Let me tell you about my journey from couch-potato, depressed, obesity to an active hiker.

I was raised in the most wonderful family where I was taught I could succeed at anything I wanted intellectually. It was always implied, though never stated, that I wasn’t gifted physically, and that physical success wasn’t an important goal.

As I grew, my brain always did fine, but not my body. I was a chubby little girl and was teased a lot for that. I loved the outdoors, but I always sensed something was “wrong” about that–that I should be inside studying or acting more feminine, so I was outside less and less as I grew. I had a gorgeous, thin mother, but I felt physically awkward and was always ashamed of my body.

As a teenager I mostly studied and read books. I became high school valedictorian, I went to college on full academic scholarship, and, as I’ll describe later, I eventually got a Ph.D.

I got married young, had some rough pregnancies that resulted in three healthy babies and a few miscarriages. Pregnancy was so hard that I ended up mostly laying down the whole time and became depressed and quite obese by my mid-twenties. I felt awful.

In my early thirties, after some sobbing and praying in my car one day, I got up the courage to walk into a small gym where I joined a kickboxing class. Eventually I also signed up for karate. I began to love using my body and developed the confidence that I could do physical things that I had never had before. It was one turning point in my life.

However, our family was going through some rough years with my husband frequently losing his job, needing to move for a new position, and having to start over at one karate dojo after another. Eventually I did receive a blackbelt in Taekwondo and nearly another in karate. I missed that one due to a bout of mono just before my blackbelt test. But through it all, being physical had become an important part of my identity.

More challenges were ahead for our family including adopting five children internationally, more moves, a robbery of all of our possessions during a move, a divorce, and a house fire. This period wore us all out emotionally but I managed to stay active through at all–at least until shortly after the divorce. At that point I needed to go back to school as my education was outdated after 20+ years as a housewife and I needed to support myself and eight children.

In the fall of 2009, shortly after my divorce, I started a Ph.D. program focused on educational research methodology. While this phase of my life was enriching mentally and socially, I did not have time to exercise or cook healthy meals. I quickly became out of shape and gained massive amounts of weight.

This trend worsened after I graduated and re-married a widower with his own seven children and began my career as a researcher, and later, professor. With the requirements of my job, a new marriage, and the needs of the children, twelve of whom lived at home when we first married, I struggled to find time to exercise, and gained even more weight. I was miserable as I fully believed in the importance of physical activity.

But life changes, and the kids left home one by one. When I was down to a few high school and young adult children left at home, I found I had more time. Living in Kentucky, doing some light hiking became natural.

However, I was dealing with another issue–chronic problems with an achilles tendon. I had had surgery on the area twice in the past and it still wasn’t right. So, I had surgery a third time. The surgery this time was more dramatic and the recovery was slow. I was discouraged as I wanted so much to be active.

Six months after my surgery, I could walk short distances with the help of arm crutches to take some of the weight off my bad foot. It was at this time that one of my sweet sons came home for a visit after Christmas of 2018. He told me about a program he was doing, 75hard. This program requires you, among other things, to exercise for 45 minutes twice a day, with one workout outside, for 75 days in a row. If you miss one day, you start over at day one. I committed to my son to join him on the program.

Near my home is a one mile nature loop that is mostly flat. I decided I would “hike” there for my outdoor workouts. I went every day, with my arm crutches, and went as far as I could in 22.5 minutes, then turned around and went back. At first, I covered probably .5 mile total in my 45 minute walk. But, I was outside in beautiful nature, and I was making progress.

Over time, I progressed to just one arm crutch, and then to hiking poles. Before long I could do the entire one mile loop in my 45 minutes. Over time, I was able to walk for longer than the 45 minutes, though I could only walk on soft dirt trails. Road walking hurt my foot. So, I naturally gravitated to trails. On day 75, I hiked a full 5 miles at once, with no supportive devices. I was determined that hiking would be a permanent part of my life.

It did stay as a part of my life, more or less. Some months I hiked a lot, and began to do hills. Other months I was busier and did less. As the pandemic hit in 2020, I was allowed to work from home and so fit more and more hiking time into my life.

Another big change happened in 2022, when I decided I was going to walk the Camino de Santiago, Frances route, that May. The route is about 500 miles, hiking hostel to hostel, with a few big mountain climbs. I began to walk longer and longer distances and do hill repeats in preparation. On May 10, at 56 years old, I began the Camino and finished about June 15.

While I still had (and have) plenty of weight to lose, hiking has taught me that I can do anything. At this writing, I am preparing for my thru hike of the Oregon Coast Trail in the summer of 2023.

I am thoroughly grateful for the many ways physical activity has improved my life.

I hope you enjoy my blog. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.