For most of my life, I have been athletic. I was involved in organized sports year round as a student and then later, militantly into yoga and cycling for fun. I took my athleticism for granted and coasted on the fruits of my life long labor for an entire decade until I was knocking on the door of middle age. Then I got a desk job, went back to school, and moved to a place that required up to 20 hours of driving per week. Physically, it went bad pretty quickly at a time when I just did not have any time to do anything about it.

Once I graduated, I had no motivation left. It’s a terrible cycle. Here I was, not only at my heaviest, but also with the most unfortunate composition of that weight I had ever seen in myself. How depressing.

A couple years went by like this and I started hiking. It made no sense that I hadn’t already done this. I live less than a mile from a national forest, but I just did not have any motivation. To be perfectly honest, the only reason I started to hike was because my husband and I have 3 dogs and the two females started having aggression issues. We took them to a trainer who said that we needed to start physically and mentally wearing them out. I’ve watched hours of Cesar Milan saying this to dog owners… hours I could have spent walking my own dogs.

I started taking really long walks with my dogs on a daily basis. I noticed that the changes- which were almost immediate- were not only happening to them. Very serious changes started happening to me. The walking made me really happy. It was incredibly uplifting, physically and mentally. In addition, it was time well spent with my husband, and I started really appreciating my dogs as they also seemed uplifted. Pretty soon, I started shedding weight. Bonus! I was hooked.

We started hiking everywhere, every time we traveled… Colorado and Hawaii, along cliffs (I am deathly afraid of heights), in rain forests (I am not a fan of bugs)… I noticed that the more a hike tested my body or my fear, the more euphoric I felt at the end. Mind you, we are not talking about K2 or anything. I still consider myself a beginner, but I was accomplishing things I never would have thought I could do at this point in my life- like Koko Head in Honolulu.

Some hikes were pretty scary for me. There have definitely been times that I have regretted getting myself into certain situations because, say, my trail is a foot wide and the drop is 100 feet. When I found myself in these situations, I just kept thinking, “One foot. All you have to do is put one foot ahead of the other. After that, if you want to turn around, you can; but just try ONE FOOT.” Each and every time (so far), it would result in one more, and another… until I was charging the top!

This idea of One foot works for me in every situation. The solutions to the most insurmountable problems always start with a first step. Sometimes, I don’t even know what the second step will be or how I will find out, but I can usually figure out how to take one step- at least one thing I can do that I know will add value.

The hiking has had a domino effect. I started wanting to be in better shape so that I can be ready for any hiking opportunity that comes my way. My natural inclination was to go right back to yoga, where I had found so many wonderful moments earlier in life. I tried it, and was quite humbled. It was terrible. Turns out 12 years had passed since I last practiced, and those years were mostly sedentary. I almost gave up, and I remembered “One foot”. I spent 5 months planking and  stretching after our walks. It was the yogic equivalent of wax on, wax off / paint the fence. Then one day, I tried a sun salutation and it felt amazing.

I have a long way to go, but for me, there is infinite success in One foot.