Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish (5 page)

Six nights a week I would put in my hour at the gym, then come home and practically pass out from sheer exhaustion. For the first time in years I was actually sleeping through the night, since even my mind was too wiped out to race. During the day I had more energy, probably because I was finally getting some sleep.

Even though my focus had been on maintaining the weight I’d lost, the pounds kept slipping off, and I wasn’t going to complain. Let them keep coming if they wanted to. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a smaller me. My little voice would pipe in and say “still flabby though.” Continuing the theme from earlier, I would say to myself “shut up” and then go do something about it.

I remembered from my failed personal training sessions that if I wanted to tone up, I would need to do some strength training. Weight machines and equipment scared me. I had visions of being alone in the gym and getting trapped under a massive barbell. No one would find my crushed corpse until the next morning and my cause of death would be “squished by good intentions.” It was probably a good idea to go when a few other people were around so that someone could help me when I’d inevitably scream, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

As soon as the kids were tucked in bed, I headed out to the gym. If I had taken a minute to read the schedule, I would have seen that there was a fitness class being held at that time, Cardio Body Blast. The first few times I watched surreptitiously out the corner of my eye. I remember thinking, “These ladies are nuts!” Music was blaring, the trainer was yelling like a drill sergeant, and four slightly squishy women were doing squats… on the treadmill… while it was moving. Where on earth did someone come up with that horrible idea? I hoped the gym was current on its insurance premiums because if those ladies were anything like me, then someone was about to go flying.

After the song ended, they hopped off the machines and gave each other high fives and hugs. Though they had just finished what looked like a completely brutal workout, their faces brimmed with pride as they congratulated each other. My sidelong glances must have turned into fullblown gawking because a face popped up next to my weights.

“You’re welcome to join us, you know. We have fun, it’s free, and it’s easier to keep going when other people are pushing you to do your best.”

From anyone else that line would have sounded like another sales pitch, but this tiny little woman radiated sincerity. She was cute and perky and had huge dimples and twinkly eyes that crinkled slightly at the corners, normally the kind of girl I would hate on sight. She kept prattling on about all the benefits of group exercise, and maybe it was her infectious grin or lack of guile, but instead of feeling intimidated or jealous of her size-two body, I found myself actually liking her. I agreed noncommittally to give it a shot one of these days. Next Tuesday found me five minutes early, nervously waiting for class to start.

What if I was horrible at… whatever this was? What if I looked stupid, and did they really need floor-to-ceiling mirrors everywhere? Maybe it was a plus for gym rats and gym bunnies, but I for one did not enjoy watching my fat jiggle when I did jumping jacks. I almost turned around and left the gym, claiming I left the fridge open or the stove on. Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You” blared out of the sound system, and I was trapped. I was going to have to see this through. The trainer bounced up to the front of the room, welcomed me, and introduced herself as Sarah Michelle. Around the room, everyone else did the same—Susan, Sharon, Mallory.

Apparently I had picked the wrong day to start this, because today was the day of the month they did an Insanity theme, based on the popular workout program. Every thirty seconds, the trainer called out a different exercise and you just kept going nonstop for thirty minutes. The theory behind it being “You can do anything for only thirty seconds.” Ha! They hadn’t met me yet.

The pace was so frenzied that I didn’t have a chance to worry how foolish I looked. Those thirty seconds of sit-ups were the longest of my entire life. Sarah claimed that they were supposed to work your ab core; I was pretty sure I didn’t have one of those. Insanity was aptly named, because you would have to be crazy to do this regularly.

The buzzer went off, signaling the end of the thirty minutes. Saved by the bell, literally, because I am pretty sure that even five more seconds of push-ups would have killed me. Lying half dead on the mat, I was filled with pride. I had survived, it wasn’t pretty and I’m sure that a proper push-up meant your tummy was supposed to leave the ground, but I had stayed the whole time. I rolled over and attempted to right myself when Sarah shouted to grab some weights: it was pump time.

I’m not ashamed to say that I cried a little bit. Thankfully, you couldn’t separate the tears from the sweat. Though the thirty-minute Insanity portion was over, there was still thirty minutes left of free weights. Taking the longest walk to the water fountain in history, I mentally prepared myself to keep going. I’d felt so good when I thought I’d lasted the whole class, and I wanted to feel that again instead of the disappointment I associated with quitting.

Looking around the room, I could see the other women already had their weights and were waiting for me to get mine. Their little black weights all said eight pounds on them. That sounded like an awful lot, but I didn’t want to look like a weenie by grabbing a pair of five-pounders, so I grabbed the eights.

Big mistake. When Sarah had us lift the weights over our heads and bend them back for a tricep curl, my weights were too heavy for my underdeveloped sausage arms. Instead of bending my elbows back in a controlled descent, the weights swung behind me, right into the back of my head. In automatic reaction to the pain, I dropped my weights, hitting my heel. I looked like a human flamingo trying to balance on my left leg with one hand holding my head, the other hand holding up my bruised heel.

When the blood stopped thumping in my ears, I listened for the mocking peals of laughter. I waited, but they never came. A few sympathetic chuckles maybe. One of the girls, Mallory, threw an arm around me and swore she’d nearly done the same thing once. Three other heads nodded in agreement. When I looked them in the eye, I saw plenty of concern for my bleeding heel and growing goose egg, but none of the judgment I had come to fear and expect.

Sarah Michelle was shocked when I showed up to class the next week. She had been sure after last time’s disaster that I would have been embarrassed or afraid to come back. I assured her that she couldn’t get rid of me that easy. Not anymore, that is. Sure I’d spent the rest of the week nursing my head and limping down the stairs, but I also spent the week feeling great about finding new friends and a new sense of accomplishment. Not only had I accomplished nearly knocking myself out, but, wanting to show my new buddies I was tough, I still finished the class afterward. I may have hated the soreness I felt the next day when I discovered that I did indeed have abs, but I loved everything else that hour gave me.

***

Over the next six months, those ladies and I bonded with every grunt and groan. Sinatra had his Rat Pack, but I had these ladies, which I deemed my Fat Pack. Some of us had more inches to lose than others and did so with varying degrees of success, but there was a support and camaraderie that I grew to depend on. When Lori joined our group, she felt bad that she needed to start with three-pound weights. Recounting the tough time I had when I first started, we told her it was better to have little weights than a big headache. Just knowing someone had been there before, and did much worse, was enough to get her to come back next week and join the pack.

Somewhere along the way, I started looking forward to my time at the gym. It had become the release I needed after a stressful day. I was happier and healthier than I had ever been. My mother insisted that I should go back to the doctor since all this happiness and exercising just wasn’t like me.

When the doctor saw me, he was surprised by my new look but, more important, my new outlook. He barely managed to keep the smug out of his voice when he said, “I told you so” about the benefits of exercise. I was feeling great! Not only did he give me a clean bill of health that I could show my mom, but since my mood had improved so much, he also took me off the antidepressants I had been on since I was fifteen. Not having to remember to take those horrible pills every morning was the icing on the cake (that I still wasn’t allowed to eat).

O
ne day, Jarom and I were walking the girls to the park when out of the blue he turned to me and said, “Let’s run a marathon.” Running. Haha, that was funny. The only good reason to run was if someone was chasing you, and even then it was debatable.

“Excuse me? I don’t think I heard that right. Because I thought I heard you say that we should run a marathon, but that would be crazy since neither one of us can outrun the four-year-old.”

“I’m serious. You see, I bought this book…” He then began to extol the amazing qualities of said book.

Oh heavens, here we go. Everything Jarom knows in life, he learned from a book. When he decided to wire all the electrical in the house, he bought a book. When he decided he wanted to be a software engineer, he bought a programming manual. Our bookshelves were lined with books on gardening, water features, cabinet making, and even rooftop astronomy. What’s worse is that it actually works for him! Whatever he reads, suddenly he can do it. It’s incredibly annoying since anytime I try to read a textbook my head hurts and I get all cross-eyed from confusion. This time, he had apparently bought a book on marathon training.

Interrupting his oral book report, I asked him just one question. “Why?”

He looked down, and honest to goodness, started shuffling his feet like he was embarrassed. “Well, I’ve kinda always wanted to run one, but I was afraid to do it by myself. And before when you were… um… bigger, there was no chance that you’d ever do it with me. But now that you’re losing weight and getting fit, it should be really easy for you. I’m sure you’ll run laps around me.”

Flattery will get you nowhere, buddy, but he did have a point. With forty-five pounds of fat off so far, running would be easier than before, and it might help me lose even more. After all, how many fat runners do you know? But this marathon business was out of the question. Did he even know how long a marathon was? Twenty-six point two mind-numbing miles. Perhaps he was confused and meant to say a 5K. A 5K run/walk seemed doable. I turned around to tell him so, but he must have seen rejection in my face because he preempted me with a guilt attack.

“You know, Dr. Slack told me that exercise would really help get my diabetes under control. But if you don’t want to help me with that, I understand. You might have to be a single mother though, since I’ll probably die young.” He sighed dramatically and pushed the stroller in front of me.

Really? When did Jarom learn to channel the spirit of my friend’s Yiddish grandmother? She’s the only other person I knew that used the threat of imminent death quite so effectively. But I supposed since he had been supportive of my weight loss, I could be supportive of his… midlife crisis or whatever this was.

And that’s why I started running. To be honest, I figured since I was in a little better shape than him (after all, I’d been going to the gym now for two whole months, a new record) all I would have to do was keep running until he quit first, and that would be the end of that. I had no clue that by agreeing to run with my husband, I was signing up for life lessons with a side of knee pain.

***

According to all the experts, when you started running, the first thing you had to do was buy a good pair of running shoes. That couldn’t be too hard, right? Go to the store, get a cute size 7 that’s cheap, and be done with it. When I got the running store, I found out how wrong I was.

First question the clerk asked me was if I was an underpronater or an overpronater. I didn’t think that was any of his business. Then he guided me to the never-ending wall of shoes. Apparently there was more to picking a shoe than just color choices. Each pair of shoes had a different purpose—ones for stability, motion control, extra cushioning, racing flats, and those barefoot thingies that look like socks. He explained the grave consequences of choosing the wrong shoe: arch problems, IT band problems, plantar fasciitis, losing toenails, knee replacements.

It should be noted that I have a giant phobia of being wrong. It colors everything I do. I have trouble picking the restaurant because I’m afraid I’ll pick the wrong one and no one else will like it, or someone will get food poisoning and then it will be my fault because I picked the restaurant. I had been okay with choosing my own shoes when I thought I only had to worry about matching my new running outfit. Now this guy was telling me that my choice had bigger consequences than just a fashion faux pas. That freaked me out! What if I made the wrong choice and crippled myself?

So as usual, I didn’t make a choice at all. I walked out of the store and started to run in my well-loved, worn out hiking shoes. Turns out not making a decision was probably the worse decision I could make. Within a week, my left knee hurt if I even thought about running. I had blisters on my heels, between my toes, and I think a blister might have started forming under my toenail if that was possible. Who knew hiking shoes did not make good running shoes? Aside from you and probably 90 percent of the population, my husband did. That’s why the next Saturday, Jarom packed the kids in the car and marched me back into the running store.

Of course the same clerk was there with a huge “I knew you’d be back” grin on his face. If he said I told you so, he could kiss his commission good-bye. Since I still had no idea what kind of shoe I needed, he had me try on a variety in the size sevens I requested. When I didn’t like the feel of any of those, he wisely decided to measure my feet and then disappeared in the back room. My best friend, Misty, had been preaching the religion of shoe shopping for years, but personally I thought this was more like purgatory than heaven. I looked over at Jarom, who was too busy taking a sports bra off my daughter Lily’s head to be of any help.