It’s Labor Day, 2013 (September 2) — the day before I start a weight loss program. It’s a food blowout day; my husband and I set it up to have one last big meal before the beginning, tomorrow.
This is probably no different a statement than many would make on the eve of (yet another?) diet, but my sincere hope is that it’ll be the last effort I have to make, because this one will be successful. I have struggled so much with my weight, my entire life, that it’s hard for me to think positively; every single effort has failed.
Every single one.
Sure, I’ve lost weight, and I’ve gone a long way toward regaining health. At one point, I shed 140.5 pounds — but then piled it all on back. It’s difficult for me to get locked into a positive mindset because what I’ve known, in the past, is failure.
I’m 51, looking down the barrel at 52 (next month, in fact); I am horribly tired of living this way, and for whatever time I have left in my life, I want the ability to live it fully. I’m not doing that right now. At well over 300 pounds (I’ll find out the exact number tomorrow morning, when I weigh in [I later weighed in at 371 pounds]), I’m extremely limited in what I’m able to do. I have horrible joint problems, an underactive thyroid, and everything I do, without exception, is painful and takes effort. I’m tired of living this way; I have known better. I am frustrated and embarrassed about how I move, what my limitations are, what I’m forced to wear — how I feel obligated to make excuses for my shortcomings.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want anyone’s sympathy. What I want is to live, to deal with people without their first impressions of me being “holy crap, she’s fat!”, to not have to worry about the things that bother me on a daily (hourly!) basis, to live without fear of falling, of doing something simple that could shorten my life when it wouldn’t be tragic for a healthy 52 year old. I have a desperate time with self-acceptance; I do not like what I am, who I am, how I live.
Tomorrow, that changes.
That was 2,370 days ago; 56,880 hours (give or take a few) of more good decisions than bad ones. More success than failures. Some were huge successes, like knee replacement surgeries; some were small ones, like realizing I could tie my shoes without holding my breath. I’ve been faced with choices many times each and every day. I haven’t always made the right choices, but overall, they’ve led me to where I am in this moment — happy and thankful for having done the work.
and came in 7th place.
Very few of those decisions were huge in themselves, but cumulatively, they are everything. Over 6 years down the road, not only is there a lot less of me (by more than half!), but what’s left is healthier, stronger, and in a much better mental place. Each of those steps have mattered.
Never believe for a second that they don’t.
Conversely, each small failure can snowball. Allow enough small failures and they chain together; you suddenly find yourself regretting letting those failures take over. I have been there dozens of times over the course of my lifetime.
In the long run, when facing whether I can continue on my path when frustration sets in, I try to remind myself that a year down the road, I hope I will be proud of those tiny decisions that lead to success instead of failure. When I first wrote the words above, I couldn’t see past the first few days. I wanted, more than anything, to be able to lay my head down at night, knowing I had done the best I could do with what I faced that day. All I wanted was to be proud I was actually doing something, instead of succumbing to the destructiveness of self-loathing.
I wasn’t sure at all that I’d be successful, but I knew I had to change. Taking the first step forward made all the subsequent steps possible.
This weekend, I get to volunteer at the Little Rock Marathon, again, and cheer on people of all shapes and sizes as they experience a tough test of how far they’ve come. Some are accomplished athletes; some are stragglers just hoping to finish. All of them, though, are winners for being brave enough to take one step after another and let the good of their steps accumulate. A marathon is 26.2 miles — and the stride of a woman my height is approximately 26 inches. Which means, for a 5’2” woman, around 63,847 steps from beginning to end.
63,847 tiny decisions to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, until the race is over.
But it starts with the very first step: the willingness to try.