I was wondering how you answer the question: Who Are You?

What defines you and makes you unique?

Let’s make it fun and define ourselves in just a few words.

I’ll start:

I am a:

Wife

Mom

Independent

Thinker

Christian

That took me a few minutes to decide on just a few words to describe myself. Some of those adjectives and titles helped me on my weight loss journey. I wanted to be around for my husband and my children and they were primary motivators for me. I am independent, so I did my own thing to lose weight. I like to think about things, and I certainly thought a lot about weight loss. And my faith helped me get through really tough times.

Want to join in? Who are you?  Diane

All I could focus on was what food I thought I could never have again.

I had it 100% backwards. Instead of focusing on what I perceived as missing – I should have been focusing on all the things I would gain when I was at a healthier weight. But through 10 years of dieting, I focused on the losses. That’s something that was different for me the last time I tried to lose weight. I focused on all the things I was gaining.

Here’s some things I gained or improved by losing:

Increased self-respect

Control over my choices

Better wardrobe

More energy

Improved health

Self-confidence

Ability to do physical activities I never thought possible – like ride a bike

As you travel your own journey – I wonder if you ever tend to focus on all the things you have given up and lose sight of the wonderful benefits to being healthier and more fit? If you do, I’d encourage you to sit down when you have a minute and make a written list of all the wonderful things you are gaining or want to gain on your journey.

Do you ever focus on the perceived losses or do you keep your eye on the gains?  Diane

My girls were small when I was morbidly obese and I belonged to a  Mother’s Group at our church. Time after time I was overlooked for heading up committees, taking on tasks, and of course I was never asked to be the greeter at the door. I often wonder if  part of that was due to the perception of obese people, or was part of that due to my own poor self image? During that time in my life I was teetering between 280 and 300 pounds, and honestly, felt quite badly about myself.  Every time someone asked another woman to handle something, I felt ashamed. Every time I tried to volunteer for a task, but was pushed aside, I felt demoralized. And each time people made side comments about my energy level, I shrank inside. I remember one time when we were organizing a field day for the children, that a friend said, “Diane, you probably don’t want to handle any of the games, so why don’t you just bake 3 dozen cookies?” I looked at her, smiled and said, “Sure, that sounds great.” But inside I was thinking, “I can handle ring toss with 5 year olds. I know I can.” But instead I baked 3 dozen cookies, at 18 of them, and had to bake 3 dozen more in order to have enough to bring to the field day.

I don’t think I was lazy. I worked hard at home, at my part-time job, and on my friendships. I kept up with the latest trends in decorating, knew what clothes were in style, even if I couldn’t wear them, and was well informed on world events. Other people didn’t see all the things I accomplished during the day. All they saw was almost 300 pounds lumbering in the door, overflowing chairs and catching her breath after climbing stairs. I guess I can’t blame them for their incorrect assumption. I wasn’t lazy, I just wasn’t energetic. I was often tired, but I did work hard.

Once I finally was successful at losing weight I was astonished at the difference in how people treated me, based solely on physical appearance. It was unbelievable. Whereas I was previously regulated to the “backroom” jobs, now I was constantly asked to serve on the board, give the opening prayer, introduce the speaker, etc. What changed? My appearance. I was the same person I had always been, just smaller. Undoubtedly, my self confidence level improved, but I would have done those things even as a heavy person, it was just that no one asked.

I learned something through all this. I learned never to judge people based on their outward appearance. It’s something I just don’t do anymore because I know how it feels to be on the judged side.

Do you think that there is a perception that overweight people are lazy? Diane

Here’s the first scenario:

I’m in the parking lot of Kroger putting my groceries in the car. A woman and her daughter come up next to me and begin unloading their groceries. I glance over, mainly to make sure they aren’t ax murders or something, and can’t help but notice three things:

1. The mom is about as big as I used to be.
2. The little girl, who is probably about eight years old, is fairly overweight.
3. They are each holding a candy bar while at the same time opening a 20 oz soft drink – the mom a coke, and the little girl an carbonated orange drink.

The mom tells her daughter, “You can’t go wrong with a soda and a candy bar on a hot day.”

It made me so sad to see this. I was morbidly obese. I know how it feels to be obese, and even at my biggest I knew I didn’t want any of my children to be obese. Not obese as a child or an adult. I wondered why the mom would offer a huge soda which had over 200 empty calories in it coupled with a several hundred calorie chocolate bar. Doesn’t she realize that she is setting her daughter up for a life of difficulties, both from the emotional toll obesity can take and the health problems obesity brings?

The second scenario was one a friend was telling me about. He was at a local donut shoppe and saw a morbidly obese woman eating donuts with her overweight child. And the child didn’t have just one donut, but rather two iced donuts complete with sprinkles. Now, I’m not a kill-joy. Not at all. We eat cookies on occasion. We have dessert. I think I’ve eaten a donut in the last two years (maybe). But if I was weight challenged, and my child was too, then feeding them two donuts at 7:00 a.m. wouldn’t be how I would generally start the day.

I don’t believe that government can regulate our food choices. Sure, they can force the manufacturers to eventually lower the sodium content in foods. They can work on reducing the trans fat/high fructose corn syrup/etc. in foods – but it does come down to individual choices.

That’s why I have such high hopes for the blogging community. It’s a grassroots community that has a wide reach and is influential. I hope that as time goes by we will all see less and less of these types of destructive behaviors. It grieves me when I see it or hear about it because I KNOW what it feels like to be morbidly obese, and it isn’t fun.

My husband asked me if I said anything to the candy bar/soda woman. “Of course not,” I responded. I never would have. Although I did want to ask her – “What’s so great about soda on a hot day? What about a bottle of water?” But I didn’t say anything. Instead I got into my car and drove home, thinking about it the whole time.

What do you think when you see things like this? Does it make you sad/mad/don’t care. Do you ever say anything?  Diane

This made me think of what examples I am passing to my children. I’m grateful I now model the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.  They will undoubtedly make their own choices as they grow and mature, but it is my hope they won’t have to live through the pain and shame I did.  Life as an obese woman was hard. Hard physically and emotionally.

When I was obese I felt a lot of internal guilt with regards to what kind of example I was setting for my family by allowing myself to be so overweight. Every time I wasn’t able to fully participate in an activity the kids were doing, or every time  I made an excuse to sit on the sidelines I felt guilty. I worried they would be embarrassed to be seen with me, or whether their friends would make fun of them for having a fat Mom. And on occasion their friends would ask my oldest, “Why is your mom so fat?”

It wasn’t as though I didn’t try to make a change. Time and time again I tried to lose the weight, get healthy and improve my physical fitness. Time and time again I failed. And every time I felt a fresh wave of guilt. I’d look at my young children effortlessly running around the yard and try to remember a time when I could move faster than a slow waddle. It had been so long since I was able to move freely – unencumbered by an extra 150 pounds. Over and over they’d ask me, “Mommy, watch me! Mommy come play!” I’d watch, but didn’t participate in their fun. I’d shout words of encouragement from across the yard, but stayed in my chair. It took too much effort to move around so I stayed down.

One definition for the word legacy is defined as: Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past.

I’m asked a lot how I have maintained my weight for so long. There are a lot of reasons, but one of them is the fact that I want to leave my children the legacy and memory of a mom who cared enough about herself to stay healthy for them. I didn’t want to leave them with the memory of a mom so paralyzed by guilt and fear that she ate herself into an early death.  Among other things, when my kids talk about me to other people I want them to be able to say, “She loves us fiercely, encourages us in everything we pursue, and cares enough about us to take care of herself.” My kids won’t always make the right choices in every area of their lives – who does? But it is my hope that my healthy example will always be with them in their hearts and in their minds as they grow and mature.

Question: What kind of words do you want your family members to say about you?  Diane

• Good for them
• I wish I could do that
• Wow, they are fast
• I wonder how far they go?

You know what I thought when I saw a jogger?  I thought, “Go home.  Get a life.  What a waste of time.”  It’s true.  I hated to see people exercising.  I just couldn’t imagine that running down the road was the least bit fun.  After all, who voluntarily sweats, gets out of breath and doesn’t look so great doing it? I was judging them and being jealous for their fitness.  I wanted everyone to be like me so I wouldn’t feel out of place or inadequate.  It’s not a confession I make willingly, but it’s the truth.  It’s how I felt. 

The first day of my weight loss plan, over twelve years ago, I knew I needed to move my body.  I knew I was fat.  I knew I didn’t own a pair of shorts.  I understood it wouldn’t be easy.  But I also had enough knowledge about weight loss that I understood exercise was a vital part of any weight loss plan.  So I started that first day, walking 10 minutes from my house, and 10 minutes back.  I didn’t get far, probably 10 or 15 houses away, and we are talking small lots and small houses.  But I did it, and I was proud when I returned.

Over the months that followed, I went farther and got faster.  In my mind, I told myself that when I got to be under 200 pounds I wanted to try and jog a little bit.  The day I reached 199 was in the fall.  I got up, weighed myself and decided I was going to jog a bit.  I put on my exercise clothes set off down the road.  I walked for a while, and decided to try jogging from one mailbox to the next one.  I started jogging and thought everything was going to fall apart.  Everything jiggled and moved independently of each other, but I kept going.  When I reached the next mailbox, I gladly stopped.  I did this occasionally during that first walk, not trying to push myself, but just to see if I could do it. 

October, November and December passed with me continuing to increase my jogging distance and the quickness of my pace.  In December I told John I wanted to sign up for a 5K.  He looked at me like I had lost my mind.  Why in the world would you want to run 3.2 miles?  I explained it was a goal, and I thought it would be fun.  “Fun?” he said?  But he was encouraging, and said, “Go for it.”  So I signed up for a charity 5K race to be held in March.  I practiced and trained, using a book I had checked out from the library. 

March rolled around and I couldn’t wait to go.  John and all the kids came to cheer me on.  I felt like a completely different woman standing among all the other runners.  No one looked at me and wondered if I’d make it.  No one even noticed me.  I was just one of the pack.  The race started, and I began jogging along at my slowish pace.  I didn’t stop running until I hit the finish line.  I was no where near the front of the pack, and not really even in the middle.  But I didn’t finish last and I finished proud.  It was one moment that I’ll never forget.   

Is there a fitness goal that you’ve achieved lately?  Diane

In the ideal world, weight loss is mainly about taking in less calories than you burn. However, I’ve haven’t met too many people who don’t have a lot of emotional feelings surrounding food. So in my humble opinion, successful weight loss often requires us to conquer the emotions while at the same time working on improving what and how we eat.

Agree or disagree?

For many of us, the experiences we have had in the past influence our reactions to food. I know it has for me. Without going into too many details, there were some situations that happened during my childhood that were less than ideal. I learned at a young age that food didn’t talk back to me, didn’t judge me, and seemed to make me feel better. So I indulged whenever I could, and overindulged the older I got.

And I gained massive amounts of weight as a result. I gained 150 pounds in about 8 years.

Healing the past isn’t easy, and often requires the assistance of a professional, or perhaps a trusted confidante. A lot of people ask me if I sought counseling during my obese years to help me on the right path and I didn’t. Not that I think anything is wrong with counseling, (because I do NOT) but quite frankly, it wasn’t something we could afford at the time had I wanted to avail myself of it.

So how did I work through some of those complicated issues that helped me gain weight?

1. I had to be 100% honest with myself that there were some issues in the first place, and worth through my feelings surround them.
2. I had to allow myself experience the emotions that were associated with the emotions
3. I learned that just because I knew what the emotions were, I still needed to learn not to eat based on those emotions.
4. When I messed up I gave myself a break, and didn’t beat myself up.
5. I finally understood it wasn’t a quick fix. Losing weight wasn’t going to change the past, but I could heal and move past the past while at the same time losing weight.

I wanted to say that I haven’t “healed” the past completely, but rather I’ve worked through it and been able to acknowledge it without allowing the past to rule my emotions and unduly influence my choices.

What do you think? Is healing and/or acknowledging past hurts a part of the weight loss journey for some people?  Diane

In the midst of all the good things that happened there were some unfortunate consequences, or “fall-out” from my weight loss success. There was the loss of my best friend of over 10 years. Our relationship didn’t survive my weight loss success. She said mean things to me so often that I finally believed she didn’t want to be my friend at all. There were times where I felt isolated in social situations where fattening food was all that was offered. When I refused to eat any goopy cake or store bought cookies my friends made fun of me.

Even my sweet husband was confused at first when I insisted on exercising every day. It took him some time to realize that I wasn’t taking any time away from the family, but rather was able to give more time and energy to the family because I felt so much better about myself.

Roy, at Contemplative Fitness wrote this in the comment section last week. He talks about sabotage in his comment, but at the end of his comment he made a statement that stopped me in my tracks.

Nearly all people I have helped lose 50+ ended up leaving their relationship within a year of the weight coming off.

It stopped me in my tracks because that wasn’t my personal experience. John and I came through my weight loss unscathed. But what of Roy’s experience in training and helping people get fit and healthy?

It made me want to explore this further, and who better to ask their experiences then you all.

I have known several people who have lost a substantial amount of weight. Some have had struggles in their relationships and some haven’t. I thought about some of the reasons why relationships may struggle when someone drastically changes their appearance and lifestyle. The two words that came into my mind were expectations and insecurity.

Expectations that a relationship will always continue in a certain manner, including appearance, habits, and life goals.

Insecurity that comes about after those expectations aren’t met.

As you travel this journey have you given any thought to your relationships? My hope for you is that your relationships, both friendships and more, will survive your journey to health unscathed and stronger. Any thoughts on how to help this happen, or is there nothing that can be done?  Diane

I'm in the green sweater holding the camera

As I thought about that it made me start thinking about whether or not having an accurate self-picture of ourselves is an important part of weight loss success and eventual maintenance. Does it matter if you have a hard time picturing yourself as you actually are, rather than what you were.

The interesting thing is that I didn’t have a hard time picturing myself as a morbidly obese woman, although pictures of me during that time did surprise me. Was I really that big?  Even though I was formerly an average size, it was much easier to accept my larger size than it was my smaller size. As the weight piled on I knew I was too big for small sized shirts, or regular sized shirts for that matter. I readily made the largest pattern sized jumper I could find accepting that I was fat. But I had a hard time the other way down.

I wonder if my experience is a common one? I have friends who have lost a substantial amount of weight only to regain it within a year or two. They expressed the difficulty they had with believing they were smaller than they had been. None of them felt that their difficulty in seeing themselves as a more fit person had an impact on their regain. I don’t know whether it did or not. I know that my difficulty with seeing myself as others do hasn’t impacted my maintenance, but it still surprises me that I occasionally am startled when I see myself in a mirror or in pictures.

What about you? How are you doing with being able to really picture yourself as other people see you? And do you think that the ability to self-picture accurately is important?  Diane

What made me quit so soon? Why wasn’t the scale moving motivation enough for me to keep going with my attempt at weight loss? I don’t have the definitive answer, but one little piece of the puzzle for me was that it was hard to do all that work of eating “better” and not have anyone notice.

Because, at 300 pounds, it took a lot more than 20 pounds lost for someone to notice the change. But I didn’t realize that at the time. Instead, I thought that people should just notice. The funny thing was that even I couldn’t tell a difference so I don’t know why I expected/hoped that my friends would be able to.

So, discouraged by my lack of stellar progress and saddened that all my hard work wasn’t being rewarded, I’d quit yet again. The 20 pounds would come back on and guess what? No one even noticed I had gained weight – not that they said anyway.

How do you feel when no one notices that you’ve lost weight? How do you stay motivated?

Obviously it took a long time for me to stay motivated without verbal acknowledgement from people I knew. I let that (and other things) stop me dead in my weight loss tracks.

The final time I lost weight I went into the whole experience with different eyes. Instead of losing weight and achieving a new level of fitness for praise and acknowledgement from other people, I embarked on my journey for me.

♥ I was the one who needed to get fit.

♥ I was the one making daily choices that would help or hurt my health.

♥ I was the one wearing sized 28 clothes.

♥ I was the one who could change my life and reap the benefits.

I have to be honest though – it was still hard to push through alone. 20 pounds down. No one noticed. 30 pounds. No one said anything.  It wasn’t until I had lost 50 pounds that the first person noticed I had lost some weight, and even then, they weren’t entirely sure. I still remember my good friend saying, “Diane, have you lost some weight?” She asked tentatively, as if she didn’t want to hurt my feelings if I hadn’t.

I wanted to grab her and jump up and down but I was afraid I’d hurt her so I just calmly said, “Yes, I’ve lost some weight.” I didn’t tell her how much and she didn’t ask. It was a still a good feeling to finally have her notice.

But her noticing didn’t increase my motivation to lose weight that last time because her reactions and the reactions of other people weren’t why I was finally lose weight. I was losing weight because I knew I needed to and was ready. I knew that no matter what other people thought – I needed to stay motivated for me.

Where are you on your journey? Do you have a hard time staying motivated if people don’t seem to notice your efforts?  Diane