IIN Live

This past weekend I went to NYC to attend the IIN Live conference, and it was honestly such a magical experience! Getting to meet so many other past and present students of the school, and just to be in the same room as so many like minded people was inspiring. We heard from several awesome speakers, and Joshua Rosenthal, the school director, had us do lots of exercises to interact with the people around us.

It was held at Jazz at Lincoln Center, a super beautiful theater in the Time Warner Center. I think my favorite speaker was probably Daniel Amen, who spoke about how your lifestyle impacts your brain(which no pun intended, I've never though about before). He showed scans of people's brains as they age, and how certain things such as alcohol and obesity affect the size and mass of your brain. Being fat physically makes your brain smaller! I was blown away at finding that out. He also showed that if you take care of your brain, you can reverse damage done to it previously, and in fact make it younger. Fascinating stuff! 

Sadie Nardini also did a short talk and mini yoga practice. I love her Youtube videos so it was such a treat getting to see her in person, she has such amazing energy. She spoke about following your dreams, and when people telling you that you can't do something, tell them 'watch me'. I know there's always such a long journey at the beginning of any success story, but I love hearing the backstory, of how they were challenged as well. It keeps me motivated!

One thing I felt in the auditorium that I've never felt in any learning situation before was such love, for lack of a better word to describe it. A room full of passionate people committed to helping heal others and make the world a better place. It was truly beautiful! It inspired me more in the work I think I want to do as a Health Coach, and it was so reassuring to talk to others and see that they had some of the same concerns as I did in terms of trying to identify a target market. Having a support system is so important!

After the conference was over I made it a goal to try a different vegan restaurant for every meal I was there. I didn't quite succeed, but the ones I got to were all phenomenal! My favorite I think was Candle Cafe, sister restaurant to the more upscale Candle 79. I got the Tofu BLT, and ate it sitting in Central Park as the sun was setting. Definitely one of those perfect moments I'll treasure forever! This was my first trip going to NYC pretty much 'recovered' from my eating disorder, and actually being able to allow myself to eat whatever I wanted while actually enjoying it was a milestone for me. I ate ice cream. I ate bread. I ate a lot of salad cause I truly love greens, not just because I was scared of calories. I didn't at any point want to make myself throw up or try and starve myself for the rest of the day to compensate. I ordered whatever I felt like, and savoured it, and honestly for the first time in a very long time felt free.

Nuba and Kits Beach

Yesterday I did my second Health History for school, which is basically a practice session where you have the client fill out a form about their health history, and you get to know them through reading through it. I love learning about other people and what they eat, so it's been fun trying them out. I was a bit nervous at first(meeting people over skype for the first time is a bit strange!), but I'm slowly getting the hang of it I think.

After spending most of yesterday inside working on some retouching and skypeing, I decided I needed to head outdoors to make the most of the beautiful weather! I've been reading Steve Jobs' bio(he's such an intriguing man). He was definitely eccentric and could be hard to work with, but he had no shame about it and was a complete visionary. I love a quote from him, referring to when someone asked him if he did market research when he was making the Mac, and he said: 'Did Alexander Graham Bell do market research when he invented the telephone?'. He knew how to make what people needed even before they needed it. So inspiring! So I took that to Kits Beach and soaked up some sun and sea. I really miss living by the ocean, the lake in Toronto is great but there's just something about being surrounded by mountains and trees here, and the air is so much cleaner.

Afterwards I had a dinner date with Alex and Michelle, and I suggested Nuba since they have a ton of variety for vegans and omnis alike. It's a really cute Lebanese chain of restaurants in Vancouver, and this was the first time I'd been there for dinner. Their lunch menu has some really awesome pita wraps, so I was excited to see what the dinner menu was like. I ordered the Vegan Meswhi(they mark all their vegan dishes, so it made life a lot easier!), which was veggie shishkabobs coating in Za'atar seasoning piled on top of hummus and tabbouleh. It didn't disappoint!! The free pita bread that came with it wasn't bad either. Their hummus is some of the best I've had, creamy and tangy with just the right consistency.  I think I prefer the lunch menu though, as it's a bit more affordable!

I really love when a restaurant makes it easy for vegans and omni's to enjoy a meal together without either one compromising or going hungry. I love trying to veg restaurants(obviously), but it can be a bit awkward feeling like I'm coercing my dining partners into something they don't really eat. While I think omni's could definitely be a bit more open to trying new dining experiences, sometimes you just want to keep it simple! Nuba does a perfect job of straddling the divide between these two, in an extremely delicious way, and I love them for it.

Here's their website if you want to take a peek:www.nuba.ca/. It's a definite must try if you're ever in Vancouver!

Dining out seems to always serve as a reminder of how far I've come in recovery, since most of my life whenever I ate out I would stick to salads with nothing on them. I still adore salads, and I still like getting dressing on the side because I like to control the amount that goes on, but now it's in terms of taste preference, rather than fear that a little olive oil will make me a blimp. It's much more relaxing now, and since I rarely eat out I don't mind indulging a little when I do. It's more of a treat, and it's all part of trying to learn balance in eating which I've never seemed to possess. Guilty thoughts occasionally creep in, but I've gotten much better at controlling them, and not letting them get the best of me. Same with the exercise balance, if I don't feel like working out everyday, I let myself rest. When my muscles are sore, I let them have a break. It's so much more relaxing than feeling like I need to punish my body everyday, and always feel guilty about it.

Rest Days

When working out I find taking rest days the hardest. My body will say it wants it, but my head still says that I need to work out, I'll somehow gain 10 lbs if I don't work out for a day, or all my hard work will disappear overnight. It's a way of thinking that's been ingrained in my head for ages(strange how some behaviours stick with you). Rationally, logically, I know this isn't possible. I know you need rest days. Overworking your muscles can destroy them just as well as sitting around doing nothing.

Brenden Brazier is an amazing vegan Ironman Athlete, and also the founder of Vega(an amazing line of vegan protein powders and supplements). He mentioned at one point in his career, when he was training 35-40 hours a week,  that he started gaining fat. Not muscle, fat. Weird, yes? He discovered it was because his adrenal glands were burnt out(as much as working out is good for you, it's also a stress on the body). Your body needs adequate nutrition and time to recover and rebuild itself. Deplete it too much and it starts to turn on itself.

I've been working out pretty hard for the past couple months, and while I was noticing strength gains for a bit, I wasn't really noticing change in body fat composition and it was frustrating. I evaluated my diet, and I know I'm not really overeating(about 1400-1800 cals daily). I work out in the morning and sometimes at night as well, if I feel like it. Frustrated with my lack of progress, I decided to take a break. Not a day or two, but a full on week. I felt like I needed it to hopefully allow my body to recover. I walked around lots, but for the most part left the gym and running alone.

Since I'm back in Vancouver for a couple weeks I decided to leave the heavy lifting alone for a bit, and just focus on cardio. I've been doing mainly HIIT exercises, and a random Aquafit class with my mom :) It felt great to give my body a break. I was sore pretty much all the time the last little while, which I liked, but it was starting to get exhausting. I feel like it's good to give your body a break now and then, you're not a robot. The workouts I'm doing now, I feel like I'm able to do them better, since I have the strength and I'm not just wobbling around with sore legs and arms from my last workouts!

Anyone have any similar experiences?

Recovery

I'd say it's probably been about 3 months since I've made a real, honest to God attempt at recovery from my ED and ED behaviours. It's been ups and downs, doing the things that scare you can be, well, terrifying. Letting go of old patterns of behaviour that were comfortable before, your go-to reactions when you're stressed. Restricting, then binging when you can't anymore, than the immense guilt that accompanies it. Day by day I feel like I'm figuring out what works for me now, and it's the best feeling.

A moment I can recall feeling like I was actually letting go of my fear of food was a couple months ago, eating a veggie burger at Fresh. This probably doesn't sounds like a huge deal, but for me being able to eat an entire burger and not beat myself up about it or dash to the nearest treadmill was a huge milestone. Another one I'm super excited about was yesterday I was shopping for shorts, and sizes used to be a big deal. The closer I was to 0 or 24 I was, the better. Didn't matter if they actually fit right, I just wanted to be there. Yesterday I just grabbed a bunch of random sizes, then bought whatever fit. Didn't really look at the labels, didn't care. At all!! If it fit it fit, and the number is just a number. Sizes of pants/shorts are so inconsistent, even within the same make. So my butt is no longer a 00. It doesn't really bother me, I've been working out hard and it's kind of getting bigger, but is more toned and muscular. I can do squats and lunges and run in ways I never could before. Now the number is just that, a number. I won't let it dictate my happiness or how I feel about myself. Sometimes I feel like pinching myself that I feel that way now, I never really thought I would get to this point! Recovery is grand. And my bum looks great.