It's All Up to YOU

It is said that no one can make it alone—we all need help to survive.  This is true in most cases, but when it comes to the battles that lie within the souls of all of us, there is only room for one to be the savior, the liberator, the hero.  We walk the road alone and are given the awesome task of bringing what is needed to us to change and to make the differences needed in many cases to survive.  We are not always successful and so we find ourselves digging deeper and deeper into the hole of ourselves to find the answers needed and many times fall to the wayside frustrated, wounded and defeated.  But we can’t give up, we can’t throw our hands up in the air and say “Oh well, I tried but it’s useless,” because if we do we are doomed.

            If we fail and fall down we can take a moment to suffer defeat, but then we must summon all of our strength to pick ourselves up and start again. 

It is not easy finding the solutions needed to bring change to the mess that we have allowed for so long it has become the norm.  We develop habits and when those habits become the source of defeat and hurt us time and time again, we have to find a way to make a change but change is sometimes a fearful thing and change is always brought with some level of difficulty.  It is one thing to make a quality decision to make changes in ourselves when we are confident, self-assured and full of personal resources, but when the change has to come from a damaged, weeping soul—it is difficult and all too many times it creates so much pain and discomfort we lose what little strength we possess in trying to hold on to the vision we created to help launch it.  We are the keepers of our soul and only we can recognize the needs in our lives that merit adjustment and alteration.  Just like a wedding dress needs several fittings before it is flawless and ready for that perfect day, we are constantly trying on the things that make us and many times we must amend and fine tune the fibers that create our universe until we reach that happy place where we are content.  There is a bridge between the place of who we are and who we long to become.  Many times it is hidden and we have to search for it, but all too often it is right there in front of us, waiting for us to just open our eyes and make the journey across it.  

A No Diet Resolution

I hear people talk about their new year’s resolutions a lot right now and I’d say most of them are about weight loss.  “I got  some weight I’d like to get rid of.”  “Oh you know I over did it over the holidays!  I gained so much weight I got to get if off.”  Then they go on talking about what diet they’re on—the low carb diet, the low fat diet, the cabbage soup diet, the body shape diet, the diet that actress was on who lost all that weight.  Of course they have to get into exercise, somebody walks while the other one goes to the gym, another one has a treadmill at home that gives her a real good workout.  It’s all the hype right now at the beginning of a new year and everyone is fired up, determined to make this year the year they actually follow through and get the weight off.  But by Valentine’s Day, when the chocolates hearts are dangling in the seasonal aisle at the grocery store and all of those candy boxes are staring us down when we shop, it’s going to change, it always does.  Somebody is going to crack from not having any sugar, another one is going cave from lack of pasta and one by one the New Year’s brigade of dieters is going to abandon ship and start pocketing the chocolate.  Once the chocolate becomes okay then they’ll start thinking of that nice romantic meal they have to make and how it’s okay because it’s Valentine’s Day, for goodness sake.  And then it begins, all over again. 

Why can’t people stop trying to diet and just want to eat healthy? 

It stands to reason that diets don’t work, the mere fact that we keep having to go on a diet is proof of that.  Some people aren't as bad as others, while one man may gain twenty pounds at Christmas time, his month at fitness and exercise before the big Chocolate Heart parade may be enough to get those unwanted pounds off but for another woman, her trouble begins when she gains ten pounds over the holidays.  Her battle is intense to lose a pound a week and by week five she gets hit in the face with a box of chocolates from her husband and she isn’t interested in losing weight until after Valentine’s Day, then comes Easter then her birthday,  a summer cruise, Halloween and before she knows it, it’s Christmas time again and she has gained another ten pounds over the ten she never lost from last year.  We’re always going to find reasons to over eat and splurge on candy, cookies and cake, to dive blindly into a buffet glistening with high fats and over processed foods we know are bad for us.    So Instead of trying to deny ourselves of the goodies we love until we lose the weight we gained for eating too much of them, wouldn’t it make more sense to  want to change what we’re putting in our bodies and to make healthy modifications to keep us on track all of the time? 

Being Healthy means making a commitment to lifelong changes, not a diet of sacrifice that only holds us in between seasons.

The way we eat is a choice we make all on our own.  Sometimes we just get lazy and don’t take the time to cook for ourselves, we worship the Golden Arches and pay tribute to the king of fast food.  Who wants to go home and have to defrost chicken and bake it up in a pan when you can just stop at the colonel’s?  Even at the grocery stores now they are preparing foods for us or we just go into the frozen foods and choose the frozen, fatty, processed nutritional nightmares.  No fad diet is easy it requires time and planning.  So why do we expect life to be any different? 

Chocolate does not kill people, but people go into overkill with chocolate. 

It’s like that with a lot of foods.  I have always been told to eat like a skinny person but in my life I have seen skinny people grow into not so skinny people.  Some people are extremely disciplined and I appreciate that but eating 4 almonds for breakfast with black coffee?  Please, that won’t work for me.  And I have also seen people who preach moderation who are really good in some cases, but when it comes to particular foods, I’ve seen their moderation go right out the window.  I think possessing the ability to be able to eat a sliver of cake and be satisfied is a good thing, but I’ve seen many a diabetic go for ‘just a little piece’ and walk away with the shakes or feeling quite ill, then turn around and go for it again.  There are just some things we have to face the fact about; we just can’t eat them.  I had a friend in Louisiana who was allergic to shell fish; the woman never stopped when her face swelled up, she didn’t pause when her stomach was the size of the pot they were boiling the crawfish in.  When she started to have trouble breathing, she went for a Benadryl tablet, and you’d think she’d walk away.  Not without a take home box where I’m sure he went through the same thing.  It’s crazy right?  But I’ve seen people with wheat allergies do the same thing, lactose intolerants suffer through cramps and diarrhea just for their favorite treat.

 When do we stop hurting ourselves for that temporary piece of feel good that sometime makes us so sick we can’t function?

I've been without breads, pastas and sugar for two months now and I feel the difference.   I’m not suffering with stomach problems, no nervousness, fits of moodiness and depression.  No skin rash, whelps or yeast infections.  I know these foods are hurting me, so why would I ever want to go back to them again?  It’s the same thing with excessive servings of butter, oils and other unhealthy foods.  I am in a place now eating wholesome foods, fresh vegetables and fruit, no dairy except for Greek yogurt and incorporating healthy whole grains into my meals.  Why would I want to go back to eating the other stuff and feeling bad again?  I don’t want to and I am aware of the fact that being healthy takes work.  Planning, prepping, preparing healthy meals—that’s work.  I can’t allow myself to get lazy and I can’t allow myself to believe the lie that if I eat those things again, it will make me feel better.  Healthy is in how we eat, in the changes we make and the choices we take.  

The Fat Lady’s Workout

        There are Challenges going across the internet to make you stronger and fit; squats, burpees, marathons.  I find myself excited about the possibility and motivated to enter in.  The first one that caught my eye was the squat, but considering my size and my limitations, I wasn’t exactly squat worthy.  Not wanting to be left out or touted as the fat, disabled woman who can’t do much of anything, I made it my business to enter in.  I needed to find a way to do a squat, howbeit ever so altered, so that I could join in on the challenge.  I found myself standing and sitting in my chair—that lasted all of six times and I was feeling muscles in my thighs and butt that rang out in a chorus of pain.  Then I moved to the walker—stand, squat, stand, squat—yeah, that was even harder.  I put pillows on the bed and sat high then stood up, this would have worked if the pillows had not crumbled to the floor every time I stood.  I leaned against the wall and slid to a squat—once was all I could do of that.  I was about to give up when I saw the ball; the big red stability ball my chiropractor told me to use to stretch my back and just sit on when my back hurt to relieve the pressure.  It’s a big ball, the biggest they make—after pumping and pumping with his foot on a bicycle pump, my husband was having serious leg cramps and crying for the Tylenol and had to take it to the gasoline station to be filled.  Now the ball has possibilities—not only is it high enough for me to sit on without knee pain, it has bounce—serious bounce.  As soon as I got it situated between the sofa and the wall and knew it wasn’t going to be rolling anywhere, I gave it a whirl.  With the walker in front of me for support, I pumped twenty five squats, no problem!  I was so tickled, I celebrate with my favorite “woo hoo!” and ran to my daughter’s room to brag about my accomplishment.  Then to prove it to her, I pulled the ball into the living room to give her a sample of my fabulousness—I did another twenty five and we both echoed in “woo hoo!”  My husband came late to the party wanting to know what I was so excited about, so I showed him and managed to crank out another twenty five!  The celebration continued and I was feeling a bit shaky but less than two hours later, I did the final twenty five squats that had me at the peak of the challenge.  I was so proud of myself I reported it to my Facebook friends feeling like the bad mamma jamma that I knew I was.  Four hours later, I was crying in the shower with low back pain and screaming muscles in my thighs with a popping in my knees so loud is sounded like marbles hitting the floor.  Not to mention the fact that I had a pain in the ass like nobody’s business.  The bad mamma jamma was down for the count, reaching for pain pills and muscle relaxers and praying for relief. 

      So what did I learn from that painful experience?  Did it make me shy away from workouts all together?  No, it filled me with determination—not determination to keep up with the challenges being issued by the younger girls on the web who were jazzed up with excitement and endorphins making fit bodies with their spandex attire and sweat but to create new ones.  Not everybody can do the squats or burpees—which, by the way, I thought was something you did after drinking too much soda.   There are those of us who can barely pick up the things we drop on the floor and an aerobic workout is walking to the door to get the mail.  I realized that I am not the only person who has the physical limitations that keep us out of the gyms and fitness centers—not all machines are created equal and one size does not fit all.  We might be able to buy the walking shoes or the running shoes, put them on our feet and lace them up, but the walking and the running is a goal we find off in the future and in the meantime, we are faced with this question; how will I manage to work out in my condition?  You would think that a woman who was a certified fitness trainer and instructor for years would have the answer to this question.  Oh, I know how to work out, I know how to push someone to get them to give it their best and sweat their way to a stronger, healthier goal.  Problem is, once you get past a certain size and are held back by so many physical limitations—it is not easy to find a workout that works.  So what do you do?  Lose the weight without bothering to work out?  I know many have done this, but honestly  I believe there are so many benefits to working out; moving, becoming flexible and aiding in cardiovascular fitness not to mention the fact that movement promotes mobility.  I believe that as long as we can move something, we can get a workout. 

        So, what does a 400 pound woman who has to sit in a wheelchair a lot of the time who has to hug walls and dodge puppies to walk to the bathroom do to get a workout?  She starts by lifting her legs—gentle kicks, toe taps, knee raises.  Then she adds arm movements, bicep curls, arms over head, arm out, chest flies, elbow lifts—my butt is planted, but I’m moving.  I started doing stretching and breathing first thing in the morning.  Then I added a hand bike, an ergometer type machine that I got from Sears.  I knew I could not walk a mile, but I challenge myself to walk a minute—I know this sounds trivial to the upright and mobile, but to the woman in the chair a one minute walk down the hall and to the front door was a long way to have to go.  I could lie on the bed and do crunches and leg lifts but not nearly as many as I had once done, so I started with a small number and am working my way up.  The recumbent stationary cycle in the garage that I stopped using because it hurt my legs to much to operate, came back inside and I managed to get myself on it and pedaled as long as I could take the pain, which was about five minute.  Then I tied a band with handles to the handle bars and did resistance work for five minutes, then managed to pedal the cycle for another five.  I was amazed at what I could do. 

        Am I saying this is what every physically disabled person who has a knee and back problem complicated by a serious weight gain should do?  Heck no, we are all different and we all know what we can and cannot do.  But I am here to tell you that I was limiting myself and because of depression, feeling badly and thinking my life was over and there was no sense in trying,  I had dug myself into a pit of despair with walls of fear that said “don’t do it, you’ll hurt yourself and maybe die!”  It took being in a support group and having some wonderful, kind souls speak courage to me they motivated me to push myself to do more.  That is when I realized I was not as weak or as buried as I’d made myself believe.  Their challenges, howbeit not suitable for my situation, had pulled something out of me that I thought I’d lost—strength, belief in myself and courage to take a chance. 

        So I don’t do the squats or the marathons, I have decided to return the favor and be the poster child for the big people in the chairs, the ones who sit in their cars for ten minutes or more because they just don’t have the strength to pick themselves up and make the walk inside the house.  The ones who wake up in the morning and can’t seem to move or want to get dressed even to start their day because they know the pain of those first steps in the morning and just don’t want to go there.  The ones who put off simple tasks like standing at the kitchen counter chopping and dicing or even stirring the pot; the pain has become so harsh standing seems too much to bear.  The ones who look longingly at their back yards and wish they could do the gardening, the ones who want to pull the bike out and hit the trail but just can’t stay balanced long enough to get out of the driveway.  There are so many people who have painted themselves into a corner who hurt too much to move and have become sedentary to a crippling point where they would not be able to recognize the person in the mirror if they could only muster the courage to face him.  This is the small portion of society that I want to reach—the hopeless, the self-haters, the ones who search for a spark, a glint of a fire that will pick them up and set them on a path to get their life back.  I make my own challenges, easy to accomplish like doing abdominal crunches and leg lifts.  I write fru-fru poems and post my simple breakthrough that I know are the product of scorn and ridicule by some who think they have risen above my level of fitness and I say more power to them.  But right here, right now in my little corner of the world, I want to make a difference in myself first—and then light a fire under the chairs of the sedentary seemingly hopeless people who can’t see past their inability to the bright future that is still theirs.