Fitness-Buddy Transformations

By Pilar Gerasimo / August 23, 2010 11:17 AM

For the past couple of years, I've been doing the fitness-buddy thing with my niece, Xanthi, now 19. It started with me giving her some basic pointers on heart-rate training and running form, but it rapidly evolved into a full-fledged mutual support system -- and then into something of a transformation story.

Over the course of the past two years, Xanthi has lost a ton of weight. But more important, she also became an all-around fitness fiend, AND turned into a serious athlete (recently, she was named the University of Wisconsin-Stout Women's Rugby Team's Rookie of the Year, and this summer, she made the Wisconsin Women's All-Star team).

I interviewed Xanthi last week about her experience (you can listen to the podcast here), and during the course of that conversation I realized something: Having a partner in crime -- whether a buddy, a mentor, a trainer or a coach -- may be the single most powerful advantage both in getting satisfying results from the start, and in maintaining a training program over time.

The accountability factor is huge, of course (most of us are far less likely to skip a workout if we know someone is waiting for us), but I think there's also something to be said for having a constant companion and witness for the process, and for the transformations that inevitably take place.

Some of those transformations are physical (see the videos and pictures, below). Others are more subtle, and in some ways more profound.

 

Xanthi, fall 2008, prior to our fitness-buddy pact
 
Video: Our first fitness-buddy training session, December 2008
 


Xanthi and me after our first 5K, spring 2008 -- Xanthi had already lost about 25 pounds.
 


Xanthi (and rugby teammate), summer 2010 -- now super-fit and 65 pounds lighter than when we began.
 
For example, one of the things Xanthi shared with me during her reflections on our experience together was how dramatically her sense of identity shifted as she grew stronger, more confident and more in touch with her athletic side.

What I got out of this experience was pretty transformative, too. For one thing, at some point I realized that Xanthi had come to see me as something of a fitness mentor -- something I would never have predicted was possible.

I've always considered myself a bookish, not terribly athletic person. And from my point of view, all I did was show Xanthi how to strap on a heart-rate monitor and point her in the right direction.

But working out with Xanthi over the course of a couple of years, encouraging her, helping her take stock of her amazing progress, sharing with her the bits and pieces of fitness and nutrition wisdom I'd picked up during my years editing Experience Life and that I felt might be helpful to her -- all of that shifted my own sense of identity, too.

For one thing, it really drove home for me that the simple act of maintaining a relatively regular exercise schedule, of eating well and taking care of myself over the course of the past decade had made me -- at least in Xanthi's eyes -- someone to look up to, a role model of sorts.

And that made me see myself in a new light. It made me want to stay my course, to stay true to my own health-and-fitness commitments, and maybe even ratchet them up a notch.

It also made me keenly aware, in a way I hadn't really taken stock of before, that the commitment I've made to being healthy has been transformative not just to me and Xanthi, but ultimately to everyone around me.

It's helped me be present, energetic and level-headed at work. It's helped me show up for the people I love. It's given me the strength and focus and optimism to keep driving toward the bigger goals that matter so much to me.

And that, of course, is the whole idea behind the magazine's new tagline: Being Healthy Is a Revolutionary Act. (I'll write at greater length about that soon, but you can read the basics in my Thoughts From the Editor column, if you like.)
 
Anyway, I have loved every minute of my fitness-buddy experience with Xanthi -- well, except for a few of those final kettlebell reps and a couple of killer sprints. And I look forward to many more years of being goaded by this beastly child into working far harder than I otherwise would. (When she's outrunning me, I take comfort in reminding myself that she IS more than 20 years my junior.)

So what about you? Do you have a fitness buddy? Do you wish you had one? If so, what's keeping you from buddying up? I think there's an article in this, so send on your stories and thoughts, please!

P.S. For those of you who go way back and may remember my writing about my earlier fitness-buddy experiences with my dad, now 80, you'll be happy to know he's still working out -- three to four times a week with two different trainers for strength and balance -- and he's in terrific shape. He's made an excellent recovery since his accident, and although he now has to cope with a slight limp, we still take walks together on a regular basis.

From My Mom to BP: You Can't Do Just One Thing

By Pilar Gerasimo / June 4, 2010 10:05 AM

My mother, commenting on the unintended consequences of various ill-fated or shortsighted actions, has often remarked, "Well, you can't do just one thing."

You go to make bread, in my mom's case, and you first have to deal with the fact that some mice have taken up residency in your pantry. In dealing with the mice, you are obligated to take everything off the shelves and vacuum. In vacuuming, you accidentally knock over a vase. In cleaning up the vase, you wind up cutting yourself. In bandaging the cut, you drip blood on your blouse. All you wanted to do was make some bread, and you end up with chaos and carnage.

OK, it's not always that bad. But it does seem that, often, when we set out to accomplish one priority or solve one problem, we unwittingly find ourselves dealing with all kinds of additional steps, side-effects or disasters that come about as the result of our original effort.

And, sometimes, those disasters are far worse than we might have imagined.

The BP Oil Spill brings all kinds of particularly sad and maddening examples to mind. You go to collect some oil from beneath the ocean, and end up creating the worst environmental catastrophe in the earth's history, simultaneously crippling the economy of an entire region. You try to make things better with "dispersants" and "top kills" and end up inadvertently creating a whole variety of new problems.

Foresight is not a great human strength, and the lack of it is most certainly a common corporate weakness -- particularly when it comes to natural systems, which are complex indeed.

Yesterday, with the oil still gushing in the Gulf, I was listening to an oil-expert fellow from North Dakota talk on the radio about how the now-evident danger of offshore drilling makes onshore drilling in areas like the Bakken shale field look very easy and appealing by comparison.

You just drill down a couple of miles, and over a couple of miles, then stick a straw in the ground, pump in a bunch of high-pressure water, bust all that formerly solid shale to pieces (it's not serving any real purpose, right?) and -- voilà! -- the oil drops down to where we can suck it out, he explained.

No problem! Easy peasy. Nothing to be concerned about. Except what you might reasonably expect to encounter with drilling into the earth, pumping high-pressure water where it doesn't belong, breaking up a rocky infrastructure that's been there since the dawn of time, and causing oil to go where it has not apparently been inclined to go until now.

Plus, of course, the vast array of things you might not reasonably expect at all.

I dunno. I'm not an expert at this stuff. But I think my mom is right about the fact that, generally speaking, "You can't do just one thing."

I also think John Muir was right when he said, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

So let us all be careful about what we seize, and gentle in what we do. Let us act thoughtfully -- with gratitude for what we receive, with caution about all we can't possibly predict, and with humility about what we don't yet understand.

PS: The image above was featured in Last Word from April 2005 and includes the John Muir quote that I mentioned. If you're interested, you can download the PDF here.

So Long, Dear Habit

By Pilar Gerasimo / April 14, 2010 10:37 AM

I was blown away by the many comments folks posted (from positive to downright peeved) in response to my previous blog, "Why I Do Not Dig Diet Soda." Thank you for those!

One comment that especially moved me was from Annette, who wrote:

"But how do you stop something you have been doing for decades? I drink at least six to eight diet cokes a day. If I don't have any in the fridge, I panic. I have extreme depression. I'm sorry but water is a very poor substitute for caffeine, even though I try."

Annette, because I sense you speak for many (I'm guessing many millions), I'm going to respond to you here.

Obviously, it's not a short or simple answer, but there are a few suggestions I'll offer up . . .

First, realize that there are two different aspects to this challenge: One is dealing with the physical habit -- an addiction to the caffeine, for example. The other is dealing with the psycho-emotional habit, which is no less intense and can provoke all kinds of very real secondary biochemical and neurological reactions.

For example, there's the anxiety you describe, which can be accompanied by rushes of adrenaline and cortisol. And after decades of drinking diet soda on a daily basis, there are probably also some very well-worn synaptic patterns in your brain that make it hard for you to stop thinking about and wanting soda at various points in your day.

And then there are the feelings -- sadness or depression at letting go of something that has been a daily companion of sorts (and probably a source of comfort or pleasure) for a long time.

If you do decide to cut back on your diet soda intake, or cut it out entirely, you'll have to deal with all these bad boys. The good news is, you can absolutely do it if you choose to, particularly if you give yourself some good support for that choice -- and you'll probably make all kinds of interesting discoveries and harvest all kinds of new and exciting energy in the process.

The key, I think, is seeing the habit as an opportunity for personal exploration, not as a "bad thing" that you need to fix. It can also help to see the habits as a symptom (of an imbalance, say, or an unexamined challenge or unmet need) and not the root problem.

I remember a time, in my early 20s, when I had a weird fast-food habit going: Chicken sandwich, fries and diet soda from the drive-through.

I didn't eat it every day, but I ate it several times a week, and I only liked eating it at home in front of the TV. It was a total numb-out strategy, and it worked -- but it left me feeling rotten about myself and kind of disgusted. I knew it was awful for me, and at some point, I decided I really wanted to stop.

Breaking that habit involved making a number of adjustments, including exploring what I was trying to numb (anxiety, loneliness, uncertainty about what I wanted to do with my life) and noticing my triggers (being stressed or bored; being on the verge of doing something scary/exciting; seeing advertisements for fast food, etc.).

It also involved finding other places to put my nervous, unsettled energy (taking walks; decluttering my closet and drawers; putting my papers in order), and doing some journaling about how I wanted to live and be.

Most important, perhaps, it involved adopting an experimental mindset:

• What if I go get fast food, but instead of driving through and bringing it home, I eat it at the restaurant? (I had a horror of that, it turned out, and realizing it wasn't something I wanted to do in public or around other people made me realize just how "off" it really was for me, which gave me more motivation to change.)
• What if I just refuse to watch TV for a week? (OMG, the feelings that came up! Pain, bargaining, anger -- the whole nine yards.)
• What if I watch TV but don't eat? (Still numbing, but a totally different effect -- left me more aware of what a waste of time it was.)
• What if, when I feel a craving come on, I eat something healthy -- like a salad, or an orange I slowly peel and section? (This usually satisfied me and left me feeling empowered and good about myself, leading me to turn off the TV and go do something else.)
• What if I just sit here with my feelings (scary, but surprisingly transformative -- I ended up journaling about it a lot and reading a lot of self-help books), or if I channel my energy into doing something I'm a little scared to do, like make job-search phone calls? (Eek! I realized I was terrified I might get an actual interview and that I was hiding out in a big way.)
• What, if I were living my ideal life, would I be doing instead of sitting here watching TV and eating fast food, both of which make me feel lousy? And what's preventing me from doing that?

That last question helped me get clear about a lot of things, some of which eventually led me to develop far healthier behaviors, get some counseling, take some risks, explore some beliefs, set some boundaries, establish a vision and goals for myself, and connect to a deeper sense of hope and spiritual faith, all of which, collectively, led me to what I'm doing today.

I still remember that vaguely desperate feeling, though, of knowing I was doing something that wasn't right for me and wondering, "How will I change this?"

It's a feeling I've encountered in plenty of other situations over the past 20 years, and I imagine it's a feeling I'll continue to encounter, at intervals, for the rest of my life.

Today, though, I see that question as exhilarating, not terrifying. I tend to hear it as an invitation to a better life, a better part of myself -- another round of experiments that will help me more fully discover who I am and what I'm here to do.

Anyway, I don't know if any of that helps or makes any sense to you. Every person's change challenge is different, of course. And at the same time, they also have a lot in common. If you want some help wrapping your head around the whole change-challenge conundrum, you might listen to my interview with Chip Heath, PhD, coauthor of the new bestseller Switch: How to Make Change When Change Is Hard (available free in our podcast section). Or pick up the book, which is terrific (we'll be featuring an excerpt in our July issue).

In my next blog post, I'll offer some practical suggestions for how you might apply the "Switch" methodology to a soda habit (and really, any kind of habit). In the meantime, thank you so much for your question, Annette. If you do decide to cut back on soda, let us know how it goes!

And to all the folks who have been through the kind of change challenge Annette describes, I'd love to know what worked for you.

Why I Do Not Dig Diet Soda

By Pilar Gerasimo / March 19, 2010 1:16 PM

OK, I am not going to rant. But I need to get this out of my system: I think diet soda is awful. I think all soda is awful, actually (yes, I know there are no "bad" foods, but I hold soda in approximately the same regard as those puffy orange Circus Peanuts -- these are not really "foods," per se). Diet soda, in my view, is especially insidious.

Here are my top 10 reasons:

1. There is absolutely no proof that diet soda helps people lose weight. The calorie-reduction argument is total bunk, and zero studies have shown a positive correlation between drinking diet soda and weight loss. On the contrary, there's significant evidence that diet sodas and other noncaloric, artificially sweetened drinks actually lead -- quite powerfully -- to weight gain. (See "6 'Healthy' Food Choices to Rethink" for more on that.

2. Diet sodas are billed as being good for type 2 diabetics and other blood-sugar- challenged types, but they aren't. Because of something called the "cephalic phase response," your body tastes the sweetness, and even though there are no calories to shuttle, the brain triggers a release of insulin from the pancreas and also a "Sugar is coming! Stop-burning fat" response from the liver. The result is the usual array of insulin-related problems (increased urge to eat, increased tendency toward fat storage, pro-inflammatory biochemical cascade), plus an arrest of healthy protein-and-starch production, and a confusion of the body's built-in caloric monitoring systems, all of which compel you to plump up and eat even more unhealthy stuff later. (For more on this dynamic, read the article, "Poor Substitutes.")

3. The act of drinking diet soda -- and of seeing it in your fridge -- sends your psyche a slew of negative, demoralizing, less-than-healthy mental messages (I am afraid of getting fat; I don't trust my body to crave the right things; I need to be on a diet; I am compelled to drink sweet stuff, even though I know it's not good for me; I'm being "good" now so I can be "bad" later), all of which tend to drive other unhealthy eating behaviors even as they trigger disempowering feelings of self-denial and self-indulgence. (For more on this dynamic, see my Thoughts From the Editor column, "View to a Fridge.")

4. Diet soda contains all kinds of icky chemicals that add to your body's toxic burden, lowering your immunity, contributing to inflammation and reducing your body's ability to deal effectively with other, less easily avoided toxins like those pervasive in our food, water, body-care products and environment.

5. Diet sodas and the chemically derived artificial sweeteners they contain (especially aspartame) may act as neurotoxins and have been linked to headaches, memory problems, anxiety, brain fog, depression, skin irritations, menstrual problems, fibromyalgia, joint pain and more. (You can read up on the scientific debate about this both in the aforementioned "Poor Substitutes" and in our article "Excitotoxins.")

6. Artificial sweeteners and artificial colors tend to drive cravings for more sweet and hyper-flavored foods (more diet soda, please!) and reduce your ability to properly taste more subtle flavors or natural foods, perverting your palate and dissuading you from making other healthy changes to your diet because nothing natural tastes the way it ought to.

7. Frequent sipping or gulping of diet soda blunts your thirst, reducing your intake of pure water, which is a much better choice for hydration and helps to clear toxins from your system (vs. further polluting it). Regular imbibing of soda may also interfere with your body's healthy hunger signals and thus dissuade you from eating healthy snacks that would support good nutrition, metabolism, energy and mental function throughout the day.

8. The acids in diet soda (and regular soda, for that matter) eat away at the enamel on your teeth. They also are acidifying to your entire system, and thus disruptive to your general health, including the good flora in your gut, where about 60 percent of your immune system resides.

9. Diet soda (like regular soda) is generally bottled or canned, and its aficionados tend to drink it by the case, multi-liter twin pack and so on -- day in, day out, year after year after year. Habitually imbibing packaged drinks creates all kinds of nonbiodegradeable garbage, and every aspect of soda production (from manufacturing and packaging to transport -- and even its recycling) is an unnecessarily wasteful use of fossil fuels. Drinking any soda is also incredibly expensive, an important point for anyone who protests that they can't afford high-quality food or decent nutritional supplements.

10. Despite all its amalgamated cruddiness, diet sodas somehow get a pass in practically all weight-loss plans, and are actually promoted by many dietitians as "free" foods or "good" treats despite the fact that they are categorically lousy for people. They are aggressively advertised as being "better choices" for health- and weight-conscious people, and as a result, many kids and teenagers make them a habit early in life. Every time I see this pro-diet-soda dynamic in action, it just chaps my hide and makes me dislike the stuff even more.
 
OK, I wound up ranting a little. Sorry. I know that many people who adore diet soda and have been sold on its wonderfulness may take issue with my demonization of these beverages. To which I say: Let's agree to disagree. If drinking it makes you happy enough, or is an occasional enough dalliance that none of the above matters, drink away!

And to those who find themselves addicted to diet soda, I can only say take heart: Thousands before you have broken the addiction and found themselves astonished by how much better they feel.

My recommendation: For a week, start each day with a big bottle full of pure water with a slice of cucumber or orange or lemon floating in it. Sip away, avoid the soda aisles and vending machines, and just see if you don't start feeling better yourself.

And the Illumination 2010 Ticket Winner Is ...

By Pilar Gerasimo / March 15, 2010 12:19 PM

Thanks so much to all of you who responded to my Illumination ticket giveaway question -- all of the entries were fantastic! Clearly, there are a lot of you out there who are ready to take the next step toward reaching your goals.

On that note, I'm excited to announce that the winner of the pair of tickets, as selected by the Illumination planning committee, is Chelsey Fischer! Congratulations, Chelsea -- I look forward to meeting you at the event on March 27th.

For anyone else who's interested in attending Illumination, it's not too late! In fact, I have six discounted tickets to make available ($89 vs. $150). Here's how to nab one or more of 'em:

Step 1: Visit the Illumination conference Web site at www.illuminationevent.com.

Step 2: Click on the picture of the tickets on the right-hand side of the homepage that say "Order Yours Now."

Step 3: Identify the quantity of tickets you'd like to purchase on the "Conference Attendee Regular Price" ticket line.

Step 4: Click on the Gold Type just about the PayPal button that says, "Enter Discount Code."

Step 5: Enter Pilar as the discount code.

Step 6: Click the "Apply Discount" button.

Step 7: Complete your order by clicking the "Check out with PayPal" button.

That's it! The first six people who register for the event using my discount code -- again, it's simply Pilar -- will get tickets for just $89.

Hope to see you on the 27th!

Time to Shine: Win 2 Tickets to Illumination 2010!

By Pilar Gerasimo / March 10, 2010 11:55 AM

I'm a big believer in the idea that we owe it to ourselves and everyone around us to enjoy life at our healthiest, happiest, shiniest best. That's why I'll be joining inspired women from all over the Minneapolis-St. Paul area on Saturday, March 27, for a day of self-discovery and expansion. 

Cup of Dreams

By Pilar Gerasimo / March 4, 2010 9:34 AM

I've been driven bonkers for years now by how hard it is -- outside of San Francisco, Seattle or Portland -- to find a coffee shop that offers a latté made with organic milk. I hardly ever drink milk, so if I'm going to indulge in a latté, I want the real, unadulterated thing. And the real, unadulterated thing is surprisingly tough to come by.

Once upon a time, for a brief moment, some Starbucks locations stocked perma-keep, aseptically packed organic milk for picky drinkers like me, but then they stopped. (I believe this was about the same time they expanded their hideous selection of pale, low-fat pastries -- perhaps they ran short of shelf space).

Anyway, with the crazy hope that my inquiries will contribute to some kind of critical-mass consumer demand, I've just kept on asking every barista I encounter: "Do you have organic milk?" Typically, the bewildered person behind the counter asks me to repeat the question. Sometimes they say "Sorry, no." But more often, they reply with something ambiguous like, "Um ... we have soy?"

Sigh.

Well, thanks to the wonderful word-of-mouth chain at work (one of our editors, Anjula, told another of our editors, Courtney, and Courtney told me), I yesterday discovered a coffee shop I had hitherto only dared dream of: Kopplin's (www.kopplinscoffee.com) in St. Paul.

On the first day of spring weather, my dad, Jerry Gerasimo, and Experience Life senior editor Courtney Helgoe soaked up sun and superb coffee outside Kopplin's (Hamline and Randolph, St. Paul).

Not only do they offer organic milk, it's the only milk they serve. And it's not just organic: It's whole organic -- from local, pasture-fed cows grazed on organic grass -- and it's packed in glass bottles.

But wait, it gets better. Kopplin's also serves fair-trade coffee -- divine espresso drinks and a beautiful array of made-fresh-by-the-cup drip brews -- prepared to perfection. Seriously, best latté I've had inside the U.S., and quite possibly the best latté I've had ever.

Anyway, for all these reasons and more (no skim, no decaf, lots of thought behind all their decisions and aesthetics -- visit their FAQ page for more info), Kopplin's is my new favorite coffee shop.

The crazy part is, they've been there for years, right in the 'hood -- I just didn't know about them.

I figure if THIS wild hope of mine can come true, it means that dozens of others can, too. Walking and biking paths everywhere! Kids learning how their brains and digestive systems work in grade school! Family farmers making a living doing what they love! Hurrah!

Somewhere(s), right now, I know all these and many more wonderful things are happening, and I trust that they -- like the Kopplin's coffee shops of the world --will just continue to flourish. In the meantime, any time I get discouraged about the state of the world, I'm going to Kopplin's for a whole-milk latté. I'll just take my seat on the sidewalk and sip until my hope is nudged from its slumber.

More Healthy Bargains

By Pilar Gerasimo / February 17, 2010 3:26 PM

In my March "Thoughts From the Editor Column," I shared a few of my favorite healthy bargains. Here are a few more bargains I didn't have room for, but that definitely earn their keep:

Yoga: I used to take a weekly Monday night class that I adored. It cost me $15, and I figure it easily saved me thousands over the years in chiropractor appointments and spared me stress-related illnesses of all kinds. It also gave me an equanimity and ability to breathe through discomfort that has come in very handy over the years. Alas, that class was canceled, so I've had to improvise. I now do some yoga at home on a regular basis, squeeze group yoga classes in when I can, and also attend a monthly two-hour Saturday yoga intensive, which costs about $20. The difference I feel in my body, and the level of flexibility I've been able to maintain doing even this little bit of yoga is extraordinary. It has also given me a practice and life-skill I intend to keep using as long as I live. I consider yoga a terrific investment of both time and money for virtually anyone.

My Runner's World subscription: I really like this magazine for its breadth and depth, for the fascinating and inspiring stories it tells, and for the practical advice it churns out month after month. I've been a pretty casual runner for the past several years, and the magazine has remained relevant to me during that entire time. I suspect it will continue to be relevant for as long as I continue to run. www.runnersworld.com

Cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil: Being Greek myself, I like to buy the Greek stuff by the big metal canister and decant it into a smaller bottle I keep by the stove. Thirty bucks worth lasts me about six months, and I use it for almost all my cooking. I can't fathom how many olives it takes to make a canister that size, but I feel like I'm getting a great deal, and it's a lot cheaper than buying it by the bottle. http://olvil.com/oil.html

Heart-rate monitor: I bought a good one for about 100 bucks several years ago, and have gotten huge payback from it. It really changed the way that I went about exercising (e.g., I stopped going harder than I needed to, and also quickly realized that interval training delivered huge benefits), and it was hugely motivating to see my numbers change over time. You can get a cheapie monitor for $50 these days, but it's worth paying a little more to get one you really like. Make sure to get one that's comfortable and has the important features you need. I personally don't care for calorie counters and all that, but I like having customizable zones and the "out of target zone" beeper to keep me between the lines. www.polarusa.com

Desert Essence Blemish Touch Stick: Not that I get blemishes or anything, but when I do (or when I sustain little paper cuts in the line of duty), I find this fresh-smelling tea-tree oil antiseptic (packaged in a handy roller-ball applicator) heals things up fast and it travels like a dream. I think it costs about $5 and you can get it at Whole Foods and similar places. I keep one in my travel bag, one in my purse, and one in the bathroom drawer. Also good for de-stinking stinky environments: Just apply to hands and wave around in the air. I do this on airplanes from time to time. www.desertessence.com/skin-care/face/tea-tree-oil-blemish-touch-stick

Local food: I'm not going to get into a big thing about the nutritional value or food ethics here, but the fact that people in my community go to the insane amount of work involved in planting, growing, harvesting and delivering breathtakingly beautiful spinach, delicate berries and other eye-popping produce absolutely blows my mind. The care and respect with which they raise animals for milk, eggs and meat is completely exceptional in today's food-production world. It often involves insane hours and backbreaking labor, and is typically at best a breakeven proposition for them. And sometimes, if you get the fruits of their labors through a CSA or farmers' market, they cost the same or less than conventional stuff. Even when it costs more, it's generally nowhere near as much as it deserves to be. www.localharvest.org

OK, I could go on and on, so I'll just keep adding stuff as I think of it. Meantime, if you have healthy bargains of your own you'd like to share, bring 'em on at community.experiencelifemag.com/2010/02/healthy-bargains.html.

My Road Less Travelled

By Pilar Gerasimo / February 16, 2010 8:19 AM

This is me (an idealist dreamer from an early age) in the early farm days, circa 1973, in one of our commune's many improvised environments  -- a "barn apartment." That's my cousin Barb, a fellow commune-dweller (wearing actual clothes), in the background.

For a lot of my early life, the idea of "being different" was anything but appealing to me. All I wanted was to be like everybody else.

Alas, right from the beginning, that just wasn't in my cards. Growing up in the Midwest, surrounded by Ann Johnsons and John Andersons, I had an impossibly weird name. At one point I asked my mom if she would consider letting me go by something more normal -- like, say, Jill, Sarah or Irene. She would not.

To make matters worse, I spent most of my childhood on a back-to-the-land communal farm that was regarded by the surrounding rural community as completely bizarre. The lunches my sisters and I brought to school (sandwiches with sprouts on homemade dark bread, and yet packed in reused bread bags -- go figure) bore no resemblance to the "normal" lunches other kids had.

The crazy-looking houses we lived in (experimental passive solar designs constructed by amateur builders from recycled materials) were so odd looking from the road they were rumored to be haunted, or to conceal dungeons. The fact that one house had a tower, and the other a drawbridge, probably didn't help.

Long story short, my sisters and I were never going to fit in. We talked, thought and acted different from our peers, and at times we were regarded as so strange and "not from around here" that the local kids refused to sit next to us on the school bus.

For a long time, I tried mightily to conform. And eventually, when that didn't work, I moved away -- going first to an alternative public school in Minneapolis (weird), then to a women's college in California (also weird, but in a different way), and then doing a brief teaching stint in Paris, where, being neither typically American nor appropriately European, I felt totally out of place once again.

Eventually, I got used to the idea of being a walker between worlds. Sometimes modern, Western, mainstream ways appealed to me. Other times, counterculture, global or ancient wisdom made a lot more sense. I experimented with both, mixing and matching as I saw fit, and searching out the balance that helped me feel best in my own skin.

In the realms of health and happiness, it seemed obvious to me that many of the dominant-culture patterns were making people sick, fat and depressed. They were also polluting the environment, undermining communities and emptying human lives of joy and meaning. And at the same time, many of the alternative-culture patterns seemed rigid, restrictive, joyless, overly woo-woo or infected with a nasty case of holier-than-thou-ism.

Looking at the world around me, and experimenting for myself, I started seeing that ultimately, neither side had all the answers. Reality just wasn't "either/or." It was "both/and."

I figured out that I just had to get comfortable doing what worked for me -- even when that meant feeling wedged between the cracks between two categories, or drifting free of all socially-sanctioned moorings.

Walking the path of health and happiness, I have found, sometimes means wandering alone.

It can also mean swimming against the tide, walking against traffic, dancing to your own drum, hoeing your own row and about a dozen other metaphorical acts that conjure the difficult and determined journey of the oddball.

Oh sure, detox smoothies, plant-based diets and yoga classes may be all the rage. You yourself may be training for a triathlon, practicing gratitude and freezing your own homegrown vegetables. And if you're surrounded by other healthy, happy people who are doing similarly healthy things, you can count yourself lucky. I do.

But make no mistake: We still live in a country where the majority of the population is overweight, where most adults over 30 are on a variety of prescription drugs (especially antacids, depression and blood-pressure meds), where chronic disease is rampant even among young people, and where 85 percent of doctors' office visits are stress-related.

We live in a country where sitting in front of a screen several hours a day is considered normal, where most grocery stores and restaurants primarily sell foods that do us far more harm than good, and where healthcare costs are so daunting that they threaten our entire economy.

We live in a country where fatigue and insomnia plague millions, and where, according to leading research psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, only 20 percent of us are flourishing, and the rest of us are getting by or "leading lives of quiet desperation."

We live in a society, in other words, where living a full-vitality existence is very much the exception, not the rule. And as a result, committing to such a life can be fraught -- at least initially -- with inconvenience, expense, confusion, social awkwardness, frustration and doubt.

But you know what? It's totally worth it. And it gets easier over time.

In fact, for the most part, living this way is delightfully rewarding. And sometimes -- particularly when you making a healthy discovery or find yourself surrounded by a supportive social network -- it's an absolute blast.

So this is a blog about my experience on both sides of that journey. The agony and the elation. The loneliness and the camaraderie. The moments of clarity, befuddlement, hope, exasperation and everything in between.

This is a blog about choosing the road less travelled. It's about the odyssey of making conscious, positive choices in a world that desperately needs more healthy happy people, but that often seems hell-bent on making their lives more difficult than they need to be.

It's about my contention that today and in this culture, being fully healthy is a revolutionary act, one that requires courage, determination, experimentation and a deep willingness to find your own way and give your best gifts, even when it would be easier to settle.

In short, this blog is a travelogue honoring the meandering route that many of us are now walking individually -- and yet increasingly, also together -- and about what we're learning along the way.

If you're still reading this rambling entry, I'd wager that you're a fellow walker on that path. Or at least an interested loiterer. And in either case, I'd love to hear from you (see the comments link below). What are your trials and tribulations, your breakthroughs and "aha!"s, your missteps and big leaps? I can't wait to hear all about 'em.

In the meantime, here's to the journey. And vive la revolution!

Note: I also  ponder related topics on Twitter (@pgerasimo) and Facebook, and in my "Thoughts From The Editor" column in Experience Life magazine. Connect with me there, too!