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There was a time when movement was simple.
Twenty years ago, I had chosen to learn to run, because I wanted to move.
I didn’t think much about my lungs, my feet, or whether my body would cooperate that day. Movement was just becoming a part of my life.
Then life changed.
Plantar fasciitis, pregnancies, surgeries, caregiving, and my large family life filled my days.
In 2023, three weeks after giving birth to my eighth baby, I developed pulmonary embolisms in all four lobes of both lungs, and pleurisy.
I came frighteningly close to losing my life. My Hematologist said I probably had 5 days before that moment, if I hadn’t gotten medical intervention.
For a while, walking the ten feet from my couch to the bathroom left me gasping for air. Every single breath hurt. Every single breath became unimaginable effort.
Movement stopped being something I did for fitness. It became something I did to stay alive. I literally needed my blood to move to stay safe while the clots slowly dissolved.
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The First long Walk
When I was finally well enough to begin moving again, weeks later, it wasn’t because I felt ready.
It was because my Hematologist gave me one simple instruction:
Move your body for fifteen minutes, every two hours.
Not to burn calories.
Not to lose weight.
Not to “get my body back” after having my eighth baby.
To keep my blood moving while my body continued to recover…So I walked.
We have a tiny traffic circle on our property that’s about the length of 5 passenger vans end-to-end.
That was the goal. It took me fifteen minutes the first time.
Not because the distance was far, but because my body had survived something my mind was still trying to understand.
By the time I finished, I was gasping for air. And I cried, because I was feeling winded again exactly like when I first tried to walk from the couch to the bathroom.
Recovery wasn’t just physical. It was emotional. It was deeply human.
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Sometimes Returning Needs Company
Those walks became part of my day, until the ice came in the winter.
Sometimes I walked alone, sometimes with one of my people. Always without the baby because I didn’t have the air to have her strapped to my chest or to push her in a stroller.
While other moms were taking walks with their babies, mine stayed inside while I made one slow lap around our little traffic circle.
They weren’t workouts. They were medicine. They were rebuilding.
Looking back, that wasn’t failure.
It was capacity.
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Three Years Later
People often expect recovery stories to end with, “Everything went back to normal.” Mine didn’t.
That little baby turns three this month.
Three years later, I still have reduced lung capacity.
I still become winded more quickly than I used to.
I still have to pay attention to what my body is telling me.
For a long time, I kept measuring myself against the woman I used to be.
The woman whose lungs never entered the conversation about capacity or physicality.
Eventually I realized I was asking myself the wrong question.
Not:
“Where should I be by now?”
But:
“What is my body capable of doing today?”
The first is built on an expectation I have for myself.
The second is built on my reality.
And reality is where sustainable progress grows.
That isn’t giving up.
It’s discernment, and a true definition of self care.
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Why I Built Movement This Way
I’m not a personal trainer.
I’m not a physical therapist.
I’m not a movement specialist.
I don’t have credentials that qualify me to prescribe exercise.
What I do have is a body that has lived through many different seasons.
I’ve been the woman who wanted to learn to love running.
I’ve been the woman who couldn’t walk ten feet without gasping for air.
I’ve spent years in physical therapy for different injuries, and recoveries.
I’ve rebuilt momentum after pregnancy and postpartum, to start that cycle over again.
I’ve rebuilt after nearly losing my life.
And I’m still rebuilding.
I didn’t build the movement section of Fuel Flow to tell people how they should move.
Everything inside the movement section exists because I needed it first.
I built it to help people build a relationship with the body they have today, not the one they think they “should” have.
And some days?
The most honest movement check-in is acknowledging that caring for your children, working your job, cleaning your home, gardening, or simply making it through the day was enough.
Because personal awareness matters.
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many of us have carried invisible rules about movement
It only counts if you sweat.
If you burn enough calories.
If you work hard enough.
If you finish the whole workout.
If you never miss a day.
I don’t believe that anymore.
Movement isn’t punishment.
It isn’t payment for what you ate.
It isn’t something you earn.
Movement is support.
Some days support looks like strength training.
Some days it looks like stretching.
Some days it looks like a walk around the block.
Some days it looks like following your physical therapist’s exercises.
Some days it looks like recognizing that your body has reached today’s capacity—and honoring that boundary without guilt.
That’s why one sentence has become the foundation of my movement philosophy:
I moved. No conditions.
No matter where you’re beginning, your movement still matters.
Because it’s yours.
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Ready to Build a Different Relationship with Movement?
Inside Fuel Flow, movement isn’t about earning your health. It’s about supporting it.
Explore Fuel Flow Features:
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Nicole Burch is a Trim Healthy Lifestyle Coach, author, and holistic family life mentor helping women and families rebuild through rooted rhythms, personal governance, and sustainable living. Blending nourishment, discernment, and restoration, she guides others toward resilience, peace, and healing—creating lives that are grounded, aligned, and nurtured at home.
Wellness That Withstands.
Rooted. Resilient. Restored.
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Trim Healthy Coach Disclaimer
Nicole Burch is a Certified Trim Healthy Mama Lifestyle Coach, independently offering services based on the THM plan. This coach is not an employee or agent of Trim Healthy Mama, LLC. Coaching services are independently managed, and THM is not responsible for results, business practices, or claims made by this coach.
Affiliate Disclosures
As an Amazon Associate, I may link to specific products that I believe in and trust. This is an affiliate link, and I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.
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