Finding My Fit: Powerlifting and Eating Disorders

As many of you know, not only am I in therapy for my eating disorder recovery but I also have added in the help of a life coach. She is a wonderful guide and has been giving me homework to do-which has been extremely helpful and sometimes even fun. One of the things she gave me to do this week was write a letter to the Old Me. Dear Julie (then), I am so sorry that I wasn't strong enough to protect you, that you had to suffer any of the horrible things you had to. I didn't know that you had an eating disorder, that you needed help and I couldn't see that. In some ways, I am grateful that you got us this far; right now though I feel alot of pity for you- how sad and small and fragile you were; how much time you spent hating yourself, hating the people and how they either tortured you or were completely indifferent...the only shinning star in all that blackness was dad. He held you up when you fell, he cheered you on in all the things you ever tried, he warmed you when...

Hi there all! No real need to explain what is going on in this post- if you want to know more or follow along please feel free to go back and read my earlier posts that are titled and tagged with "self acceptance". Here is the next set of daily activities- 6. Get 10,000 steps or more per day : This is something I have been trying to do every single day for the last year or so. I got a Fitbit for my birthday and have been actively working to get 10k or more steps every single day....which sounds kinda exhausting. More often than not I reach or exceed my goal- but the days that I don't I tend to beat myself up. Using self acceptance, I guess I would feel more compassionate to myself and really be able to give myself a break if I didn't reach 10k steps per day. Thought it would be fun to show you a YEAR of steps! 7. Track My Food: This is a hard one- I am not super consistent with tracking my intake, sometimes I forget whole days, sometimes I forget snacks or t...

Welcome back to the self acceptance exercise series- part 1. This is going to be a series of posts, follow along if you want, where I write down 10-20 activities that I already do every day and how they would be different if I was already 100 percent self accepting ( or already practicing radical self acceptance). This is the first installment of this exercise- to make it easier I am going to split the 20 things into 4 sections of 5. 1. Sleep- I obviously already sleep every single day, some nights better than others, some more than others...there are even times when naps are a thing (though I dislike them). I think if I was practicing radical self acceptance already I might not look at sleep during the night time as anything different. I enjoy my nightly routine before bed and I usually make sure I get enough sleep- though I do dislike napping during the day (on the weekends of course) because it feels like I am wasting my free time. I always feel like I could be using my free tim...

Hi there all, It is time for something different this week- I know many of you have followed me through my journey and a recent part of that journey has been hiring a life coach! She is really amazing and a very insightful lady- also named Julie- who is also in recovery from an eating disorder...we have so many things in common! It was like the universe opened up and said "you two should meet". One of the biggest things we are working on is the idea of self acceptance. The dictionary definition is:  the act or state of  accepting  oneself  :  the act or state of understanding and recognizing one's own abilities and limitations.  This week as we were talking about self acceptance or self love she hit me with this huge emotional bomb:  The Biggest Fear About Self Acceptance Is That You Will Never Improve. Wow. This whole sentence knocked my socks off! Up until now I have lived with the idea that if you don't love yourself you can't get better- ...