When the Beijing Olympics began in August of 2008, Allie Outram watched them on TV from beginning to end. A cross-country and track athlete, Outram once had dreams of competing for her country. Now she watches her contemporaries compete for the U.K.
In her book published in July, Running On Empty, she revealed how an eating disorder and intense training regimens left her close to death. She began running when she was 14 and to perform well she started to control what she ate leaving out high caloric foods and then any carbohydrates or fats. She also started training intensively twice a day. At her lowest point she weighed 63 pounds.
Outram spent two years as an inpatient in a hospital eating disorders unit. She continued to starve herself and in her attempt to eat to recover, her anorexia developed into bulimia. After a binge she would vomit and starve herself again.
Outram found that friends and family thought she was too thin and exercised too much but fellow athletes accepted and encouraged her behavior. One of the reasons she wrote the book is to raise people's awareness of the long term damage athletes suffer to win a medal. Now age 32, Outram is recovered and hopes her book will be an inspiration to others.
Sydne writes:
As my inner child and I become one again, we must journey together to get close to whom we really are. It is important for us to understand the notion of our hearts. Our heart or our sense of heartfelt, spiritual yearning is much more profound and important in defying who we really are and what we really want, then the wishes of our hearts.
Our hearts are the most patented source of motivation in our lives. The heart is more of a sense, a knowing, an intuition and an impression. The heart is the part of us that recognizes spiritual expression that comes from God. When we speak from the heart we are referring to spirit, soul. The heart is the part of us that recognizes spiritual expression that comes from God.
I hear women talk about what they desire in recovery and what their visions look like when they feel they are recovered. I think desires and visions are about getting what we want most in our lives.
Vision is reality, even though not yet tangible, we can see, feel, sense and recognize a vision spiritually. Vision is something that we can have. We begin with the possibilities. Possibilities are the building blocks for faith and hope. Our hope can increase and become the vehicle towards making these things a reality.
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To your good health and peaceful life,
Ruthan Brodsky
For more information on Ruthan, opt in at her business blog for men and women in mid-life at From Retirement to Career Change.
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