Glenda's Path to Wellness

Hello again from Glenda. This time I'd like to review my steps from morbidly obese to vibrant good health.

I joined TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly, http://www.tops.org/) on January 7, 2008, weighing in at 314. Through perseverance and determination I have reached my same 10 pound loss goal and reset and re-reached that goal over 17 times now. I won't lie to you.  The weight didn't come off magically or quickly.  It took effort, but as it came off, I physically began feeling better and started simply MOVING MORE AS I WENT THROUGH EACH DAY.  So every day I had a little effort, a little success.  But remember, I was walking around with as much as 340 pounds burdening the bones and joints God gave me to carry a specific, clearly lesser, amount of weight on my small frame. And incremental change and incremental success is the only way that I've found to take the weight off, and keep the weight off.  But that's only part of the story.
I still had in memory the past experiences that had led to the emotional eating in the first place, and I was still uncomfortable with my excessive weight.  Hating my weight and knowing that I needed to lose it didn't change that I didn't want to do the work that was necessary.  Knowing that there was no quick fix, and being entrenched in complacency is where TOPS came in.

I faced some hard truths with the help of my TOPS friends: because of my excess weight, merely moving and doing the things others take for granted taxed my body to its limits.  I still had the problem that my legs would go to sleep if I sat too long and that my legs would buckle if I walked too far.  My life was still too painful for me to bear alone.  TOPS helped me to come to the realization that my excess weight was slowly killing me and robbing me of living.

It definitely was my time to change.  TOPS taught me how to change my eating habits but they didn't stop there. These people wanted me to move more throughout my day.  They actually wanted me to lug MY body around EVEN MORE THAN I ALREADY. WAS. THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANTED ME TO – GET THIS – INCREASE MY ACTIVITY GRADUALLY. 

So I did.  I took TEENY TINY baby steps and then I started to notice I could move farther and stand longer and bend over and then – OH, MY GOD! I COULD ACTUALLY REACH MY FEET AND TIE MY OWN SHOES!  THIS MEANT I COULD ACTUALLY WEAR TENNIS SHOES NOW.

After being unable to reach my feet for 15 years, I remember what it felt like to look down at my feet with my brand spanking new little white tennis shoes on that I tied myself with pretty double bows like I used to do back when I was a little girl in school.  I will never forget the feeling of walking around in my tennis shoes feeling like I could jump higher and run faster than anyone on earth!  Now I knew that at 250 pounds and being over 40 years old, there was no way I could even jump or run at all, but, by the grace of God, I felt like I could, and the motivation that wearing my tennis shoes brought me was empowering, to say the least. 

At this point I had lost 70 pounds, and I was so proud of myself for that.  But the discipline I learned and character that I built from achieving this goal was more valuable to me than the achievement of the goal itself.  I worked so hard to get there, and sometimes it seemed so impossible.  But little by little, day by day, little success after little success – I could tie my own shoes again.  Martin Luther King said it best on a completely unrelated subject, "Free at last, Free at last."  And that's exactly what I felt.  Free and proud and ME.  And it was those feelings that gave me the motivation to increase the momentum.  So let me tell you something else that Mr. Webster forgot to say about success.  It's like Vitalis hair gel – a little dab'll do you.  And it's like Lays potato chips – after one, you want another, and another and another.

I was unstoppable.  I walked every day.  I watched my pretty white tennis shoes in the reflection of each window I passed – there are 38 of them around my building where I work.  But don't get the wrong idea – I was unstoppable, but I was slow at first.  Incredibly slow.  In fact, at first I could only walk one time around my building.  It's ½ mile, and there are many people who regularly run ½ mile in less than two minutes.  It took me my whole lunch hour because I had to rest twice before I could get completely around the building.  But I got better and quicker at putting on my tennis shoes at work and tying them all cute with double bows to go on my walks.  I'm telling you what – I was baby stepping with the best of them and every day that feeling of achievement kept me reaching for more baby steps. 

Remember the times I would wake up the next day after eating fried chicken, French fries, fried okra and whatever else I could fit on my plate? I can tell you this.  I haven't gone to this extreme in 15 months and I know that I won't do it today either.  Now I'm not about to stand here without telling off on myself a little. Along the way, I have stumbled and have chowed down on chocolate and sweets and Christmas goodies and Easter goodies and only our good LORD knows what else because I certainly didn't want to write that crap down in my little food log!  . You're allowed to "mess up" every now and again, so long as you don't make a habit out of consuming an excessive amount of food. Right the dining injustice immediately. You'll be okay. You'll be fine. Just don't do it again. And again. And again. And again.

Remember this quote.  I don't know who said it so I can't take credit for it, but it goes like this, "You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down."  It's worth repeating.  “It's not the falling down, but the staying down.”  I have eaten crap that I shouldn't have eaten at least once a week for the past 15 months but I chose to immediately start fresh at that moment – right after I finish it and sometimes in the middle of it.  OH HECK – Who am I kidding? most times I finish it knowing DARNED WELL THAT I will give myself a "DO OVER" AFTER IT'S GONE. 

But the bottom line is this:  At the end of a year and 10 months, I have lost over a hundred and seventy pounds and am feeling great about myself.  I am living my life and I have to be in charge of this body God loaned me.   I go to the gym four times a week for a mixture of cardiovascular, jazzercise, and strength training. The body is composed of over six hundred muscles and the two I used the most upon losing my weight were my brain and my heart. I prayed to God for the willingness to let him help me and show me the way out of my prison that I built little by little over so many years.  You see, I had to get my car out of park in the first place and "do my part" so God could begin steering me out of the self imposed prison I created for myself.

Today I think of food as a way to survive – fuel for the body and the mind – so its important what kind of fuel I choose.  And I think of exercise as a way to relieve stress, increase endorphins, get strong and live the long, happy life that God intended for me.  And guess what – it's working.  My most recent blood work shows LDL cholesterol in the way below normal range, HDL in the above normal range, Total Blood Serum Cholesterol below normal, normal liver function, normal everything else.  But the blood tests only confirmed what I already knew:  I feel great, inside and outside.

I've learned that a healthy lifestyle and exercise has changed my body, mind, and attitude.  But I'm still in the process of losing, becoming physically fit, growing and reinventing myself.  There is more to each of us than we know. If we can just get a glimpse of it, maybe for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less. I'm still in the process of becoming the best ME that I have ever been in my life. I know where I'm going and I'm keeping my eye on the prize and I won't settle for less.

Next, lets look at the lessons I've learned and how they apply in many ways.