Out of the Picture

This past weekend, I took a new photo to mark my weight loss progress.  So far, I have lost 161 pounds, and I was wearing a new outfit, so I thought it was a great time for a photo!  I’ve put it next to a “before” photo just to show the differences in the two.  In the before photo, taken in October 2009, I was wearing an outfit in a size 36.  In my newest photo, my dress is a size 18, and my jacket is a 14/16!  Ahhhh!!!  That means, from my largest, at a size 36, I have now come down 9 dress sizes to an 18.  That, my friends, feels pretty amazing!

As I was pulling out my before photo file today, I ended up looking through several albums I have stored online, and came to the realization that I don’t have a whole lot of “before” photos to choose from.  For almost every event, be it birthdays, Christmas, vacations, etc., there are only one or two photos of me, which I call the token “yes, mom was there” photos, and in those,  I almost always either have my children standing in front of me, or they’re head-and-shoulders-only shots. 

I mentioned in a previous post that being extremely overweight causes a lot of emotional baggage, in various ways.  I believe this is a great example of that fact.  At my highest weight, I did my best to always be the one behind the camera.  I have, literally, thousands of photos of my children, but only a handful that include me.  And then, I used to go through and delete many of the photos I was actually in (from when someone else would grab my camera) from off the camera before even uploading them to the computer.  I didn’t want to leave a photographic trail of myself for anyone to look back on and remember what I looked like.

You see, at my largest size, I struggled in two ways with being unseen.  First, I often felt overlooked, with my accomplishments and abilities often being ignored or passed by because of being so overweight.  At the same time, however, when you’re really big, the last thing you want is for anyone or anything to draw unnecessary attention to you.  So, you do your best to stay in the background, even though you’re longing to be part of whatever is going on.  So, both literally and figuratively, you’re out of the picture and going through an emotional tug-of-war over it.

As the weight continues to come off, I’m working through these issues.  I’m no longer afraid to have my picture taken, and I am learning to not be afraid of stepping out anymore.  A few years from now, when I look back through photos, I believe my albums will be filled with pictures that show me having the time of my life! 

 

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(Just a reminder/disclosure…I am not a medical professional or certified trainer, so anything I write in this blog is not intended to be taken as advice, guidance, or recommendations.  It is simply a journal of my own personal experiences.  Thanks!)

"Eeeewwwww" at the Pool

While on vacation in Chattanooga last weekend, I spent some time in the pool at the hotel.  It was your typical chain hotel indoor pool, which meant it was fairly small, and having more than 2 or 3 families in there at once made it feel very crowded.  My natural tendency in most situations is to keep to myself and to avoid crowded spaces, so when we first entered the pool area and I saw several other people already in the pool, my first reaction was to skip swimming altogether.  My sons, however, would not let me get away with it, and since I had promised them some pool time, well, I had to grin and bear it for their sakes.

We had been in the pool for about a half an hour, along with a man and his two sons, who looked to be about 5 and 9 years old, or so.  Also in the pool, was another family with the dad, mom, and teen-aged son.  The teen was asking his parents to take him to go eat, and what happened as they got out of the pool broke my heart…

As the mom from the other family got out of the pool and began to dry off, I saw that she was an extremely overweight woman.  The 5-year-old little boy from the other family immediately noticed her and started pointing at her and saying “Eeeewwwwww…” very loudly.  His dad looked at the woman and smiled (smirked?), but did nothing to correct his son’s rude behavior.  The child pointed and said it again a couple of times as the mom looked back at the boy and then quickly left the pool area ahead of her family.

Now, the 5-year-old boy may very well have been saying “Eeeewwww….” about any number of things, as boys that age sometimes do.  Maybe he hates the color blue, which was the color of the mom’s swimsuit.  Maybe he heard them say where they were going out to eat and it’s somewhere he doesn’t like to go.  Maybe he wasn’t pointing at her at all, but saw a mosquito flying through the air in front of him.  Maybe…

Regardless of what the child was truly thinking, I saw the look in that mom’s eyes, and I automatically put myself in her shoes.  If it had been me 20 months ago, before I started losing weight, and the boy had been pointing at me, I would have believed he was making fun of my weight and how I look in a bathing suit.  I would have ran to my hotel room and cried until there was nothing left of me, and vowed to stay away from the pool for the rest of my trip, lest that boy be there to make fun of me again.  My day would have been ruined, and I would have been crushed as I felt the sting of being publicly humiliated.

Behind the smiles and the laughter and the joyful exterior an overweight person might portray, very often are many layers of emotional scars received from the words and actions of others regarding their size.  For all of the excitement I’ve experienced through losing 161 pounds so far, I’ve also had to face the insecurities, the hurts, and the mental scripts that formed within me through nearly 40 years of being overweight.  I plan to address some of these in upcoming blogs.

In the meanwhile, that other mom and the little boy remain in my prayers.  My hope is that the mom can overcome the hurt that was so evident in her face that day, and that the little boy will grow to learn to speak only words of kindness to others.

 

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(Just a reminder/disclosure…I am not a medical professional or certified trainer, so anything I write in this blog is not intended to be taken as advice, guidance, or recommendations.  It is simply a journal of my own personal experiences.  Thanks!)

Highs & Lows

I had the opportunity to spend the last three days in Chattanooga, TN, and had a great time!  While I was there, I definitely experienced some highs and some lows...

The high points of my trip...literally...included standing at the top of Lookout Mountain!

On top of Lookout Mountain

And running up stairs...I climbed several sets of stairs that are decorative/fun features out in front of the Tennessee Aquarium and at other locations in the city, and I counted almost 500 stairs total I climbed on Friday!  This is pretty amazing to me, since I used to avoid stairs at all costs, and now I climb them for fun!




I actually did not get out of breath at all climbing these!





In times past, you would have found me sitting here watching everyone else instead of climbing the stairs myself!



Another high point of my trip was tackling the Chattanooga pedestrian bridge!  Not only did I walk across it and back, I walked over 5 miles around the city and enjoyed every minute of it!  I kept thinking over and over again how wonderful it was to feel so free and to be able to walk wherever I wanted to go!



And, as I said, there was a low point during my trip as well...I took the one mile walking tour of Ruby Falls, a cave with an underground waterfall that lies over 1,100 feet below Lookout Mountain!  It was beautiful!

It was a great long weekend that served as a wonderful reminder to me of just how far I've come on my journey.  I look forward to many more vacations filled with new adventures and activities in the days ahead!  I'm trying to get up my courage for ziplining, hot air balloon rides, and rock climbing in the near future!

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(Just a reminder/disclosure…I am not a medical professional or certified trainer, so anything I write in this blog is not intended to be taken as advice, guidance, or recommendations.  It is simply a journal of my own personal experiences.  Thanks!)

Tomorrows and Yesterdays

In costume, from "The Music Man"

Well, it’s over…the 3+ months of rehearsals, followed by 18 performances during the course of the last three weekends, and “The Music Man” has now become another part of my history.  It’s kind of bittersweet, really.  The schedule was extremely intense, and in many ways, I was ready for it to be over to return to my “normal” life.  There were a lot of things I had to put on hold to be a part of this show.  Among those, I have not been to the gym in a while, and I took a session off from school.  Getting home from rehearsals and shows anywhere from 10:30pm-midnight kept me from getting up at 4:45am for the gym, and there’s no way I could have kept up with schoolwork during the production while still working full-time.  On the other hand, I have to say, upending my schedule was well worth it and I was truly sad to see it come to an end!  I gained a whole new theatre family with our cast and crew, loved getting to experience it all with my oldest son, was reminded how much I love performing classic Broadway musicals, and had a few life lessons reinforced along the way. 

For instance, it can be so easy to get stuck in a rut of how we think we’re supposed to be living our lives, can’t it?  I mean, if we’re at least reasonably responsible, we get up every day and tend to our duties, whether that be to family, school, church, work, or other things.  In doing so, time, money, and energy can be stretched thin, and dreams often get set off to the sidelines.  Trying something new, or taking a leap of faith, or embracing an adventure, fall outside of the realm of the possible, because they just don’t fit the mold of what we expect of ourselves, or what the others who influence our lives expect of us.  We get caught in the trap of “tomorrow…”

Pushing dreams, risk, and exploration off until “tomorrow” keeps us chained to the past.  It's the classic case of doing "what I've always done".  Think about it…Examples of saying you’ll “get around to it” at some point in the future find their way into everyday matters, such as:

I’ll start eating right tomorrow…means you’ll keep putting junk into your body and gaining weight today

I’ll forgive that person tomorrow…means you’ll continue to bear the damaging weight of a grudge today

I’ll take the steps to start my own business or apply for that new job tomorrow…means you’ll still feel chained to your desk today

I’ll invest in relationships with others tomorrow…means you’ll stand alone today

I’ll try something new tomorrow…means you’ll miss out on opportunities and excitement today

At one point in the script for “The Music Man”, one of the characters speaks the most profound line of the entire show.  He says,

“You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.  I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make today worth remembering”

 ~ The Music Man ~

I want each of my days to be worth remembering!  I spent far too many days being afraid to try new things, afraid to let go of what was comfortable and familiar, and afraid to grad hold of something new.  Our lives are made up of days.  We only get so many of them, and I want each and every one of mine to be extraordinary!

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(Just a reminder/disclosure…I am not a medical professional or certified trainer, so anything I write in this blog is not intended to be taken as advice, guidance, or recommendations.  It is simply a journal of my own personal experiences.  Thanks!)