Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish (15 page)

I was now thoroughly confused. Was everyone broken? Was that just the nature of the human condition? That didn’t seem right, and if it was, then I didn’t want to live that way anymore. I found the answer with a knee in the back. At yoga one night, I was doing the stretch where you are sitting on the ground and you reach out toward your toes. The correct way to do this is to keep your back straight and reach out, stretching from your hips. Well, that got me to about my knees, and that would not do. I wanted to touch my toes, because… I have no idea. Probably because I thought it was something everybody should be able to do, and therefore I wanted to be as good as everyone else. So I curled my back into the shape of a C and reached until my fingers brushed my big toe, which was as bent back as far as it would go (I needed the extra inch). Abruptly, a knee pushed into my lower back and strong hands brought my shoulders back into line.

“No, more like this,” the instructor gently (at least vocally) corrected. She continued on as she returned to the front of the room. “You don’t get any better stretch in the hips if your back is doing the reaching. You don’t have to be able to touch your toes. Do what you can. Wherever you are is the right place to be.”

That last part really stuck with me as I pondered it more after class. I put so much effort into trying to be as good as everyone else that I was always trying to fix myself. What if I was never broken to start with? What if I was just a work in progress? A masterpiece at any stage is still a masterpiece. Instead of trying to imitate someone else’s work of art, I would be my own. If at any point (and there are still plenty) I’m unhappy with the way things are shaping up, then I need to realize that wherever I am is still a good place to be. I will change and evolve from one day to the next, because time never stands still. Tomorrow I will be something else, and that will be good too.

It is my sincerest hope that by learning to accept myself as I am, I can teach my daughters the same lesson. That they will grow up to be happy and confident women who know that I will always love them because of their flaws, rather than in spite of them.

I’m loud, quirky, and a little bit neurotic. I will never be one of the world’s great beauties. But that’s how I was made. I’m exactly what I was designed to be. And since I have a husband, kids, family, and friends that love me, those things must not be too bad. My differences make me unique, a limited edition.

M
y garage was home to Pandora’s box, otherwise known as my fat clothes. The Rubbermaid containers only took up a small corner, but every time I passed them, they seemed to grow larger. Was it possible for my fat clothes to get fat without me? I began to hate going into the garage, because I knew those boxes would be waiting for me. They were the physical representation of my own doubts and fears. I mentally beat myself up, Why are they still there? Why can’t I just toss them out? Because they were an insurance policy. I could dress it up as being smart and practical like my dad had suggested, but that was a lie.

Those boxes reminded me every time I saw them that I was afraid I would need them again someday. It’s kind of ironic, actually. I used to keep a big gray box of size 10 clothes that had fit briefly during one of my diet successes. That gray box represented a hope that I would one day be that skinny again. Soon after sealing them up, I gave the clothing to my sister because she could use them, and I resigned myself to the fact that I would never fit them.

So why had I been so quick to toss out hope but slow to give up doubt? I rationalized that it was just a backup plan, a safety net. But why did I need a safety net? Probably because I had fallen so often that I felt I needed one. There was a war going on in my mind. Part of me said that if I was truly committed to keeping the weight off, I would throw those clothes out. Yet there they were, taking up precious space in my garage and thoughts. That said to me that even I wasn’t sure I could keep the weight off. And that stung.

I decided that I needed to do the unthinkable and open Pandora’s box, just to see what I was so desperately clinging on to. First thing I saw under the lid was a bright-blue tent. I had to recheck the label on the box to make sure it said Old Clothes and not Camping Gear. I shook out the fabric to get a better look. It was not a tent but rather an XXL blue floral muumuu from last summer’s trip to Hawaii. Somebody must have spiked my non-alcoholic piña colada, because my judgment had to have been seriously impaired to buy that. So what was my excuse for saving it?

Sifting through the rest of the box, I found not only more clothes, obviously, but also the memories attached to each piece. The red coat my dad had given me for Christmas. The Winnie the Pooh overalls that made me smile whenever I wore them. The dress I wore on my tenth wedding anniversary dinner.

Opening the box had also opened my eyes to a few things. For one, I had a horrible fashion sense. And for another, a part of me found comfort in my fat clothes. I had spent most of my life overweight; it was familiar territory. But this new me was different and scary, and I didn’t know what to expect. It’s like I was flying high and these clothes were my parachute (the muumuu could probably be used as one). It was the assurance that I could float back to my comfortable old life at anytime.

I needed to make a choice: Did I want my safe old life back as a lump on the sofa or did I want a new life of reaching higher with the risk of falling? I had made a decision and wanted to share it with the Fat Pack, so I donned the muumuu one last time and wore it to cardio class (over my workout clothes). Muumuus aren’t that flattering when they fit properly, but when they’re four sizes too big, it’s a crime against nature. Sharon was horrified that such a thing even existed. Sarah Michelle and Lori were impressed that you could fit two of me in the dress now. And Mallory wanted to take it home with her.

I agreed with the first two opinions and decided for the third that I liked Mallory too much to burden her with my fashion faux pas. Friends don’t let friends wear muumuus. Talking to my girls had given me the support and courage I needed to let go. They believed in me, Jarom believed in me, and I was pretty sure I could believe in me too.

***

The big blue muumuu wasn’t the only parachute I had lying around. Turned out I also had a steady supply of fire escapes and trapdoors as well. While using the run/walk method had helped Jarom’s calf, as the mileage increased, it still bothered him too much to run more than once a week. That left me to run three out of four runs by myself. Running fourteen miles with Jarom had been a morning activity, difficult but doable. Running fourteen miles by myself was a morning chore, arduous and exponentially tougher.

Jarom and I had started our running career doing laps around the park track, but have you ever gone in circles for ten miles? Gets boring real fast. So we decided that anything over eight or so miles, we would leave the park and see what little back roads we could discover together. It had been fun seeing where our feet would take us and using Jarom’s watch to figure our way back. One time we overshot and ended finishing the day’s run a mile from home. But most of the time Jarom’s uncanny sense of direction and distance would get us back right on time.

When God was handing out that particular skill I must have been in the buffet line, because I get lost on my way to the bathroom… in my own house. What on earth was I supposed to do without him next to me, telling me where to go? My confident morning runs had abruptly become scary to me. What if I got lost or had to go to the bathroom or hurt something and needed help? It wasn’t even too big a stretch. I routinely tripped over uneven sidewalks and curbs because of my vision, and Jarom had always been there to pick me up and dust me off. The night before my first big solo run, I had nightmares about falling in a ditch, twisting an ankle, and lying there alone and helpless until Jarom missed me and sent out a search party.

I decided that I should make small circles around the house… just to be safe. Then I would be close enough to home if I found myself unable to complete the run. Each time I passed the house, my little voice whispered that I could go inside and be done for the day. It was too hard, and I was alone. The temptation, added to the uneasiness of being by myself, made the training much more difficult than it should have been.

I began to seriously doubt my ability to run a marathon. It seemed too hard, and I was still ten miles shy with sixteen miles being the longest distance I had gone. What if Jarom’s leg didn’t get better? Did I still want to do it if I had to by myself? It was looking increasingly more like that might be the case. Jarom and I had been waffling back and forth on the wisdom of getting a hotel next to the start line or driving the hour or so from home the morning of the race. Good thing I had procrastinated getting a hotel room in Park City. After all, those things were nonrefundable.

Hello, escape hatch. Without even meaning to, I hadn’t fully committed myself to my goal. I still had a foot on the fire escape. How on earth did I expect to make it all the way through twenty-six point two grueling miles when I wasn’t even sure if it was worth it to rent a room? I was spending way too much energy worrying about what to do if I failed when I should have been spending all those resources on making sure I didn’t.

It was high time to start closing the back doors. First, I remedied the hotel situation and booked a room at the Best Western (just in time too; they were almost sold out). I still wasn’t sure if Jarom was running or not, but I was going to plan as if we were. Next was changing my running route, no more little circles for me. I was going to run far and wide and enjoy seeing new sights again. Another thing that helped me was a little positive peer pressure, as in I told everyone and their dog that I was running a marathon. Church leaders: check. Extended family: check. Cashier at grocery store: check.

My mother was convinced that I was setting myself up to fail, but it was just the opposite. I was setting myself up for success and planning as if success was inevitable. The more action and positive pressure I applied, the better I felt about the marathon. It was easier to visualize completing it the more I talked about doing it.

***

Running wasn’t the only thing I needed to plan for. Getting rid of my fat clothes would be pointless without a solid plan to make sure it stayed off. Call it fire prevention if you want. And that’s how I discovered the Goldilocks principle.

I’ve always been a little (a lot) obsessive, “all or nothingish” in my personality. So it’s no surprise that I had become obsessed with the scale. The enemy I used to avoid was now a reference I checked every day to make sure I had not been eating cheesecake in my sleep or something. In the height of my obsession, it was not uncommon to weigh myself five times in a single day. Just in case someone slipped lard into my water or something. Addictions rarely pass the common sense test. Point is I was going way overboard trying to make sure I didn’t gain a single pound back.

I was even hesitant to use energy gels (fast carbs for energy in the middle of a run) because that was one hundred calories less I could count as burning off from a long run. After hitting the wall a few times, I quickly realized that the energy gained was worth the price of calories spent.

There were days that I would go to sleep at night with my tummy growling and my body so sore from an overabundance of exercise and think, “Surely this cannot be good for me.” My yoga instructor thought so as well. One evening she asked me what the tattoo on my shoulder blade meant (misspent youth—don’t ask). I told her it was the Japanese Kanji character meaning “balance.” She got a wry smile and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. At first I thought it was from irony considering I had just fallen on my bum trying to do chair pose. But she assured me that is was more to do with the fact that I was always coming in to class frantic, stressed, and sore from doing too much. What I needed was more balance, both in class so I didn’t tip over, and in my life in general.

For some unknown reason, the story of Goldilocks came to mind. That girl was always trying everything. This porridge was too hot, that one was too cold. But what was the last one… just right. I needed to stop doing too much and eating too little and find my just right. And that’s why I call it the Goldilocks principle: finding a balance and moderation in the things I was doing so my porridge would be “just right.”

My daily weigh-ins with my frenemy, the scale, had to go. Instead of letting fear get the best of me, I needed to look at the situation rationally. How had I lost the weight in the first place? By eating less and moving more. I had found a caloric balance with my body, as long as I burned more calories than I took in, I lost weight. It was like any other budget. If I spent more calories than I’d burned then I would inflate just like the national debt. We didn’t want that. By the same logic, if I didn’t spend enough calories, then I couldn’t cover what I was expending. I might get skinnier, but my body’s energy would be rock bottom.

If I wanted to eliminate both the daily weight fluctuation freak-outs and the energy crashes, then I needed to balance the budget. So I made a plan, and I figured out exactly how many calories I was burning a day and made sure I ate very close to that same amount. I wasn’t trying to lose another pound; I just wanted to maintain and feel good. I was amazed at all the things I needed to eat just to make up for calories burnt on a fourteen-mile run. That’s fifteen hundred calories, two giant ooey gooey cinnamon rolls. And let me just tell you how much easier it is to get through a long run when you know that you not only have the energy reserves but you’ve also earned the baked good waiting at home for the refuel. (A cinnamon roll tastes better too when you’ve earned it.)

It actually worked. I was no longer completely exhausted by the end of the day, and my tummy stopped grumbling too. And I didn’t gain a single pound. As long as I carefully plotted and stayed within my budget, I was fine. I started to trust the facts and stop worrying that I would gain another mysterious ten pounds overnight again. Because after all they weren’t too mysterious, were they? I had just blinded myself to how much I was eating. For the first time in a year, I went on a camping trip without having to bring the scale with me to check on my progress.