Mirrors

Today I had decided that going to Orange Theory after working a ten hour shift in the ER was a great idea. I scheduled the class days ago, carefully packed my gym bag this morning and thought this would be just great. I am in a new job that now, at times, lets out early enough to go, so this was my first attempt. I will admit, leaving the hospital I may have turned into a foul mouthed sailor as I cursed the bitch that thought this was a good idea. It was probably a good thing multiple family members called on my way to the gym to distract me from hurting myself. Was backing out an option? Of course but the same person who scheduled this class joined a gym that charges a fee for missing class.

So, there I was, gym clothes on, trying to run and realizing after a great run yesterday, the hip was not going to do much more than an aggressive power walk (more on the hip later). Said aggressive power walk gave me some time to look in the studio mirror in front of me. It dawned on me that most mirrors are really like those funhouse mirrors from carnivals of days gone by. I can remember as a child being tentative looking at these things. I was terrified I would end up in front of the fat mirror. The one that made me look wider than I was. I loved the skinny mirror, yet at the same time, that really was a distorted image and I still could not see what skinny on me would look like.

Then there are the clothing store mirrors. The countless times I had tried stuff on in the store, deemed it acceptable on my oversized frame, only to get it home and put it on again and say to myself,"what was I thinking?"  Now I will say....I was completely vindicated in that notion when I saw a news report recently that the proverbial "skinny mirror" is actually a thing. A thing department stores pay top dollar for.

Today's look in the mirror showed me arms and my head. The rest was out of view due to the treadmill. Interestingly, despite the muscles emerging I was able to spot every flaw. Every little thing that I did not like. That seems to be a theme. My clothes have become like that fun house mirror. I hold up my pants and am wondering how on earth they would ever fit me, yet they do as if some magical transformation happens as I pull them on. They magically go from the size four that they are to the size 16 that lives in my head.  I suppose making the connection between what we see and what the world sees is a lesson I still have not quite mastered.

The good news is as I pondered the mirror and the funhouse like image I have I finished the power walk, followed by the power row and the power lifts.  Powering through these things and finding myself first off the rower, lifting the heaviest of all I was able to see the mirror is just the mirror, easily broken.  Having a power day to remind me that reducing the shakes of the image lies with the same evil bitch that booked that class. Guess she knew what she was doing after all.

Success

I suppose what needs to follow an entry dedicated to failure is maybe one dedicated to success. How is it I now obstacle race and wear a size four. What is the secret?  That is the question I get a lot. Looking back, that list of failures discussed yesterday would lead one to believe no commercial diet is going to help so then what?  What is it?

To answer this question I go back to my favorite red and white striped shorted diet guru. When I was sweating to the oldies I know Richard Simmons had a license plate that said "Y R U FAT". He was on TV a lot nose to nose with morbidly obese people who would end in tears as they discovered what it was that got them there. This was such a dramatic scene it was parodied a lot. I used to watch it cheering on these underdogs and hearing their horrific stories of terrible childhoods. I never thought that applied to me. I had a nuclear family that after my upbringing ended in divorce. I have my own family now and a great career. So no. My dad was not an axe murderer and my mom was not turning tricks to support her habit. However these stories made for good TV. In a similar style Biggest Loser did the same. Tearful revelations. To be truthful I always wished Jilian Michaels would be my trainer. Somehow I knew she could get the job done.

The reality is, however, these things I once felt were entertaining TV actually had a lot of relevance to my life. I had it pointed out to me almost two years ago by a close family member that my siblings were better than me. One was smarter and the other got the personality. I was told
I simply would not ever measure up. Now I realize how that sounds. Mean spirited and cold. The thing is this person meant that as plainly as if they were describing our relative eye color. This is actually a very loving person. In that moment and the torturous weeks that followed I began to understand my own place in my family. My spot in the proverbial pecking order so to speak. I learned that no amount of fighting would change that. I also learned that there were those in my life outside of my family that needed me to be that person as it filled some other void for them. Through all my jockeying for position I had become exactly who everyone else needed me to be. The fat sister. This left me wondering well.....what if I wasn't?  What would happen if I became the person I was made to be?  I realized there was a fair amount of fear here. Fear of losing people as I would no longer be what they needed. Rather what I needed to be. So I took the challenge and faced the fear.

For me the challenge looked like a low carb diet and a trip to Orange Theory. I found my successes, albeit small were all celebrated until ultimately all those small successes added up to who I am now. I even found my own Jilian like trainer who uses the phrase,"mental toughness" to get me through the hardest challenges. Did I lose people in my life?  Not totally. Relationships have changed as a result and I find it is nowhere near what I feared.

So I suppose the answer to Richard question Y R U FAT is more than just dramatic television, it was literally the secret to unlocking my success which is way better than being someone else's failure.

Failure

It would seem entitling the opening blog post "failure" would somehow be counter productive as a motivator for those who struggle like I do and have most of my life with the topic of obesity. However, there is a method to this madness. I decided to start blogging again as suddenly I find people who I have known throughout all walks of my life reaching out to me through the magic of social media. The reality is over the last two years I have lost about 77 pounds and learned how to be fit and healthy. People reach out to me asking for help to get their journey started. I get questions on what is the single secret answer to a lifelong battle of obesity?

Obesity. Such an ugly word. A scientific word based on graphs and charts. A medically billable code. In my world yes, as a nurse practitioner I too use that word in a clinical sense, but in a secular sense it means two things. Lots of bulges and shopping trip straight to the plus size section, or as my mother affectionately referred to it, a trip to Omar the tent maker.  Any way you slice it, large draping clothes or bulky sweaters to hide it all. Yes. An ugly word obesity. I have been just that since I was in grammar school.

This leads to the notion of failure. "You are an inspiration" "I wish I could do it" "I could not do what you do". These are all things I now seem to hear a lot. Odd phrases for me to hear when really I have 3.5 decades of failure. There were the early days of Weight Watchers where my mom and I were busy making our own ketchup, choking back the required liver meal once a week and eating more cod than I can handle. I was 13. To this day I cannot eat cod. Then there was the leader of our meetings who would stand and cry as she weekly referred to herself as the "fat sister". I must admit, the fifth or sixth time around it unfortunately became comical and snickering with my also obese mother was probably not the most helpful weight loss tool. There was the Mayo Clinic Diet which involved eating a certain amount of hot dogs.  I am thinking that paper that had been copied over and over and circulated the office my mom worked at was probably not authentic Mayo Clinic. There was the rice diet, the cabbage soup diet, another round of Weight Watchers all before I left for college. In college it was the "Oprah Diet" better known as Optifast where I spent an entire summer drinking my meals of protein shakes. The thing they do not tell you about is at some point you need to eat again. There was Jenny Craig where my counselor, who was barely out of her teens,  tearfully told me about her battle with 15 pounds. Wow. Narrowly escaped that one didn't you? Then there is Richard. Richard Simmons. Taught me to sweat to the oldies and deal a meal. Further attempts at Weight Watchers, Atkins and have made several trips to South Beach. There was the fen fen, which I think of fondly with my leaking mitral valve that requires antibiotics every time I go to the dentist. Finally 12 years ago this week there was the weight loss surgery. I had a lot of success with weight loss there. So much so I became the face of weight loss surgery at that facility and made a commercial. My 15 minutes of fame. I never gained all the weight back with that, had lost 110 pounds. However I did gain some and never was fit. I exercised some but not like now.

So, the reality is I have 3.5 decades of failure after failure. I have no magic answer to the "what's your secret?" Three and a half decades of failure casts the doubt of success so loud that really it is hard to hear anything else some days even now. Those are the days you realize past failure is just that. Past. Looking for today's success even if it is just walking 30 seconds more or skipping dessert is today's triumph. Second realizing the failure is part of my fat girl heart and shaped who I am today and it is not fatal, and can sometimes be used as a valuable tool,  so embrace it and use it to move on a day at a time.