One Step Further

Ever since I can remember, I have loved to take walks. There is something about being outside surrounded by all of God’s creations that makes me feel at peace. When I was a young girl and living at home where much turmoil brewed, I would often find serenity in strolling through the neighborhood. Walking clears my mind, causing me to pause in the madness of the world and get closer to God and myself.

As a young girl, I would often wait until things at home were settled and just take off walking. Back in those days, I had no special shoes and I had beautiful strong legs unmarred by ugly veins that would later cause me much pain. Those times in my youth saved me many a time from the discontent that was in my life. On one such walk at the tender age of sixteen, I met my first husband.

Often throughout my life, I have used walking again and again for stress relief, sanity moments and exercise. However, the last few years I have been very sedentary. With the added weight I found taking steps painful. To make matters worse, my desk job where I spent 8-9 hours sitting turned my vein stricken legs into flabby mush. Taking steps made me shaky and often I would wake in the middle of the night hurting with all sorts of leg aches.

So, a few weeks ago when I started my healthy turn around, I decided the best way to get some exercise was to start walking. I had too many pounds on me to be joining some sort of class where jumping up and down would be too embarrassing and then the thought of going to a gym; well it just wasn’t going to happen.

So a couple of days after I changed my eating habits, I went for my first walk. I had read a walking plan where beginners start easily with a ten minute walk. I figured I could do that, it sounded simple and easy. Those first few steps out in the parking lot at work were a killer. It took me ten minutes to walk around the one time and I was short of breath. My legs felt like rubber and I could feel my thighs rubbing together. It was horrible.

I felt so shaky when I returned to my desk and depressed. I am in my early fifties, overweight and now I can’t even walk for ten minutes. When one grows older and our once energetic body turns to blubber, it is humbling, and depressing. That first day out walking in the cool air opened my eyes to how out of shape I had become and I knew I had to keep moving to keep alive.

The next day I went out again and the day after that, I stretched my walk into another 15 minute break. Twice a day almost every day for the last several weeks had helped me in so many ways. I enjoy pushing away from my desk and getting outside for those few moments.

Every day I move a little more. The weight is coming off and my legs are feeling stronger. I have pushed myself a little further each time out. If I can’t make it outside due to weather, I walk around the shop, up stairs and in the basement. I find I am becoming more creative with my steps. I now park further when I shop, go up and down my steps at home more frequently and am starting to want to walk more and more.

Last night after an early dinner I decided to take a walk. I didn’t want to sit in front of the TV and fall asleep, so I got moving. Grabbing my IPod I headed out the door and down the street. I started slowly and took my time looking at everything around me. My IPod started off with praise music I had down loaded and it was really appropriate as I enjoyed all of the beauty surrounding me. Each step I took I found my spirits lifting making me enjoy the evening.

I saw neighbors out in yards, viewed other people’s flowers (mine were destroyed by an over-zealous husband, a story for another blog entry) and marveled at the beautiful sky God painted for me. I wish I were a good enough writer or perhaps a painter so that I could show you exactly all I saw on my 45 minute walk. It was just the most wonderful walk I had experienced in a long time.

I took in every sight, every scent and every sound and just breathed it into my very being. I am in awe of God’s handiwork and last night I viewed a most breath taking skyline. I watched cotton candy clouds form into Hercules, an ocean and what seemed to be the Pillsbury cartoon fella with a big fat belly. The pale blue sky sparkled against the soft white clouds and it was just a sight to see. Even above my music, I could hear the birdsong serenade me as I picked up my pace and I imagined the birds cheering me on.

Forty-five minutes later, a little sweaty, very thirsty, I finished off my walk and sat down on the deck out back and enjoyed the last of the skyline before me. I felt good, I felt better than good, I felt great. My body is starting to obey me and firm up a little. The blood flow to my legs has improved and it has been a couple of weeks since I woke up with achy legs. My stress level is reduced and some energy is returning. I know I still have a way to go, but last night I went for a 45 minute walk! To me that is more than progress, it’s a miracle from where I was a few weeks before.

Sitting on my deck, watching the golden globe of the sun set against that beautiful sky God painted for me last night, I gave thanks.

Teresa Gale

PIG OUT DAY

If you have ever had a “Pig Out Day”, you will “get” my story today. If you however are one of those naturally thin people who have never had a weight problem, you just might not get my addiction to the call of food. However, both will find something to identify with in the following “Pig Out Tale.”

Ever have a day where your good healthy eating goes right out the window and you just plain “pig out?” Even the best laid plans can go away when faced with delicious foods staring in your face and tenderly calling your name.

I had just such a day. I had done so well all week, as a matter of fact, for several weeks. The weight is slowly coming off and I am feeling good. I am doing the Weight Watchers Plan where you are allotted a certain amount of points and given an extra 35a week, plus as a bonus, when you exercise you also gain extra spending points to use.

I rarely use any of the extra points, once in awhile I may dip into the 35 extra using maybe 5 or so. Most weeks they are left untouched, like a security blanket just in case I need them. I love walking and adding extra points each week, but never touch them.

Yesterday however almost did me in. I went to my grandson Logan’s fifth birthday party. I even prepared by bringing my own wheat bun and rice cake chips, grapes and water. I enjoyed the family gathered around and loved watching Logan’s face light up with the friends and family to celebrate his day. It was a beautiful day, hot but breezy and of course I loved it all.

The scent of hamburgers and hot dogs grilled by my son in law Aaron drifting to my very hungry nose. I even waited while everyone else got the first burgers off the grill before I made my own. I nibbled on rice cakes and watermelon while waiting for round two of burgers to come off the grill. The taste was well worth waiting for and I ate the burger heartedly. However, I found myself still hungry and grabbed another. I knew it was okay, I had a budget of points left plus 46 extra stored away.
Then the cake was cut.

Chocolate cake I must add. Chocolate started whispering in my ear, taunting me, teasing me, lying to me that “it would be okay, eat me, eat me, you know you want to eat me.” So I accepted a small piece and okay, give me the ice cream too. Butter cream icing slid between my lips and teased my tongue, chocolate crumbs slid down my sugar deprived throat and the ice cream topped it off by cooling my mouth. Sugar!

I had not had real live sugar like this in over six weeks. I savored each bite and should have stopped. I really was over sugared about half way through the cake, but I kept going. I ate the whole thing and all the ice cream. My lips and tongue were colored blue by the frosting as I licked the residue off.I was drunk by the sugar and my head started feeling light headed and I became slightly dizzy by the affects.

I waddled slowly to the trash can and threw the plate away, as I did, I could feel the fullness explode inside me and bloat my stomach. It was not a pretty feeling, as a matter of fact, it was quite ugly. I was not only too full, I was past full, to the point of exploding. My head felt dizzy, my stomach unsure of what to do with all this food I poured down me and nausea overwhelmed me.

Suddenly in the memory banks of my mind, I recalled how weeks before I would feel like this on a daily basis. I am sure if you have ever pigged out, you know the feeling. It is uncomfortable.

To make matters worse, it set me on a binge. After all, I had already treaded on very treacherous grounds and why not finish the day off with more of the same. I ignored the nausea, ignored the “fat feeling” the bloated stomach, the warning signals that were like flashing lights all around me and I kept eating once home. I filled up on dinner, my plate over full. Then Mark went to bed and I sat alone downloading pictures from the day.

I have lost a total of 23 pounds in six weeks and shed several inches, my clothes are fitting so much better and I am fitting into items in my closet that have not been worn in over a year. Yet looking at pictures of myself taken at the party, I still saw an overweight and aging self. All the hard work I had done in the last few weeks felt like nothing as I viewed a still fat face, thighs, hips and upper body. The shirt I was happy I could wear to the picnic suddenly showed me just how much more weight I had to lose.

I was humbled. Humbled by the fact I felt like a failure. Humbled by the idea I thought I was thin. It all crashed in on me as I stared at the very unflattering, thank you husband, photo of myself and I did what I had always done in the past. I pigged out more! Why not? I stuffed down this disappointment with comfort food telling myself I still had extra points to spare, use them and use them all! And I almost did.

If you have been where I am, you can relate. You know the feelings of defeat, you know the call of food and the whisper in your head teasing you, taunting you, telling you to go, go, go to the cabinet and get the food you know you want. The voices like the high school bully, like that person in your life that is toxic and telling you all the bad things about yourself and starts the choir going and you wave the thin flag and surrender. You drown yourself in foods you have been limiting and get drunk on the taste. That’s what happened to me yesterday. It is pure seduction.

Okay, confession is over. I did it and I am not hiding it. Here I am blogging about a most embarrassing instance in my life. I have put it out there just as I put the self description of my “fat” out there. I confess. I confess I am not perfect, nor am I thin. I make mistakes, I gave in and I am not perfect. I didn’t just test the waters, but dived in over my head and drowned in food.

Now what? You may be thinking; if anyone is even reading me, what will she do now? I sound pathetic, I know. Well, I am back on the healthy trail. I stuck it out today until I was really hungry for food. I didn’t put anything in my mouth until I got a signal from my body, something I would never have done in the past. I am learning, I am growing in understanding and I am shrinking in size. Even though that photo told me I still had a long way to go, I know the way.

I am back on track. In fact I just had a lovely breakfast on the deck and treated myself to something different than my normal yogurt and apple. I ate a beautiful meal and did so on my deck. The birds sang to me, the sun kissed me and the trees nodded their leafy heads in approval. I learned that all that eating doesn’t make me feel good at all. Stuffing my face and stomach overly on sugary treats and too much good food made me feel sluggish and fat.

Eating what I need and when I need it is what I want for myself now. Although the new picture of me showed I still had a long way to go, it also showed me how far I have come in the last several weeks. I no longer have The Three Little Pigs chinny chin chins, but I am starting to see a slimmer face that is a resemblance of the other me I have hidden away under pounds and pounds. I am out of hiding and warning everyone I will not go down without a fight.

I am not perfect, nor will I ever be. I am who I am and walking a new journey in my life. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

Teresa Gale

Watch for next installment: One Step Further

Strawberry Fields

Strawberry Fields

A couple of weeks ago, my two youngest daughters invited me along with my Grandson Logan to pick strawberries. I reluctantly accepted. Reluctant only due to the fact my almost 53 year old out of shape body with bad knees and the burden of extra weight made me unsure I could manage the workout. I am so elated I decided to tag along.

I met my girls and grandson at the Strawberry field on a steamy hot Saturday that threatened rain. I was delighted and a bit full of nostalgia when I realized these was the very same fields my dear sweet Grandma Goldie and I picked our last strawberries together almost 25 years or more ago.

Boxes in hand, hat sheltering my head I knelt on the straw that lie in the middle of the aisle. It took me a moment or two to descend slowly to the ground and peek under the lush bushes to find succulent red strawberries. Looking up at my two girls already busy picking and my blonde headed grandson having a blast running between the bushes to help made the day all the more special.

We busily picked the strawberries filling out baskets with the juicy red beauties. Sweat began to pour over us and I scooted the best my poor old legs would allow. I alternated between kneeling, bending, sitting flat on my big old butt until I soon had a full basket. My hands stained red with the sweet juice of the berries and legs cramped from my crawling around, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction that I had done the hard work. I had a little help from Logan who thought it was fun to throw them at me to catch.

I have such sweet memories now and told him he was the very first grandchild to ever pick berries with this grandma. It brought to mind my own sweet grandmother and the day we sweated out in the very same field when she came up to visit. We had a wonderful time together and we took our precious berries home where she then set out teaching me to make her jam.

I snapped a few photos of the moment to capture the day with my daughters and I thought of how life had come full circle from one grandmother to another. I was much younger when grandma and I picked berries those many years ago, with only four little girls. I have since added to our family with two sons and several grandchildren.

I will forever treasure this time together, the memories they made, while an old tradition carried on to another generation. Later as I stood in my kitchen taking the stems off the berries I could almost hear my grandmother instruct me on the method and how to carefully pull the stems to savor the juice. I think she must have been telling me much more. Somewhere inside my heart I could hear her telling me to take my time and to treasure the juiciest parts of life, and to savor the sweetness.

Teresa Gale

Hunger Pangs

Hunger Pangs

I am hungry. I am hungry a lot lately. It seems as soon as I admitted it in public that I am fat, the hunger began.

As a matter of fact, as soon as I admitted my new healthy plan for eating, my journey into starvation began. Prior to my confession into blog world, I found I was doing really well, better than well. I was learning to control my snacking, I had left over points every day and the weight was falling off. However, now, I am hungry.
Diets can do that to people. We focus on food constantly, thinking, planning, counting and preparing. Our every thought seems to be on food, the very thing we are trying not to think about because that is how we got fat.

So the battle has begun. As hard as I try not to be hungry, not to think of food, it seems I am way too obsessed. Don’t get me wrong, I am still losing, anywhere from a pound to two pounds a week and the fat clothes that were bursting at the seams have begun to loosen and feel good to wear.

Now I need to figure out how to become un-obsessed with food. After all, we need food to survive, but why do I think I need to have more than I need? Why does anyone feel they need an excess to survive.

I can link my problem back to the childhood thing. Not only did I think I was fat back then and went on a starvation diet where I survived on a few meager bites each day, but there was a time in my childhood, we just didn’t have food. I felt I had to “store up food” when we had it to survive. Then there is the comfort food theory, we eat when we feel bad, we hunger for something and fill ourselves up with food. Everyone has a reason they are over-weight and it isn’t because we desire to be that way, most of the time it depresses us to no end.

Now, I have to focus on other things besides food in order to succeed. How does one do this when I need to also pay attention to what goes into my mouth? How do you calculate calories, points, good healthy food instead of bad food and not become obsessed?

I often wonder about naturally thin people who don’t seem to have this same obsession I do. How do you all stay so thin? Are you ever ravenously hungry and out of control?

Control is the key to success. I need to find the control to let the hunger pass, the focus to adjust to other things and move towards being healthy. Part of the problem with food is the mindless eating we do at our desks or on the run. We act upon what we think is hungry when what really is happening is we are not paying attention to our bodies. Like the smoker who lights up during a certain time or certain event it becomes a habit, but not a good one. I know because I was that smoker.

Getting healthy is work, hard work. I must trade my bad habits for good habits. Food is needed to survive, but too much of anything is bad for you. So I continue I ignore the hunger more often that I did a few months ago, I have started walking more, moving more and the weight loss is my reward.

As I continue down my “hunger for good health” road, I will need to pay attention to the world around me and realize God is providing for me. I don’t need more, I need only “just enough.” God provided for the Israelites in the desert the manna to sustain them and instructed them to take only what they needed for the day and no more. Exodus 16:4-5. God tested his people and he tests me. I want to pass the test with flying colors and readjust my stinking thinking about food. I am turning my hunger for food into a hunger for life. God is walking beside me and I am starting to feel good.

Teresa Gale

Reflections

Stumbling into the bathroom early one morning I was caught quite by surprise. Leaning against the sink and staring into the mirror I viewed a shocking reflection. Turning my head one way and then back, I felt my stomach lurch. It couldn’t be me reflected in the mirror; this had to be a dream, a nightmare even. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I stare back into the vision before me and then quickly retreat.

It amazes me still to this day the horror of what I saw. I chose to do the most natural thing in the world for me; ignore it. Ha! Ignoring the problem is not the answer, but I tried to. I pushed it out of my head, thinking much like Scarlett, “Tomorrow is another day.”

As much as I would like to say this was easy, it wasn’t. It would be the start of why I am writing today on an issue that has been in my life since I was ten years old. What I saw in the mirror and what would follow in the days, weeks and months ahead would be instrumental in turning my focus on my health.

Reflections are a hard thing to ignore, especially for a woman. We stare at our reflections every single day as we put on make-up, brush our hair and teeth. We become so use to what we see; it can be easy to not really pay attention. This particular morning was the beginning of my reality, of my waking up.

Startled by my view of myself in the mirror was soon followed up with the realization that my face and neck were changing, that my “fat clothes” had shrunk and that my neck now had given birth to three chins. Not a very pretty thought or picture. Several photos taken in March and April soon had me shocked into action.

I was appalled by a photo taken of me on Easter. I knew I had gained weight ever since I went off a medication for migraines, but I took no action. I just kept thinking I had a handle on it. Those were my thoughts until my husband took a photo of the kids at Easter playing a musical game and of me reclining on the sofa watching them. My very first thought when I saw the photo of me with enough chins to make the Three Little Piggy’s green with envy, was to delete it and delete it quickly. My hand hovered over the delete button on the camera, finger shaking and tears beginning to well up in my eyes. I hesitated and then decided to leave the photo on my computer.

How did I get here? When did I gain this much weight? I mean, really, do I really eat that much? Questions many dieters for life ask themselves. We have all sorts of tricks up our sleeves to camouflage our abundant bellies and thighs, but the face; oh the face is so hard to hide. I had nowhere to run, no one to blame and no way I would be able to put a bag over my head for the rest of my life.

There was no denying the photo, for not just one was taken but several, all giving the same likeness. I decided to do something else that would throw me into shock, denial and finally fear I stepped on the bathroom scale. You know the one, the menacing metal thing we use as decorations in most homes by throwing towels, magazines or shoes upon. I cleared it off, tentatively stepped on the stark white monster and then just as quickly stepped off. No way! Back on I stepped again, same number stared back at me. Shocked, I felt tears well up again and I quickly stepped off the scale and flew out of the bathroom. Not before making sure that digital nightmare number had eased itself before anyone else knew my secret.

Being fat is one of the worst kept secrets, except for those of us in denial and I am the queen of denial. To make matters worse, my clothes had begun clinging to me in very unflattering ways. My “fat clothes” were tight. I felt totally disappointed in myself and I allowed myself to wallow in the self pity. The number I saw screaming at me was a number higher than I had ever reached before and it truly made me cry.

I reached out to two friends at my church and they shared their own stories. We decided to get together and try a diet we had read about. The support was great, the diet which wasn’t necessarily a diet but an awareness of fullness worked for about three weeks and then commitments and holidays kept us from getting together. The little bit I lost quickly came back. I began to feel hatred and anger at myself.

I had managed in the past many things; I was not a weak willed woman. Yet here I was with a face that was swallowed up in fat and a body that was betraying the truly thin person I was inside. It’s amazing what that reflection one early morning threw me into, not all at once but slowly. I began turning over in my mind what I wanted to do and how I wanted to look for the rest of my life and fat was not in!

My oldest daughter recently embarked on a weight loss journey and looks fantastic. I decided to not look upon my journey as a diet, although in many ways it is, but a new health plan for me. On April 25th I signed up online with Weight Watchers and have been combining both this plan and the other plan. I have turned my journey over to God and stopped fighting myself.

I am on a new path, reflecting on many things in my life, not just food, fat and the view in the mirror, but on my inner being. It’s slow, it is sometimes hard, but oh the revelations have been quite surprising.

I am not sure who is reading me here or if anyone is, I am also unsure of how many will understand or get where I am coming from. I am not sure why I decided to blog about my struggles and soon some successes, but I am in hopes I will find out soon.

In the end, I was and am unhappy with hiding away, hiding behind layers of fat and being uncomfortable in my own skin. Change is never easy, it is hard work. At my age I need to be healthy, I need to feel good about who I am. I am learning to like myself a little more each day, and it is not all about being thin. I will never be the model that stares out from the magazine stands, I will never be as thin as I would like. I am after all a woman in her fifties. I am starting to like the new reflection I see in the mirror, a little older, a little wiser and a little thinner. I do know one thing…I am ready to begin to live.

Teresa Gale

Weighty Issues

Weighty Issues

I am fat. There…I said it. Finally the secret I have long held inside is out. Whew!

It isn’t as if I didn’t say it out loud and in a public forum that it would make it real, I mean, anyone who looked at me twice, would be able to see I am fat. However, saying it out loud makes it “out there” now.

I can remember the very first time someone called me fat. I was all of about ten years old and the hurtful words were meant to wound me. It was my brother who had been upset over something I cannot remember. I can still feel the way I cringed over the word, a word spoken to hurt and hurt it did. I crept up the stairs to my mother’s room and stood in front of the full length mirror turning this way and that trying to see what fat looked like.

In the reflection was a girl who had a small rounded belly, long bird legs along with a flat chest and in that moment, the belly grew larger in my eyes. I was now fat, it had been confirmed and the struggles began. Forever after that moment I would wrestle not only with the word, but with my weight. I had been labeled and I felt as if my very fatness was growing by the moment.

From that moment on, my life revolved around my weight. As I look back at pictures of myself at that age, I am amazed at the pencil thin girl with long brown hair and cat-like eyes. My face was thin, legs long and slender and my belly, well, it is almost non-existent. My issue with my weight may have begun at age ten, but it wasn’t until much later that the actual real live, honest to God fat developed.

My teen years were fraught with trying to fit in and living a life at home that was anything but normal. An alcoholic mother who often was so insecure she would lash out at me to get me to cry, crying to her meant love. If I would cry she must have felt I loved her. Her sickness, my co-dependency was all instrumental in my weight issues. I wanted to fit in, fit in at home, at school and with all the pretty girls I came in contact with during those years. I wanted my mom to love me and the girls at school to accept me.

I learned early to carry myself tall and straight, sucking in my abdomen to make me appear thinner than I would ever feel. The looks I got as I walked down the hallway made me more self conscious. I felt that the eyes must be examining my fat. I felt so insecure I would hide myself within. I was considered stuck up by school mates, stiff and unapproachable. Little would the kids I went to school with know the home life I led and the reasons behind my shy, quiet nature nor little did I know that the boys liked what they saw and made the girls jealous.

So my journey began. I developed a chest that was quite large. I was a late bloomer in that department, or so I thought, but in fact developed womanly curves far beyond my age. The fact I was curvy and taller than most of the girls in my class, only made me stand out more.

Throughout the years, my weight has gone up and down, up and down, and not unlike a roller coaster and often making me so frustrated. When I read back at old journals or New Year’s resolutions, my weight issue has always been at the top of my entries.

So here I go again, only this time I am in my fifties and the metabolism is almost non-existent. For the next several months, I shall blog about this “Fat Girl” inside or outside of me. As I begin yet again another weight loss journey, I pray I can whittle away the “Fat Girl” and find inside the real me. Thin or fat, there is a self discovery in process. Anyone who has ever had a weight issue may well recognize themselves in my story.

Teresa Gale