I turned 43 this year and have always celebrated getting older. Just became a mom a year ago and have and am learning more about myself through this new role. Dealing with infertility in my late 30's was challenging and unexpected. Doing a domestic adoption that is very open has been incredible and awe inspiring. My husband researches issues related to losing weight and exericse, so we have great discussions about exercise motivation (me) and physiology (him) that help us both better understand the gestalt of physical activity.

Helping women in midlife better understand and overcome their barriers to creating health and well-being in their lives has been my professional passion for over 15 years. I became interested in this work when conducting an exercise and quality of life study with breast cancer survivors in 1994. Our study participants felt great from the regular exercise, but when their commitment to the study ended they STOPPED exercising!? I was dumbfounded by this.  Why would women stop doing something that made them feel better, especially after overcoming a life threatening illness? Well, these study participants informed me that they had a lot of care giving to do - of OTHER people and didn't have time to exercise.

This finding ignited my desire to research what really gets in women's way of making their own self-care a priority and sustaining physically active lives so that I could develop the best solutions to help women overcome their unique barriers (especially all of the 'shoulds'). I also coach women by phone using a systematic and evidence-based process that I developed out of my research just for midlife women (www.essentialsteps.net).

Some of my non-professional passions include speaking Spanish (I failed my first class and haven't stopped since), eating REALLY good food, having great conversations with friends, and walking in beautiful places.

Most people assume I'm very "fit" and athletic and that I do very intense workouts. WRONG! Walking is my main form of exercise and I try to walk on most days. It gives me pleasure and I feel like I'm taking care of my whole self. I also recently started weight lifting in ways to also increase my core strength. My motivation for doing this was to prevent injuries as my son gets heavier! (As many of you know, becoming a mom in your 40's ain't easy in many ways.) But, I've discovered that it feels great to be stronger in my body. I don't do much, but it has been enough to make a difference.

I believe that physical activity is the best WONDER DRUG around. It helps improve EVERYTHING in our minds and bodies, whether we are healthy or dealing with a chronic condition. The problem is that we've learned a harmful approach to being physical activity and most don't know how to do it so that they a) enjoy it; and b) can sustain it. That's where I come in.