Where I'm At and Where I'm Going

"11-year anniversary trip.  We got together with Sam again.  He looked so good.  He's lost 125 lbs.  He said he was talking to Iz when he was on his deathbed (Iz was a Hawaiian singer who weighed almost 700 lbs.  You've undoubtedly heard his ukulele version of Over the Rainbow at some point) dying of obesity-related problems.  Iz told him, "listen to your doctors...I wish I had.  It's not too late for you."  He died not long after.  He talked about how he would walk short distances and be so out of breath at 445 lbs.  Don't I know it.  We're on Kauai & every time we would come up one flight of stairs, I'm so breathless.  It takes me like five minutes to catch my breath.  That's sad.  There are so many things I can't or don't want to do because of my weight.  I turn over in bed, and my heart rate goes up.  WTF!?!  The smallest things are so difficult anymore and being in Hawaii only amplifies them.  I've seen glimpses of myself in the mirror, clothed and naked, and wondered who that person is.  I've seen pics of myself and this is the first year I don't recognize my own face.  I look at the sand and ocean and long to feel the sand between my toes.  Then I think of walking over to the beach, how many steps will I take before I become winded, who will be around, will they say something, will someone yell from the balcony, the walk back and how winded I'll be by the time I get back.  By then, all of the joy has been drained out of something fit, and even just overweight people take for granted.  A simple pleasure I struggle with every time I look out of the window." 

That was an excerpt of the first thing I wrote in my personal journal in 2007 on a trip to Hawaii.  That was 162 lbs ago.  I still wasn't at my biggest yet...that was 205 lbs ago.  As you can see, even as frustrated as I was, it wasn't enough to stop me from gaining another 42 lbs before hitting my proverbial rock bottom about a year later.  I'll be honest, I'm kind of proud of us for still traveling that heavy because I know so many people don't because they don't want the looks of disgust from someone praying you're not sitting by them when you're over 450 lbs.  Hell, I still get them now even under 300 lbs!  But those last few vacations were so sad in retrospect.  I remember getting most of our meals to go because I just didn't want to risk being stared at in restaurants especially if there were chairs I didn't fit in.  I once had a lady ask at a really nice restaurant if I needed an armless chair and I didn't, but she said it loud enough that everyone at about five tables heard it and looked.  I don't think she meant anything by it, trust me you can tell when they do, but still...way to put a big, fat dagger into what self-esteem I drummed up just to leave the condo for a night. 

I am so grateful that we had a wake-up call and got the extra weight off that we did.  I'm not going to lie and say I'm happy with the progress of the last 5-7 years because there has been little progress some due to injury/muscle issues and also just not wanting to do what needed to be done even though we've said it 20,000x.  It has been more maintenance.  That would be fine if we both weren't still 75-100 lbs overweight according to "charts."  We have both gained from our lowest and of course, it's always worse coming back from vacation.  He's thankfully only got 3 lbs to go to be back to pre-vacation weight, but after a freak 2 lb gain last week (pretty sure from inflammation and lack of water from heavy lifting and HIIT), I have 10 more to lose which is a pisser. 

But here's the thing, while that's utterly frustrating, I feel good about the path we're on.  I know Saturday has some improvements that can be made but I've never really felt like Saturday was our whole problem.  The lack of movement during normal days seems to be the glaring elephant in the room and I feel good about taking steps (literally) to remedy that.  It really opened my eyes to see I was getting in 230-400 steps on an average day (obviously excluding workouts).  One area I always felt I held myself back was in the strength department.  We did strength training, but I always seemed to top out at 20 lbs per hand.  Then we'd go on vacation, not do strength for one to three weeks depending on how long we were gone and I'd be back to rebuilding.  But it's like I had some mental block that made me think, "oh look how big and intimidating those 25's are...those are Mr. sized weights, not mine."  Uh, why the hell not???  I already know women cannot bulk up like a man.  I already know it can help you burn more fat at rest and all of that other crap, but I somehow felt like lifting 20 lbs was a lot more than some of my friends were lifting so wasn't that already good?  No.  It's not.  Not if I ever want to make actual progress.  Not if I ever want to see the muscle instead of feeling it through fat. 

It's been two weeks since we've been consistently lifting heavier and we can both tell the difference in each other.  I feel so accomplished when I'm done too, especially if I'm lifting the same amount as the dude on the workout.  When I'm done, I just want to like rip phone books in half and sh*t!  (Yet I can barely open a bag of cereal or lite kettle corn...what gives grip strength!?) 

While I'm grateful for how far I've come and where I am, I'm excited about where I'm going.

Where have you been and where are you going?


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