Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish (7 page)

I had picked up my bad habit of not finishing from my mom. She claimed that “The end is boring; it’s the beginning that’s more fun.” She’s always starting new projects and finding new hobbies. She found her niche raising guide-dog puppies. It was the perfect pursuit for her because she loves the beginning when they’re puppies but isn’t a big fan of dogs when they get big and aren’t cute and fluffy anymore. So she trains them for a year, then gives them back and gets a new one. Perpetual fuzzy happiness.

That may work for her, but I had grown weary off all my starts. While my mom viewed each thing she didn’t finish as something that no longer deserved her time, I saw my unfinished business as failures. Each time I gave up, I envisioned myself laying a brick in a wall that had slowly grown over time until I was surrounded and trapped within it. I couldn’t find my way out. I couldn’t see past this giant wall I’d built with all my failures staring back at me. But every time I finished a run, a brick disappeared, opening a small window, allowing the light into the dark places of my psyche.

I wanted more holes, and shorter walls to climb, so I promised not to give up on myself again. I made Lily her hot cocoa and gave her three extra marshmallows and a kiss on the head.

“I got lots of mellows! How come?”

“’Cause you’re so smart, Lil.”

***

Of course, promising not to quit proved a whole lot easier in theory than in practice. My first real test came two weeks later during a spring storm. Jarom and I were trying to get our medium run in before work that morning. The girls were at preschool, so it was just the two of us and about fifty thousand drops of rain. Since our runs got progressively longer each week of training, our medium run was now the length of the long a few weeks ago. Five miles in the rain. Fun, fun.

It started off lightly drizzling, and since we had on rain gear, it wasn’t too bad. The water rolled off the slick surface and kept us dry. But did you know that water resistant is not the same as waterproof? When I purchased the jackets, I didn’t know that there was a difference, but I did now. At three miles, our “weather resistant” jackets hit their water limit. Right as the light pecks of rain turned into giant slobbery dog kisses.

Everything was wet. The jacket, the turtleneck under the jacket, the bra under the—you get the point. Worst of all, though, were the wet shoes and socks.

“What is that sound?” Jarom asked.

“What sound?” I replied much louder since I still had my earphones in.

Jarom shook his head and pulled the earphones out of my ears. Still running, we listened quietly for a moment until I heard the noise over my chattering teeth.

“Oh, the squishy squish noise? Those are my socks.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

Jarom stopped and grabbed my elbow to halt my momentum. “I think three and a half miles is good enough for today. What do you say?”

Oooh, it was tempting. I wanted to go home and stand under a hot shower for an hour. I could hear it calling my name from three blocks away. But I could also hear Lily’s singing in the back of my head too. I had promised to not quit again, so how would I feel if I left now without finishing? Warm, true. But also like I had proven to myself once again that I was useless and couldn’t so something I’d promised to do. I thought to myself,
Come on Bets, it’s only another mile and a half. You can do that easy.
(How crazy was it that a mile and a half was now small potatoes when a few months ago running to the mailbox was agony?)

I popped my earphones back in and said loudly, “You can go back if you want, but I’m gonna finish.” With a squish-squish, I was on my way again.

Chivalry is not dead, because Jarom trotted after me, though he was muttering under his breath the whole time. It was hard to make out over my music, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt by saying it sounded like, “Got dandruff, and some of it itches.”

Over the last mile and a half, I had no trouble keeping up positive thoughts. Pride was a relatively new emotion to me, so it took me a few minutes to separate it from my shivering. I was actually proud myself. Even though I was miserable, cold, wet, and hungry, I kept my promise and kept moving. I remembered the mantra I was supposed to repeat and said it with conviction. Dang, I can do it, and I am awesome.

I tried smiling at Jarom encouragingly, but I only got scowls in return. Apparently he was not totally down with my no-quitting plan. With some time and a warm blanket, I’m sure he would come around… eventually.

An unintended bonus of running in the rain was that it made everything else seem like cake. The evil little voice still piped up and told me I was too tired or sore to get out of bed and run. But experience reminded me how miserable it had been running with squishy shoes and a few sore muscles were nothing in comparison. Eventually it became automatic and unquestioning. If a run was on the schedule, I would go and get it done. No struggle, no worries, no dilemma. This no-quitting thing was actually making my life easier! Who knew?

***

I had proved to myself that I could overcome physical discomfort and push onward, but what would I do in the face of social and emotional discomfort? I had the opportunity to find out at my first Zumba class.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Zumba is a fitness dance class taught at many gyms and rec centers. It’s a high-intensity cardio mix of Latin and hip-hop dance styles. Supposedly you could burn up to one thousand calories in an hour. Ooh, that sounded good to me. My head was filled with visions of all the treats I could eat with all those extra calories burned.

I have to admit that I had a bit of a peacock complex at this point. I was a runner (sort of), and a musician to boot, so logic told me that I would nail this since I had the endurance and rhythm taken care of. I walked into class in my spiffy little cargo pants and tank top, ready to bust a move. I busted all right, just not in a good way. Looking back at myself in that giant floor-to-ceiling mirror, let me tell you, white girl can’t dance. While my head and fingers understood the rhythm, my feet and hips found themselves trying to speak a foreign language.

Ten minutes in, I wanted to go home. This was incredibly embarrassing. I was incapable of following along and copying the dance steps. Nobody showed you the steps beforehand; you were just supposed to pick it up by watching everyone else. Well, my eyes and my feet were not communicating properly, because I couldn’t duplicate what I was seeing. When the room grapevined left, I grapevined right, causing a head-on collision with the lady next to me. I snuck out of the room in the guise of needing a drink from the water fountain.

I took forever to walk back, debating with myself the whole way. Could I leave now? I had tried it and I didn’t like it. That wasn’t the same thing as giving up, was it? Maybe it was technically quitting. There had to be a loophole in the no-quitting promise I made. Surely there was an out clause if you really and truly sucked at it. I paused outside the glass door and looked at the twenty or so women inside.

Watching the teacher, I was pretty sure you had to be a professional dancer to make your body sway that way. I looked around at the other ladies in the room, shaking what their mama gave them. A few managed to duplicate the teacher’s smooth hip rolls, but the others just jiggled their… (um, how to be diplomatic?)… rotund rear ends. (Note: It’s not only rude to stare at other people’s butts during class, but it can also cause nightmares.)

Didn’t these women know that they looked silly? Judging from their faces, I would say no. They were actually smiling! Why? This was hard. I couldn’t remember which foot went where, my lefts and rights consistently the opposite of everyone else in the room. Several women in the room were natural dancers with the accompanying little body, but the majority of them were just like me—middle-aged moms trying to keep the fat at bay.

There was one woman in the back of the room that caught my attention. She was probably in her mid-sixties with short gray hair and an oversized T-shirt that I think read “Groovin’ Granny.” (My glasses weren’t on and she was wiggling too much.) Her steps were always a beat or two behind the others, and her arms flailed every which way. Dancing was clearly not her forte, but she was having the time of her life.

I don’t know if it was determination not to quit or shame at being outdanced by a woman twice my age, but I went back into the class, ready to try again. The spot next to Granny was open, so I took it. Later I realized that it was open because no one wanted to stand next her and get smacked by her helicopter-like arms.

At one point in class, I was standing still, utterly lost, when Granny smacked me in the chest.

“Oh sorry, dear. Hey, if you’re having trouble just jump around and keep moving. Nobody will notice the difference.” Then she went back to her spastic movements.

I decided to give her advice a try. After all, that’s what you did when you forgot words to a song—mouth the word
watermelon
until you remembered. Fake it till you make it, baby. For the rest of class, I gave up trying to salsa and shimmy like a samba dancer and just gyrated in the same general direction as everyone else. It was surprisingly liberating. By the end of class, I was only slightly frustrated at my lack of choreography skills.

I approached the teacher after class so she could show me one of the basic steps that was repeated often and always tripped me up. She gladly showed me and then lied shamelessly, telling me I had done really well for a first-timer.

“Come back next week. It gets easier, I promise.”

Yeah, sure it did. I spent the next week debating whether to return to class. On one hand, I enjoyed feeling the music through physical expression. On the other, my physical expression was anything but harmonious. In the end, I decided that I wanted to learn how to dance more than I was self-conscious of my lack of skill. I went back Tuesday night, and almost every Tuesday after, even to the point that I am writing this.

Did I ever master the merengue? Nope, I’m still awful, but it is my absolute favorite part of the week. There’s a freedom in looking at yourself and saying, “Yes, I may look silly, but I’m having a blast and don’t care who sees me.”

***

At the time, I didn’t fully grasp what the no-quitting pledge was doing for me. I wasn’t planning to change my life; I was just trying to prove to myself and to my family that I could keep my promises. That when I said I was going to do something, I would do it. They were just little things, a run here or a project there. The outcome of the task itself was not earth shattering. Running the full five miles instead of just three and a half did not hugely alter my life. I’m positive it would have made almost zero difference in my training and ability to run the marathon.

The real difference occurred within me. Each success motivated me to do more, to keep that happy feeling for a little bit longer. It also built a confidence in myself that I hadn’t really had before. I could do things now that I’d quit on previously—because now I knew that I was capable of it. It wasn’t just faith that I could. I had proof. Each little thing that I didn’t quit on began to stack itself neatly into a little pile in the corner of my mind. That pile grew and became the evidence that I can show myself when times get tough. Now when my little voice says, “You’re nobody. You can’t do anything,” I can point to my evidence and say, “Yes, I can. Look at all these things I didn’t quit on.” It keeps me going and gives me the courage to try to go farther and higher than I let myself go before.

Unwittingly, by not quitting, I had created a group of tangible accomplishments. And it continues to grow. It’s probably one of the few things I don’t mind expanding. I want—no, I need—that pile to grow until it’s the size of a mountain. Then I could use it to stand on and peer over the wall of failures I had erected. There was a whole world to discover outside of that little failure room I’d bricked myself into. All I needed was the courage to climb out.

I
’ve always struggled with the feeling that who I was wasn’t enough, that everyone around me was better or more successful than I was. It felt like I had somehow strayed from the path to that bright future I had foreseen as a child, and now I was embarrassed by what I was—a stay-at-home mom.

Facebook is the high school reunion that never ends. You can tell how popular you are by how many “friends” you have. The popular kids will still “ignore” your existence. And you will still compare your looks to your first love’s significant other. At least at the real ten-year reunion you can lie about being successful for a night. It’s a whole lot harder to fake it 24/7 with the whole Internet watching. But I didn’t think about any of that when my sister lured me onto Facebook a few years ago.

Seemed harmless enough, right? It was a convenient way to keep up with close family and friends that lived out of state. I didn’t realize that everybody and their dog were on Facebook. That people I hadn’t seen or talked to in fifteen years would request to be my friend. That I would now have to account for what I had done or not done since high school.

When the first former classmate found me, I was embarrassed to admit that no, I hadn’t gone on to be a big shot musician, just a stay-at-home mom. Nope, never did finish that four-year degree. What was going on in my life? Um, pretty much nothing. I felt like I was being measured against some standard and falling horribly short. Well, nothing a little creative editing couldn’t fix. I believe politicians call it spin.

I scoured my computer for hours, trying to find a decent photo of me from one of my diet successes that I could use as a profile picture. (Hey, nobody said the photo had be current.) Then I went to work on the “info” portion of my user account.

Favorite Quotes: I searched the web and cut and pasted ones that made me sound deep and well read.

Favorite Music: I made sure to leave out any guilty pleasures (“Mmmbop” wasn’t going to cut it) and only included music that would reflect favorably on my musical background like classical and Broadway.