Reality Check

"What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be."

That statement, pretty much, more than anything else I can think of, explains why I am overweight. I have Fairy Tale Syndrome. I'm not sure if that's an official condition recognized by psychiatrists, but it should be because I have it and I have it bad.

I was born five miles south of Disneyland and from the beginning, I have believed that Mickey and his princesses had it right - that if we believed in the magic and did what was right, we would live happily ever after. It's true, there are moments and glimpses of my life when it seemed I was in the Happiest Place on Earth, but there are an inordinate amount of other times when what I had pictured in my head of the way it was "supposed to be" was nothing like the reality.

I don't think I'm very unique in that respect. I think it's part of the growing and maturing process. It's just that some do it better than others and everybody uses a different coping mechanism when the reality is completely different than the vision. For me, I think it's safe to say that my coping mechanism is, and always has been, food.

We did not have a lot of money growing up. We always had a home, we always had enough clothes to keep us covered, and no matter how tight money got, we always had plenty of food. Good food. My mother was an outstanding cook and just writing this makes me wish she would make me some glace or soupy potatoes right now. She could make a feast out of nothing, a gift she did not pass on, much to my husband's disappointment. Food is good, food is safe, and food is comforting. Food can solve anything and everything.

So food is my addiction. Being overweight is not socially acceptable, but food and eating is. It also is a basic need for survival. Try as I might to empathize with drug or alcohol addicts, I really can't because you don't need those to survive. When you get together with family, you eat. When you get together with friends, you eat. When you have social events at church or at work, you eat. I think you get the idea - I eat.

And that's why I'm where I'm at. I've had lots of experiences in life that have not matched the picture in my head and my response to make me feel better has always been to go to the one thing that makes me feel better every time (at least temporarily) - food. Unfortunately, I've never been comforted by celery or broccoli so when the recognition comes that change is necessary, the fix is only temporary. The challenge for me, and I'm confident it is the same challenge for many others, is to find other coping mechanisms and the mature part of me feels like I can make that happen.

But just like everything else, the picture in my head of the way that is going to happen is already turning out to be a lot different than the reality. My attempts at becoming a world-class biker or race walker have already been met with disappointment. I was pretty snarky about my walking to church being more than just a resolution for the new year and I was going to show all of those drivers I was better than that. Thanks to the knee, that won't be happening.

It's usually at about this point that I decide that my efforts are being met with too much opposition and that I'm just meant to be the size I am and that I just need to deal with my health issues in a different, more medicated, way. The challenge for me is to change the approach, make the adjustments, and never, ever, stop moving in the right direction.

One definition of frustration is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. It's also the definition of insanity and that explains the Cymbalta. And my current state of being. I'm an old dog looking for some new tricks and I'm hoping that it's never too late to learn them.

My name is Princess of Whales, and I am a foodaholic.

Kneeds

I kneed to lose weight. I kneed to walk. And now, apparently, I kneed a new knee. Crap.

It's a running joke (pun accidental) in my office at work that I am the least active of all of my fellow employees and yet I have the least amount of aches, pains, injuries, and surgeries. Marathons, biking, walking and P90X have reeked havoc on them while I have remained injury free. My husband has always been very athletic and as a consequence, he has broken a wrist, fractured an ankle, blown out a knee, thrown up after virtually ever race he has ever run, and (every one's personal favorite when they hear the story) separated his pelvis riding a mechanical bull.

Me? It's exponentially less difficult to injure yourself while laying on a couch.  I've never broken a bone. That is, until I decided to lose some weight and adopt a healthier lifestyle.

I've never been athletic, but "back in the day" I did enjoy riding a bicycle. It's so much faster than walking, and there is always a sense of reclaimed childhood when riding one. I even tried entering a bike race one time only to recognize that I have a complete lack of competive drive. As long as I rode like a kid, it was great. When I lived in Northern Utah, a friend and I used to ride our bikes 21 miles around a lake almost every morning. It was beautiful, peaceful and I really did feel good about myself. I also got ginormous thighs.

I honestly can't tell you why we stopped riding. I'm confident it wasn't because of the thighs, but I suspect I probably got pregnant or my husband's schedule changed so that he couldn't stay with the kids in the morning. As with most things that change, it's just because life happened. And as life happened, the bike got put away. It hung from the ceiling of our garage until we sold it this summer for fifty dollars. My four hundred dollar racing bike. Yeah, that's why we don't own a business.

What I didn't know was that as my husband was selling it, he was buying me a new, more practical bike for our wedding anniversary. He knew how much I loved riding a bike and how I wanted to lose some weight, but he also knew that the seat on my old bike would probably get sucked up into my behind, requiring surgery to remove it, and the skinny tires would explode the first time I mounted. Smart man.

As it turns out, that may have been more fun to watch. On my first ride around the block on my brand new bike, I popped my tailbone. No accident, no trauma, nothing dramatic at all. I got on the bike and broke my butt (and no junior high jokes here about the fact that it was already cracked...). Luckily we were able to sell that bike for just less than we paid for it. In the end, I couldn't help but think about how uninjured I'd been all those years on the couch.

This incident happened right before our anniversary trip to Grand Cayman and it was there, on the beach, that I realized that I really and absolutely needed to get some weight off. Though the doctor said my weight had nothing to do with the coccyx fracture, I secretly believe that every single ailment and life challenge I have can be directly traced to my weight. I forget that there are a lot of sick, skinny people out there. And LOTS of skinny, injured athletes. What do skinny people blame when they get sick or injured?

About now you may be asking yourself what all this bike talk has to do with my knee? I've had intermittent knee pain over the last several years and I was told that biking was an excellent exercise because it had little impact on my knee. So I tried biking again and look where it got me...back to walking. Walking reminded me that my knee hurt so I finally went to an orthopaedic doctor and he told me I have osteoarthritis, that I'm bone-to-bone on my right knee, and the only solution is a total knee replacement, something they don't like to do until you're around 65. So what does the ortho recommend to help hold it off for more than ten years? Biking. Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!

I've been able to ride a recumbent stationery bike without much pain or discomfort so I'm trying to see the whole coccyx incident as a fluke. We'll see how that goes when I get my new bike with the giant, oversized seat like the doc recommended. The other option he offered was swimming, so it looks like I'm back in black swimsuits, conquering the water as the Princess of Whales. If you hear screams coming from Sand Hollow Aquatic, it's just the small children when Ursula slithers into the water with her broken butt and bad knee.

I kneed a break...

Going Through Hell

What the travel brochures want you to see... (the dream)

In reviewing the titles of my last two posts, I realized there is a decidedly religious bent to both of them. While I do have spiritual and religious roots and will, no doubt, refer often to that foundation, it is not my intent to approach this blog any more seriously than needs be, so in an effort to diversify, I will share an experience I had over this summer that took me through Hell and planted a couple of the seeds that inspired my need to deal with my health and weight.

I love to travel, a hobby made exponentially easier and more affordable because I work part-time for an airline. I can't say that getting my job at the airline is the best thing that has ever happened to me, but I would safely put it in the Top 10. Having access to free flights (albeit with stand-by status) has been life-changing for me, to say the least. (I pontificate at the risk of being inundated with requests for buddy passes and job referrals, but I can't help you with either. Sorry.)

The challenge with this hobby is that in the airline industry (and by my own employer), I am technically referred to as a POS. No, not that. A Person Of Size. That's their nice way of saying bigger-than-our-one-size-had-better-fit-all-and-we'll-decide-what-size-everyone-should-be seats. Nobody wants to sit by the fat person, especially on a small plane, and that includes me. Especially me! So I'm always ultra-aware of my size when squeezing into an airplane seat, taking special care to stay sucked in and tucked in. And I do shower.

Of course this also means that before I squeeze my tush into a seat, I must first ask for a seat belt extender, a request that seems to bring more embarrassment to the flight attendant than it does to me. They act as if I was not aware that I was large until I began to board the plane, that I woke up skinny that morning, ate too much at one of the exquisite fine dining establishments that are airport restaurants, and suddenly and without warning ballooned  to excessive proportions. It seems they feel that by giving me an extender, they are the ones to have to confirm the fact that I will not, in fact, be able to get the regular seat belt around my awesomeness. They're so discreet about passing it off to me, like school secretaries passing off tampons to pubescent students, that it's almost worse than if they just got on the loud speaker and announced that a fat chick was boarding the plane. Just give me the extender. I'm a big girl. Literally. I can handle it.

None of this stops me from getting on a plane as often as I can. I wasted far too many years worrying about what other people would think about my weight. There are countless times I didn't go places or do things because I was afraid someone might be offended by the sight of me in a swimsuit. I cringe every time I think of the times I wouldn't jump in the pool with my kids or go to a water park with them. What a waste (or in this case, waist?)!

Sadly for my fellow travelers, that is no longer the case.

What the travel brochures don't show you...(the reality)

For better or worse, I now own seven swimsuits, and I'm not afraid to use them.

For our thirtieth anniversary of never getting divorced, my husband and I traveled to Grand Cayman this summer. I wanted to go to a beach in the Caribbean where I didn't have to worry about vendors approaching me on the beach wanting me to pay them to braid my hair. Seriously. I have about six total hairs on my head. It so wouldn't be worth paying someone.

Grand Cayman is also the location of Hell, a small rock grouping on the island that the locals thought looked like what Hell might look like. They brilliantly put in a post office and not one, but TWO gift shops adjacent to each other. They're making a fortune on tourists like us who think it's hilarious to send their missionary son a postcard from Hell. A visit to this thus-named place in paradise also seemed appropriate considering some of the experiences we have had over the years. We have a sign in our house that says "This marriage was made in Heaven - but so was thunder and lightning." To experience Heaven in Hell was too perfect. And it really was.

But it was also here that I came to the realization that if I want to continue to travel at the rate I love, I need to get some weight off. It's not so I can make Seven Mile Beach look better for others, or even to avoid seat belt extenders, but so I can haul all my beach gear from the car to the shore without collapsing. Or so that I can walk in that deep sand without passing out. But mostly it's so I can go places with my family and make up for some of the times I didn't dare jump in.

I've discovered the joy of bathing suits without shame, and I'm not going back.

Lettuce Pray

I was raised by a father who taught me to believe that the greatest truth we will learn when we get to heaven is that lettuce is fattening. Makes sense to me. Every time someone attempts to make healthier choices in their life, they order the salad, and yet they never seem to lose weight. I managed to get through most of my life avoiding green, leafy vegetables with the exception of my pregnancies because for some unexplainable reason, I tended to crave vegetables only when I was pregnant. (I also craved the smell of laundry detergent and Smarties, but that has nothing to do with this story...)

Imagine my deep concern when over the past couple of weeks I have craved salads. Under normal circumstances that might mean a mayonnaise-based salad like potato or macaroni, but there was no denying that I was craving a salad of the lettuce variety. Panic set in as I thought of the only times I have ever craved veggies, but my fear was quickly abated when I remembered that there was no way on God's green earth that I could be pregnant. Matter settled. I embraced the thought that perhaps my quest to deal with my health and weight led to this desire for rabbit food.

When my husband suggested a date night (after 30 years of marriage, "date night" consists of being in the same car together after the sun goes down), I suggested a local diner that has the best chef salad in the area. He agreed because he could get breakfast, lunch, or dinner there, anytime of the day or night. Prior to this romantic dinner (accompanied by our youngest son who still lives at home) we opted to make a stop at TJ Maxx. This was HUGE for my anti-shopping husband, but he needed new white shirts so if the stop was for him, he would endure.

There was only one potentially fatal mistake with this plan, and we discovered it as soon as we stepped out of the car and took a deep breath. Golden Corral was on the other end of the parking lot. We were in buffet country. This is every fat girl's dream and every reforming fat girl's nightmare, but at this point it was too late. My husband and son suddenly became too hungry to drive two miles to the other restaurant and after all (they convinced me), there was salad on the buffet. Salad at a buffet?! What a waste of great plate space!

But I relented. I want to take walks that have meaning to my life. What better walk to make than across that big parking lot to face one of my biggest nemeses (yes, I checked the plural spelling): uncontrolled amounts of hot and ready food. It had to be done.

So after power walking TJ Maxx (it is a bit mind-boggling how fast my power walk can be when I have to shop in a hurry) and a dash across that big parking lot, I loaded my plate with all of the healthiest elements of a salad, praying all the time that my father was wrong and that lettuce was really okay. I will admit to a bit of straying among the mac & cheese and meatloaf selections, but it was all kept in check, and there was nary a moment spent at the dessert bar.

The triumph was celebrated by parking at the far end of the parking lot of our next enchanting stop: Walmart. We really know how to party. Walk on...

Holy Walking

I pride myself on rock-star parking. It is somewhat of a gift that I have that if I am willing to circle the parking lot no more than just a couple of times, I can usually get the first or second closest non-handicapped parking space to the building. It's worth a few fumes worth of gas to save these gams of mine from the stress of a trek across the parking lot, not to mention the time saved trying to find my car since I'm now of the age where remembering that sort of thing is somewhat of an issue.

But alas, that is the old me. On the advise of my trainer (ooooh, doesn't that sound cool...) I am now supposed to seek out opportunities to get to my destinations the healthy (difficult) way such as using the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator and parking far away from buildings, even taking a bike if that can happen (which it will, after I actually buy a bike with a seat big enough to accommodate my awesomeness). While this goes against every time-management technique I have trained myself to do, I recognize that this is a big step towards "dealing with it."

My first attempt at embracing this more active lifestyle was to walk to church last Sunday. It was the first of January, after all, and people driving by would be impressed by the fat chick's attempt at yet another stab at a New Year's resolution (boy, would they be in for a surprise when they saw me walking again every other week to church because this was not a resolution but a lifestyle change, after all...). It was a beautiful day, the weather was perfect, and I was off. I left plenty early since I had no idea how long it would take me to get there, again destroying my usual time-saving plans to putter around the house until the last possible minute, jump into the car, and speed over to the church to get there just in time to start playing prelude music for all of the people over 80 who get there way too early.

The half-block walk to the first turn practically flew by and I was confident that walking to church was going to be the weekly norm for me. No, I wouldn't have the convenience of having the car at church in case of an emergency (like running home between meetings to start dinner so that we could eat the minute we hit the door after the meetings), but this was nice, being out in the beauty of God's nature, breathing in the fresh air, not being lazy. 

That lasted until the next curve in the road. It was then that I began looking for some sort of makeshift seat where I could take a small break and take some of the pressure off of my back that was starting to hurt. After a bit, I found a power box in the ground that I could sort of sit up against, taking care that I kept my skirt down so as not disturb all the lazy people actually using their cars to get to church.

It was as I was catching my breath that I realized I had broken a sweat. Really? Less than a full block of casual walking and I was already glistening? That would never have happened in my car with air-conditioning. I reminded myself...the old me.

I talked myself into grabbing my bags and setting off yet again, but this time I went into focused-athlete mode. If I was going to be sweating anyway, I was going to get to the church and I wasn't going to be stopping anymore. What is the key to a successful marriage? Never get divorced. What is the key to a successful walk? Just keep walking. And walking. Don't stop before you get there.

And so I didn't. I got there. I even got there five minutes before I thought I would actually get there. Victory! But it's a good thing I arrived early because it took five minutes sitting in the overstuffed chair in the foyer to get my breath back enough to walk down to the bathroom to spend another five minutes paper-toweling myself off enough to get my core temperature back to normal so that I could actually make it to the organ without looking like I had just been in a rain shower. And even though it took until the end of the first meeting for the back of my hair to dry off, I did it. And yes, it was worth it.

As for the walk home? My knee was killing me. I got a ride. But you have to start somewhere, right? And I did.

A Single Step...

I'm not exactly what you would call fat. I'm more what you would call obese. Morbidly obese. BWS in medical terms (Beached Whale Syndrome - this was legitimately put on some one's medical file to indicate weight). I don't like to verbalize my actual weight. It's not because I'm embarrassed, but because I really don't know what it is. I step on scales frequently and the number is pretty much different every time I do, so there's really no point in assigning a number. But I can comfortably say that I weigh more than most NFL linemen, less than a TLC special.

You would think that I would want to be skinny. Doesn't everyone want to be skinny? Isn't being skinny the true measure of one's worth? The media would have us believe it is and most buy into it. Literally. I'll admit to being a closet believer on occasion. It's hard not to get sucked into the belief system that tells you your pant size defines you. But by and large (get it....LARGE) I have tried to stay true to the things I feel are much more important. Like survival.

But for the first time, size and survival are starting to conflict with me. I have almost always been the fat girl, but I was also the healthy girl, if you don't factor in the toxemia I got with each of my six pregnancies. Everyone else had high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar. Essentially, I was the only one who wasn't high (couldn't resist...).

But then I got older and the lab results started changing. My blood pressure didn't come down after my last pregnancy. Okay, that was 19 years ago, but it was the only health issue, it had nothing to do with weight, and it was well controlled with medication. Cholesterol was rising, my thyroid was being goofy, my potassium was low, anemia was becoming an issue, and then the biggy for me - blood sugar. I was starting to free-flow sugar in my blood and that's when I knew I had to stop being afraid of losing weight. Yes, afraid.

Being ginormous has worked for me on some level (thank you, Dr. Phil). It has been my personality, my sense of humor, and the biggest (get it...BIGGEST) thing that sets me apart from others. Most of all, eating copious amounts of food has allowed me to survive my very intense emotions. I have no doubt that my life is not the hardest that has ever been lived, but it's definitely the hardest I have ever lived. It has made me a bit narcissistic. I have been known to throw an occasional pity party, and if there is one thing that is constant at these parties, it is that the food is plentiful. But according to the doctor, while the parties may not be over, the quantity of food is. And so is the sedentary lifestyle I have come to enjoy with two computer-based jobs, my iPad, my iPhone, and my iLazy Attitude. And I just have to deal with that.

So that's what this blog is about - dealing with it. My daughter tells me I cannot call it a "journey" because that's too cliche, and I am anything but cliche. Even though it is said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so does dealing with it, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to deal with it, and hopefully by writing things down, it will make me less afraid of how different my life will be when I'm not what I've mostly been.

How am I going to do it? By walking a mile, or so. By revisiting some of the places and experiences that have created the desire to feed my emotions through my mouth. And by walking in new places that will take me closer to where I need, and quite possibly want, to be. (It will also involve a gym membership, a personal trainer, a nutritionist, and a tracking app, but those all sound so much less romantic than bucolic walks.)

It is to be expected that I have large feet. I wore a women's size 8 shoe at my baptism when I was eight years old and they've only gotten bigger. So I'm not asking anyone to walk IN my shoes, because they probably won't fit. But bear with me as I walk a mile, or so, on the roads that will take me in the right direction.