Bo Archives - Page 2 of 3 - My Healthy, Happier Life

When we said “I do” in front of our family and friends four years ago, neither of us knew what the future would hold. We knew that there was a party to be had with 250 of our closest friends and that we were closing out six years of dating and kicking off a new chapter in our life together. But beyond that, we barely knew what time our flight to Anguilla was Monday morning. We were in love and knew that through love and faith all things were possible.

We never talked about a clear plan for the future. While some couples have clearly defined and agreed upon 2, 3, 5 or even 10 year plans that just isn’t us. Though we are both extremely type A people, when it comes to our personal lives we live in the moment. Once upon a time I thought I would be having children by the time I was 30. Well kids, spoiler alert, I turn 30 in 10 days and am not in my 3rd trimester or even 1st. When the time comes, we will embrace and be thankful for the joy children will bring to our lives. But for now, we have truly loved supporting and growing together over the past few years.

Starting a life together in a new city is never easy. Our parents, who we love and respect more than they will ever know, conveniently live ten miles from each other in Savannah. We have been at least a 2 hour flight from our rocks for 7 years now. The distance forced us to depend on each other not only as husband and wife but as each others friends and advocates. Neither of us knew many people in New York so part of our first year of marriage was establishing a network of friends. But over time those friends came and with those friends came social commitments and wonderful opportunities.

I call year two and three the year of too much. We were over scheduled, over committed and were constantly on the go. Don’t get me wrong. I am thankful for each of the memories whether tropical vacations, ski weekends, late nights out having one too many drinks, the race weekends with friends, blog travels, or trips to either ends of the United States to visit friends. Both sets of parents told us that eventually we’d burn out. We needed to find a balance and take time for ourselves. By November of last year we realized that it was time to slow down a bit. For six months we intentionally started reducing the number of commitments on our calendar, ensuring that there was proper time for just the two of us. I will forever cherish our 3rd year, which we kicked off ice skating arm in arm at Rockefeller Center.

That night was magical. We talked about our life in New York City and how the city with so many rough edges truly felt like home. We reflected on our marriage, laughing at the many bumps we’d lived through whether it be the financial crisis, new jobs or injuries. Little did we know that just a few months later we would be given the opportunity of a lifetime and embrace that, just as we did our move to New York City. The past six months have taught me more about relationships and marriage than the months and years before. This move has brought our relationship full circle to now we once again depend on each other for strength and support. Living in two separate cities in a foreign country could easily have been the downfall of our marriage. Instead, today we are closer than ever before. Things aren’t always as rosy and simple as an Instagram filter.

As I look back on our four years together and the more than 50 years of marriage between our two parents, there is one thing that stands out.

Life is filled with bumps. The only way to become stronger is to embrace them early and communicate often as you navigate over the bumps together.

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Happy Monday! In case you missed it, this weekend I enjoyed a fun girl’s weekend up at Mohegan Sun for their annual Sun Wine Fest ’12. The four of us had a blast as you can see from the weekend posts Mohegan Sun Adventures and Sun Wine Fest ’12. It was the exact type of weekend we all needed. Later today I’ll share the beer portion of Sun Wine Fest ’12, which ended up being a very eye opening experience for me. In addition, I’ll share our day trip to Mystic Seaport, Connecticut where we were able to enjoy fresh air and sunshine.

Over the past few months, many of my newer readers have asked about my husband Bo. I addressed his eating habits in Friday’s VLog (which I now know is supposed to be pronounced vlog, like blog, instead of V-log) and today I want to share a throwback post from 2009 when he addressed his healthy tipping point on Caitlin’s blog series. Enjoy! From Caitlin’s site:

A Man’s Healthy Tipping Point

I’m not going to say it is easy, but I believe I am proof that anyone can better themselves with a combination of personal commitment and outside support. I was never a skinny kid, but I was in fairly good shape in high school. I was on the rowing team and the swim team and lead a generally active lifestyle. The path that led me to that point is a different story, but suffice it to say that by my sophomore year in college, I was living a self-destructive life. I weighed 275 pounds, drank beer every night, and didn’t exercise at all.

I wanted to make changes but the task seemed insurmountable.

The first point that I’d like to make is that major life changes are impossible without some sort of support group. This could be family, friends, a church, or a therapist. It doesn’t really matter from where this support comes, as long as it works for you as an individual. Fortunately, I was able to lean on several of the aforementioned sources of support and by October 2003, I had begun to make an effort to curtail my eating and lift weights a few times a week. I don’t know how many of you have actually experienced the level of obesity that I’m describing (I’m only 5’10” so 275 is a particularly large number for me) but, it actually takes work to maintain that much weight. The initial ten to twenty pounds fell off pretty quickly.

I’m not going to claim that my life was really together at this point but in January 2004, a truly wonderful thing happened that I will always credit as the single most important moment of my life. I began dating the girl to whom I am now married.

Her journey toward a healthy lifestyle is linked to mine, but it’s a separate story so I won’t cover it here. The main point is that she saw something in me that I was unable to see in myself. She was then and still is now, the most important source of support in my life.

After the initial 20 pounds, my weight loss plateau-ed and I was once again convinced that I would be fat forever. Jumping past that initial plateau was more difficult than making the first move as getting past that point required real discipline and also a willingness to open my mind to new ideas. This is the second point that I’d like to make: to live a healthy lifestyle, you have to find things that work for you. Experimentation and an open mind are essential elements of eventual success. Remember too that just because something works for someone else does not mean that it is right for you. This is something that I still to this day have to remind Ashley frequently.

Opening one’s mind to new ways of thinking is often difficult especially when it relates to a subject that is as sensitive as food is to those that are ashamed of their body. At one point, I met with a nutritionist (this was way out of my comfort zone at the time) and we were discussing the subject of mayonnaise. I need to preface this by mentioning that I grew up in a family that used a lot of mayonnaise. It’s still one of my favorite condiments although I rarely ever eat it. The nutritionist was trying to convince me that small changes in ones diet actually make a big difference and that thinking of things in terms of trade offs is very important. She framed it in this manner: “Would you rather have mayonnaise on your sandwich or a beer in the evening?”This was a poignant question to me. After all, having a good beer is obviously more enjoyable than having mayonnaise on a sandwich.

For me, happiness and healthiness are tied together in a never-ending feedback loop. In other words, when I am feeling down, I have a tendency to slip back into a more pleasure seeking less healthy lifestyle. The opposite is true when I’m in a good place in my life. My problem initially was that I had dug myself into such a deep hole that the lifestyle itself had become the thing that made me unhappy. Thus, climbing out of the hole that I had dug myself into seemed impossible. The key was actually these small changes that I referred to earlier. By senior year of college each small change had stacked on top of the previous change to the point that I would actually wake up before 6AM, run a mile and a half to the gym, row for 30min, run home and still make it to my 8AM class with a large Starbucks coffee in my hand.

By the end of grad school in 2008, I was down to 185 pounds and had run my first half-marathon. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve gained ten of those pounds back since moving to New York to take a job as an investment banking analyst. It’s not as easy to wake up at 5AM to workout when you were at the office till 1AM the night before. However, I’m currently training for this year’s New York Marathon, which will hopefully prove to be my greatest triumph yet.

Am I at a point in my life where I can truly say that my relationship with my body and food are perfect? The answer is absolutely not. However, I do believe that I’ve learned a great deal about myself and I hope that the point at which I find myself currently is still only the middle of my journey.

Want to read other inspiring stories?

Emily : A Slow Switch Helped Her Lose Nearly 100 Pounds
Kayla : The Fear of Going Blind Motivated Her to Get Healthy
Maria : A Gallbladder Stone Scare Showed Her The Importance of Real Food
Dani : Learning to Run Through the Couch to 5K Program
Maissa : Finding a New Outlet for Negative Emotions
Freya : A Journey Out of Anorexia
Carrie : Ditched Distorted Thinking and Ran a Marathon
Amy : A Mom Who Lost Baby Weight and Became a Triathlete
Jenny : Saw Lance Armstrong on Oprah and Decided to Ride a Century
Lauren : Stays Active Despite Being a Busy Associate at a Financial Firm
Beth : A Friend’s Serious Illness Inspired Her to Focus on Her Own Health

Are you a man who can relate to Bo’s story? Do you have a man like Bo in your life?

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Today marks the 7th birthday of Bo’s that we’ve celebrated together.

We’ve been through a lot over the years.

While we graduated high school together, we weren’t close friends in high school. In fact, I may have asked him to the prom and been turned down. What can I say, he was that cool and I was that uncool. Oh high school, how I don’t miss it.

But, as they say, things happen for a reason and 18 months after high school graduation our paths crossed one Thursday night during my sorority’s Fall crush party. There was no reason that he should have been there. He didn’t go to UGA and he only knew a few people in my sorority. But, as luck would have it his good friend was dating my sorority sister.

The roles had reversed by now and I was the one who wanted nothing to do with him. I was in the midst of finding myself and had a new confidence that I never had during high school. I didn’t want to talk to someone who had previously treated me like dirt.

Luckily, he was smarter, and gave me some line about maturing and growing up and I accepted it in a slightly tipsy haze. Over the next month we chatted on AIM daily since we were 100 miles away apart, sophomores at University of Georgia and Georgia Tech.

The rest, as they say is history.

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We enjoyed every minute of our time in Athens and Atlanta, enjoying weekend trips back in forth to each city while allowing each other the space to grow and focus on college during the week. We never suffocated each other which is one of the things that I look back upon so thankfully. Over those three years of college that we were together we still evolved as individuals. In fact, you can read more about Bo’s evolution at his Healthy Tipping Point on Caitlin’s blog. bopost1 (604x453) (604x453)

Over the year’s Bo has taught me a great deal about life and how to truly enjoy it. He is the primary reason I’ve been able to find balance and enjoy each day.

He taught me to dance.