Five Healthy Writer Discoveries

By Sally Kilpatrick

First and foremost, I want to thank Trish for having me here at the Healthy Writer. I have been healthier than I am right now, but I did lose thirty pounds in 2008, and I’ve kept almost all of it off. No, really—almost all of it. At any rate, I’m going to start pumping iron again in 2010, and I’m going to undo the damage and take off a little more. In the meantime, here are the top five things I’ve learned about weight loss for writers.

5. Nonni biscotti. This stuff rocks, and I go into withdrawal when I run out. It’s less than one hundred calories per biscotti and goes well with coffee for those who need a little joe to get words on the page. It’s also endorsed by the Best Life people as a healthy treat. I can personally vouch that Nonni tastes far more decadent than the side of the box suggests. Did I mention that they come in various varieties that involve chocolate?

4. Discipline. Losing weight and putting words to the page both require discipline. When I originally set out to lose weight, I was afraid my writing would suffer. I soon discovered that the opposite was true because setting fitness goals strengthened my discipline to create and execute writing goals. To accomplish both, I was forced to think ahead and create a schedule: gym on Monday nights, writing on Tuesday mornings, writing on Wednesday while the kids are in choir, gym on Wednesdays after choir—you get the idea. When you have a lot to do, you have to think about when you can do certain things. Even though I thought my writing would suffer from working out, the opposite was true because I set aside smaller chunks of time that I would have wasted with the forethought necessary to put lots of activities into a finite amount of time.

3. Idea development. Who knew that running on the treadmill would be a great time to think about snags in my story? I learned to take my mind off my physical pain by thinking about my mental pain. Unfortunately, thinking about fitness while sitting at the laptop has yielded little results.

2. Souped up vitamins. I’ve been in really, really great shape a couple of times in my life, and I’m working my way back there after having two children. After two different fitness programs that required some serious vitamins, I’ve been at a loss to replicate the results on my own. I found a vitamin at a fancy supplement place that seems to be working, but I was excited to see that Centrum has a One-a-Day vitamin geared to women’s healthy metabolism. Not only does it includes some of the same elements of the proprietary blends that have worked in the past: green tea extract, guarana, cayenne pepper, but it also has the added advantage of a) being in Wal-Mart and b) being significantly cheaper than some of the other vitamins I’ve tried. Of course, you must consult your physician before taking any supplement, and you take any supplement at your own risk. (My lawyer made me add that.)

1. Keep on keeping on. I’ve never been an athlete. Working my body into submission takes a far greater effort than it does for all of those former swimmers and former cross country runners out there. Still, the frailty of my body has taught me a great deal about the limitations of my mind. When I can’t run my full three miles, I can forgive myself. So why do I always browbeat myself if I can’t get my ten daily pages written? Browbeating is counterproductive and makes me more likely to give up entirely. Getting physically fit has taught me to be realistic in all of my goals and that, when push comes to shove, the most important thing is to try, try again. We’re all humans whether we blow off writing to watch television or we eat chocolate cupcakes that we know we don’t need. We must remember that losing one tiny battle is no need to concede the war. To quote Churchill, “Never give up. Never surrender.”

What are some of your greatest discoveries along the way to both physical fitness and literary fame?