Athlete Profile: Kim Hupp

Age: 51 Residence: Saratoga Springs, NY Family: Daughters, Jessica Callen, 20 and Elizabeth Callen, 19 Primary Sport: Walking Secondary Sports: Bicycling, inline skating, swimming

Mind Over Matter: How Author and Speaker Kim Hupp Lives Life to its Fullest

by Colleen Lovett

Walk into any bookstore nowadays and you will find a great many books and magazines dedicated to some aspect of wellness, whether it is health, fitness, spirituality or nutrition. There is a reason for this: We live in a high-stress society where time is of the essence and the burnout factor is high. So we often look to the experts for wisdom on how to live more healthy and satisfying lives, and how to make the most of every day.

Kim Hupp, a writer, motivational speaker and mother of two from Saratoga Springs, recently joined the ranks of self-help authors with a book containing her own insights into fuller, more healthful living. It is a goldmine of practical information and inspirational anecdotes that outline the principles of self care that have worked for Kim during the toughest times of her life such as divorce, single-parenthood and getting breast cancer, just to name a few.

Today, Kim continues to reap the benefits of balanced and healthy living as she proudly watches her two musically gifted daughters pursue college degrees. She enjoys outdoor sports whenever she can, and enthusiastically pursues her career as a writer and workshop leader. And while Kim’s life today isn’t in a state of crisis, she still has breast cancer.

Kim was diagnosed with breast cancer ten years ago when, after her divorce, she moved from Westport, Mass. to Saratoga Springs with her daughters Jessica and Elizabeth. After intermittent periods of remission, the cancer developed into stage IV metastases, spreading throughout Kim’s body into her bones and her liver.

She started writing her book, entitled Keeping Your Boat Afloat When the Big One Hits: A Practical Crisis Survival Guide (Hidden Harbour Press, 2003), during a particularly difficult course of chemotherapy in 2001 which required that she greatly curb all the physical activities that she has enjoyed since childhood and continues to enjoy today. To stave off the depression and negativity she began to feel as a result of her confinement, she took pen to paper and started making a list of all the things that helped her stay alive over all the previous years since her diagnosis as she dealt with the triple challenge of caring for herself in addition to her two daughters: Good nutrition. Exercise. Spirituality. Balance.

As she wrote, the list grew: Positive attitudes and beliefs. Goal-setting. Creativity. The list grew longer, still, until she had 10 major principles that became the basis for the entire book. She finished it in a total of 15 months, including the time she took off to take a vacation cruise with her sister who she lost to ovarian cancer this past winter.

According to most medical opinions, it is a miracle that Kim is alive after having cancer for so long. And yet she continues to live life to its fullest, enjoying friends and family, traveling, and volunteering for a variety of organizations that support the search for a cure for cancer. In September 2003, Kim will walk a total of 26 miles over two days in the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer. She trains a few times a week, going anywhere from 2 miles up to six miles in a single workout. Kim also volunteers for the Relay For Life, held by the American Cancer Society. She will speak at the upcoming relay in Glens Falls, and walk in the Saratoga event.

Kim also enjoys bicycling, inline skating, swimming, aerobics, and even golf. She also does yoga at the Stillpoint House of Prayer in Stillwater. Her level of exercise in any given week is dictated mainly by her red blood cell count. If the count is low (analogous to being anemic, and very dangerous for cancer patients) then she needs to reduce her activities until her red blood cell count rises again.

“I have learned how to live with cancer, not cure it. Exercise is a way to live longer,” Kim says describing the essence of her message to others about the benefits of self-care not only for improving life with cancer, but for preventing it as well. Even though Kim had been physically active all her life and before cancer, her diet was very poor and high in sugar. Her diet today includes a variety of organic vegetables, meats, eggs and legumes, and contains a lot of protein and very few sugars and carbohydrates.

Equally important to her lifestyle, if not more so, is Kim’s twice daily meditation practice, which she uses to reduce her stress level and maintain a positive attitude. This helps her to think abundantly about the opportunities for happiness that are available, she believes, to anyone who is willing to look for them. Kim refers to meditation and related practices as “going from dis-stress to de-stress,” and they are essential to Kim’s philosophy about life and about cancer. According to Kim, she sees the cancer as simply residing in her body while she goes about the business of living the best life she can. As a result, says Kim, “I don’t give the cancer any power over me. I see it as white dots on an X-Ray.”

While she trains for the upcoming Avon Walk For Breast Cancer on Sept. 20-21, Kim promotes her book through book signings and gives workshops on crisis management and self-care. She is also raising sponsorship money for the walk, partially by donating 10 percent of all proceeds from her book. After speaking at the opening ceremonies, she will begin her journey focusing her mind and heart on three separate but intertwined sentiments: The memory of her sister, a cure for breast cancer (and other cancers), and the mantra that is the mainstay of her walking meditation: “I am cancer free.”

As motivational speaker, author, and cancer survivor, Kim hopes to share with others the lessons for living she received through crisis in general and through cancer in particular. For all of these lessons she is equally grateful. In addition to her book, she leads wellness workshops whenever possible, most recently at The Weekend of Hope in Stowe, Vermont. Her workshops are entitled “Keeping Your Boat Afloat When The Big One Hits,” after her book and “What To Do When Life Gives You Lemons and You Don’t Feel Like Making Lemonade.” Doing workshops puts Kim directly in touch with others, which is very important for her.

Kim loves people and hearing about their lives and experiences. According to Kim, cultivating love, compassion for others and gratitude for everything in her life is what it’s all about. As she puts it simply, “Love is the most important thing in the world, it is the greatest gift we have.” Her life and her strength are the living proof of this.

Colleen Lovett (colleen.lovett@versatrans.com) lives with her family in Niskayuna and works in New York’s Tech Valley. In her spare time she enjoys practicing yoga, and hiking and camping in the Adirondacks.