I have hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia.
Thankfully, I have a very mild form of it. The only way it majorly affects my life is in the form of anhidrosis.
What is anhidrosis? The inability to sweat.
Yes, sweat. I don't do it.
My body tries but it just doesn't get much more than a slight glisten when I workout.
When I was 16, I had my first ever heat stroke. I was on my way to a European missions trip! I was going to spend many a day backpacking all over Europe with Royal Servants...spreading the Word and Love of Jesus Christ. Before any "servant" got to go to their destination, they spend 2 weeks in "boot camp" where we learned all the ins and outs of being a missionary. This boot camp took place in Missouri. In June.
I was there a week before I got sent home after spending hours in the ER receiving fluids. I honestly don't remember much of it. Not because it was 16 years ago (ack, half my life) but because I had a stroke. I don't remember much more than really liking Malt o' meal and spending a lot of time throwing up, sleeping in a dark building where there was air conditioning, and when they finally took me to the ER and I was taken to the bathroom, I did not recognize myself. I had lost nearly 10 pounds in a week. I was weak, sick, and sent home because I nearly died. It was then that everyone discovered I don't sweat.
See if you never do something, how can you know that you don't do it??
That year of recovery after my first heat stroke was very difficult. I spent many days in my room in the basement of my house fighting migraines and dealing with intense temperature issues. It was like my body was having mood swings...I was hot, cold, hot, cold. I had heat exhaustion just by going outside. My immune system was shot. I had no way to regulate temperature.
I have gone on to suffer multiple "episodes" of heat stroke and exhaustion. Several times in college, off to the ER, I went to get IV fluids. I would go through these heat exhaustion times when I literally don't remember anything. I remember being at one place and coming to in the hospital with an IV. Being told I was fully awake when I came in but having no memory of it.
As I have gotten older and more mature, I have come to notice the signs...flushing of my face, a huge intolerance to everything and everybody, nausea, the feeling that my body wants to explode, vertigo, black outs, and eventual stroke.
Everytime I am out in the heat that is above 80 degrees or above 80% humidity, I feel like my body is losing brain cells. It's an awful feeling.
It's a genetic trait. I have passed along this wonderful condition to only one of my daughters, thankfully. My mother passed it along to me but not my brother.
So how does someone with anhidrosis become a BeachBody Coach? Because I refuse to let it run me. I refuse to let it just be an excuse. Can I workout when it is 90? No. But I can at 5am when it isn't that warm. Or I can take a rest day. Or I can find some really cold air conditioning and get to work. Can I run 5ks in the summer? No, I can't. But I can in the fall or spring. I spent so much of my life being told what I cannot do that I got sick of it.
Do I still get crabby when it is 100 and 100% humidity and I am stuck in bed, trying to not throw up, and make the world stop spinning?? YES! I do. But the day will pass and on to the next. There are so many things in life that we have no control over, and while I have no control on the weather...I refuse to let it run me.
I have had so many people give me excuses this month on why they cannot work out....sooooo many. It's ok. They are not ready. Someday they will be ready and I will be here waiting to coach them.
I have one of the ultimate excuses. I do not sweat. But my body still needs the exercise My body still wants to be physical. Winter is coming. Dogsled season is coming and I owe it to my dogs to be in top physical condition on those trails just like they are.
Don't use your limitations to make excuses. Use them to make them your reason to do it, instead.
