112. Dr. Erica Howe's Journey to Optimal Health

Jun 8

Your health is literally your wealth and Dr. Erica Howe joins me again to talk about how her life changed after her cancer diagnosis. We talk about the power that comes from a community of supportive women, the importance of baseline fitness, and why we’re ditching diet culture for good.

Key Takeaway

Find a community of women who will support you through all the good and the bad. Find those people who will lift you up when you need support and who will cheer with you as you celebrate. Find your people.

Listen to Episode 112 Here

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About Dr. Erica Howe

Dr. Howe is a board-certified Hospitalist and a nationally known educator, wife, and mother to three crazy kids. As a prolific speaker and lifelong advocate for improved wellness in medicine, she has given hundreds of talks both nationally and internationally on topics like conflict management and boundary setting.

In 2018, she founded the Women Physicians Wellness Conference—a 3-day event hosted in Aruba, Grand Cayman, and Amelia Island exclusively for women physicians--as a way of bringing them together to share their struggles and their strategies for success.

She believes that women are stronger together and wants to inspire them to find the courage, clarity, and community to succeed on their own terms, instead of someone else’s.

The Power of a Community of Women

Dr. Erica Howe opens up about her breast cancer diagnosis and how this impacted every aspect of her life. She explains how she was so nervous to tell anyone about her diagnosis, but that when she did open up, she received an outpouring of love and support from her community.

It was her community coming together to support her through these dark days that kept her going. We are stronger together, always. Showing up for each other, whether to support through the hard times or help celebrate the good, is such an important part of sisterhood.

This experience solidified Dr. Howe’s decision to go to her Women Physicians Wellness Conference just a few short weeks after her surgery. She shares that while, at first, she wasn’t able to participate in much of the exercise portion of the experience, she was eventually able to join us at the end of the trip.

Exercise Can Help You Recover from Illness

Your health is the most important thing in your life. We all come to this realization sooner or later - and your baseline fitness will help determine how well you recover from surgery. Dr. Howe talks about how she is so over fad diets; she’s all about lifestyle changes from now on. As Dr. Howe prepares for her next surgery, she’s building up her fitness and wellness habits so that she can heal and recover quicker.

One motto that’s really helped Dr. Howe, as well, is to only look to The Next Best Decision. This mindset has really helped her keep focused on what’s important and helps her navigate all the difficult decisions she needs to make.

Finally, we talk about how exercise is important for more than just our physical health. It’s directly related to our mental health, healing abilities, and more.

Do you have a circle of women around you that you can rely on? If not, I’d encourage you to seek out women and start building your support system. Maybe we’ll see you at the Women Physicians Wellness Conference? Let me know in the comments below how you’re nurturing your relationships with other women.

In This Episode

How women physicians can support each other through difficult times [8:00]
Why community support is so important [11:30]
How to start exercising after surgery [18:00]
The importance of putting lifestyle changes over fad diets [20:00]
How your fitness level can help you recover faster [21:00]
The power of ‘The Next Best Decision’ [23:15]
The connection between your mental and physical health [23:45]

Quotes

“They don’t have a guidebook they give you when you get cancer that says, ‘this is how you tell everyone. This is what you should do next.’ So I just posted it and the community came and circled around me in such incredible ways. To this day, it just warms my heart so much to think of how we, as women physicians, can support each other in these dark moments.” [7:55]

“It just speaks to our community and how incredible we are. We are stronger together. We’re all going through things, we all have major life events entering and exiting our lives, and we’re all going through different things at different times. We can be stronger together. We can show up for each other. It doesn’t have to be sitting at someone’s bedside for five days; it’s those little things that just help push us all forward and help us all rise together.” [11:26]

“I just felt overwhelmed with everything that had happened and all the changes. Ali said to just start walking. Just walk. Get my steps in every day. People completely underestimate how powerful that is.” [18:24]

“There is more than having a nice shape to your body. There is the privilege of strength, of being able to get up on your own, of not having to rely on somebody else, of being able to walk by yourself. I’m now coming at it from the mindset of needing as much strength, stamina, and endurance as I can get so when I have surgery a second time around, I can recover faster.” [21:05]