On being a (former) runner

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

I felt like an archeologist last week when a friend showed me a well-worn  copy of a magazine article I’d written that, for some reason, he had been saving for years. It had been published in Runner’s World. As I re-read my guest column, it hit me that this was back in the publication’s heyday of iconic writers (all men) like marathoners Amby Burfoot, and Joe Henderson, and Dr. George Sheehan, before the magazine published its Runner’s World Complete Book of Women’s Running, and almost 20 years after I had first taken up distance running myself.

Screen Shot 2015-11-24 at 7.10.19 AMWhile revisiting this essay I’d written, I was struck by its over-arching theme of loss. It’s a universal concept common to both heart patients mourning their loss of “normalcy” and to former distance runners mourning their loss of identity as runners. 

I used to be a runner, but I’m no longer a runner now. This was how I told Runner’s World readers my story of that surreal transition:  Continue reading “On being a (former) runner” →

Six steps to stop emotional eating

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

Karen Trainoff knows a thing or two about emotional eating.  Years ago, this Heart and Stroke Foundation dietician was a newly divorced single mother. She gained a whopping  70 pounds after she discovered the nightly comfort of sitting down to a big bowl of creamy mashed potatoes after her son’s bedtime – night after night, week after week, month after month.

Hers was a good example of eating driven by emotions rather than hunger. It’s no secret that food can bring us comfort. But when we eat as a way to cope with problems such as depression, boredom, anxiety, anger, frustration or stress, the results can lead to poor self-esteem and unwanted weight gain, which can in turn increase our risk of heart disease and stroke. Continue reading “Six steps to stop emotional eating” →

Get off that couch and “walk the heart walk”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

heart walk

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Here’s my prediction for this infectiously upbeat Walk The Heart Walk song: the impressive lead vocal harmonies of Vanderbilt Heart & Vascular Institute’s cardiology fellow Dr. David Kim and 4th year med student Laura Tortora are so good that these folks just might have a real future in music (in case that medicine thing doesn’t work out!) Continue reading “Get off that couch and “walk the heart walk”” →

When the elephant in the room has no smartphone

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 36 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Shortly after arriving at Stanford University School of Medicine to attend the conference called Medicine X (“at the intersection of medicine and emerging technologies”), it hit me that I didn’t quite belong there. Maybe, I wondered, the conference organizers (like the profoundly amazing Dr. Larry Chu) might  have goofed by awarding me an “ePatient Scholarship“ – rather than a more tech-savvy, wired and younger patient in my stead.

Please don’t get me wrong – I was and still am duly thrilled and humbled to be chosen as one of 30 participants invited to attend MedX as ePatient scholars, generously funded by Alliance Health based on meeting selection criteria like “a history of patient engagement, community outreach and advocacy”.

But almost immediately, I started feeling like a bit of a fraud.  Continue reading “When the elephant in the room has no smartphone” →