American Fork Canyon.

2. In our little goody bag that they gave us when we picked up our packets the day before, they included a pair of gloves and an emergency blanket. I thought, "Wow, those are weird things to include in a goody bag for a race," and promptly took them out and left them in my room. I can't tell you how much I regretted that! Waiting up at the starting line for like 2 hours in the frigid mountain air was awful! Luckily after a while, someone went around passing out more emergency blankets to the dummies who took theirs out of their goody bag, and I got warmed up a bit.
3. Everyone was wrapped up in their shiny, silver emergency blankets, which made everyone look like giant baked potatoes.

4. When the race finally started at 6AM, the sun was coming up over the mountains. The first 8 miles of the race was down AF canyon, and it was cool and shady. It was beautiful!
5. I'm SO grateful that they had little sample packets of energy jelly beans at the water stations. I had one pack of energy chews, and went through them really quickly. I didn't realize how much I'd need!
6. Since it was the Race Against Cancer, they had a bunch of signs along the way with quotes from people who had either survived cancer, or from people whose loved ones had lost the battle with cancer. It was uplifting and encouraging to read about people's experiences along the way. A lot of people had shirts or temporary tattoos with the names of people they were honoring in their run. I was running in honor of my aunt Laurie, who died of colon cancer.

7. Sarah and I stopped at one of the restrooms at like mile 5 or something like that. There was a long line, and a lot of people that we had worked hard to pass on the way ended up running past us again. So as soon as we were done with the bathrooms, we pushed ourselves to pass all those people again. There was one lady in a black and white skirt and purple shirt that we kept leap-frogging with for the rest of the race. We'd pass her, then she'd pass us, then we'd pass her... I'm pretty sure in the end, we finished before her!

8. The first 8 miles were all downhill, and not only did that make it a heck of a lot easier, it helped our time, too. At mile 9, I really started feeling the effects of running for so long, especially since it got hillier when we got out of the canyon. I'm super impressed with us, though, because we still ran all the hills, except one. There was one hill between miles 11 and 12 that might as well have been Mount Everest. I had to walk that one. Sarah still jogged circles around me while I walked it, but that's okay.

9. Around mile 10, we saw my cousin Anne bicycling in her neighborhood. That was a fun coincidence. She turned around and rode next to us for a minute. It was encouraging to see another familiar face.

10. Around mile 11, I really started to regret not bringing pain killers with me. OUCH.

11. Somewhere around mile 11, we met up with the people running the 5K. I saw a few people that I worked with. I knew we were close to the end, but meeting up with them gave me a boost of energy.

12. At mile 13, when we only had 0.1 mile left, we had enough energy to "sprint" to the finish line (my sprint is more like a jog, but it was the best I could do!).

13. Nearing the finish line, I started seeing family and friends cheering me on. My friend Walker and his mom, my aunt and uncle Stephen and Nancy, my cousin Linda and her daughter, and Robyn and my dad. My dad was right at the end taking pictures of me, and Robyn was of course there being totally prepared to help me and Sarah out with water and stuff for the end of the race. I'm just now realizing that I didn't get any pictures of me and my dad! Dang it. But he was there, just on the other side of the camera

14. I got really emotional at the end. It had been a LOT of hours of training. More than physically hard, it had been mentally hard to push myself for months to work up to the 13 miles. There were days that I would cry after my run because it was so difficult. It was also extremely rewarding. I'd never pushed myself so hard for so long before. And it wasn't just me; other people were there for me, pushing me along the way, and running right next to me! It was a little overwhelming. So there at the finish line, Robyn gave me a hug and didn't let go for a long time.

15. It took a LONG time after we stopped running for me to catch my breath. Not only that, I was in a ton of pain. So I took some Tylenol that someone had brought for me and walked around for a little while.

16. THEY HAD FREE MASSAGES!!!!! It was TOTALLY worth running 13 miles for a free massage. I'm not even being sarcastic. I love massages.

Anyhoo, there you go. Those are the highlights of the day. I would have added the free Kneader's french toast breakfast that they had at the end as a highlight, but I can't have bread, so I didn't get to enjoy that! I did cheat and have a popsicle, though. Not quite the Kneader's breakfast, but it was still a treat.

New June

Several years ago I made a New Year's resolution to not make any more New Year's Resolutions. It's the best resolution that I've ever made. The reason why is because I didn't want to feel obligated to make resolutions just because of an arbitrary holiday. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact the at least once a year, we collectively push ourselves and each other to be better. I was just tired of being asked what my resolutions were, when throughout the year I make goals already.

So here we are in June, and I'm working on a couple of things already, the main thing being training for a half marathon. I do have a new resolution (a "New June's" resolution?) to write twice a week; once to update my blog, and once to work on my creative writing. I realized that I haven't updated my blog about my weight loss journey in a long time- since January!! Yikes. This is the cycle that I go through- something big happens, and I write all about it for a while, and then I get overwhelmed with keeping up with it, so I stop for months at a time. So I decided that once a week, as far as the blog goes, I'll just write whatever dumb thing comes to mind and not worry too much about perfection. Then hopefully I won't get overwhelmed.

A while back when I was in a human development class, I remember learning that in my age group, people are deciding what kind of contribution they want to make to the world. Most children, teenagers, and young adults spend so much time taking, needing, and absorbing what the world has to offer, and once people get to my age, there comes a time when they have to choose: do I keep taking, or do I contribute? When I go to libraries and bookstores, there's always an incredible feeling of KNOWLEDGE and EXPERIENCE. It's like I feel smarter just by walking inside. Don't you think that's amazing? Hundreds of years of knowledge packed into a book? A lifetime of thoughts, sadness, laughter, and anger on a few pages? Hundreds of thousands of minutes and hours pondering of how life really is or what it could be? Dreaming of new worlds? I do.

Obviously not every book impacts everybody, or is necessarily even worth reading (I'm looking at you, Twilight). I think that the stories and books could be just as important or life-changing to the writer as they are for the reader. JK Rowling was once asked where she'd be without her writing; her response was, "depressed." Hopefully writing the blog more faithfully will help me figure out how to live this crazy life, and the creative writing will be a fun outlet and a healthy habit to develop on top of all the running that I'm doing.

Wish me luck.