Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish (8 page)

Occupation: I went from stay-at-home mom to writer. (It wasn’t a lie since at the time I was fifty pages into my latest attempt at a novel.)

Education: I listed myself as having graduated with a liberal arts degree. Nobody else needed to know that it was an associate’s and not a bachelor’s degree.

Omission was the name of the game. I knew that I wasn’t a success, but nobody else had to.

One of the things that you may have noticed as a common theme in my life was my own belief that I was a nobody. I had done nothing of import, nothing noteworthy. I had nothing to show for my years on this earth. Where was the giant plaque that would say “I was here… I did this”? Since I didn’t have one, I figured I must not be a success.

I viewed my life in terms of the things I hadn’t done, rather than giving myself credit for the things I had done. If I was going to find any sort of peace within myself, then that needed to change. And it did… so subtly at first that I didn’t even know it.

***

When Jarom and I started running, I looked at it in terms of the big picture. I was training for a marathon. One that I was sure was never going to happen, but I was putting in my best effort anyway. The marathon was the goal, the event. Everything leading up to it was just the little details. Running my very first mile got maybe a two-sentence notice from me.

As Jarom and I were walking home, I said, “Well, that was the first mile I have ever run. I always walked them in PE.”

“Good job, baby.”

“Yeah, but it was hard. I don’t know how we’re supposed to run two on Wednesday.”

Jarom grunted and we slugged on home. Looking back, I want to take a time machine and smack myself. When we had started running, all I could manage before keeling over was five minutes. We were so bad we had to train just to work up to the start of the training schedule. And now after that, I had just run my first mile, and all I could focus on was that there was more to come. How about taking a minute to say, “Oh my gosh. I ran a whole mile. Last week I could run ten steps, but look at how much farther I’ve come.” But no, not me. I had to look at how much farther I had to go.

At the conclusion of each run, the conversation was nearly identical. “Yep, we ran
x
miles, but on Saturday we have to run
y
miles.” That went on until our first four-mile run.

You have to remember that I went into this whole running thing with the expectation that we would be quitting any day now. I had given us two weeks max before Jarom petered out, so I never expected to reach a third week and a four-mile long run. I don’t know what it was, I’m not tetraphobic (fear of the number four), but for some reason my mind balked at the thought of completing four miles. It was impossible, and I was sure the fabric of reality would unravel if I actually did it.

I approached that morning run with as much trepidation and fear as I would a poisonous snake.

“Are you ready?” Jarom asked, lacing up his shoes.

“No.”

“Are you going to be ready?”

“No.”

“Good, then I guess I get a head start.” And the little bugger took off.

What a jerk! Couldn’t he see this was hard for me? A good husband would have taken my hand and run around the track with me. An even better husband would have walked me home instead. But no, my husband was a butt-head. Well if he wanted a race, then I would give him one.

I passed him around mile two, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I was now dead set on trying make his humiliation complete by lapping him. Focused and pushing myself harder, I had completely forgotten my earlier worries. I wasn’t thinking in terms of miles, just how many laps I had left before my victory was assured.

When I made the required laps to equal four miles (we counted and measured ahead of time), I did a victory dance that would have put any footballer to shame. I didn’t manage to lap Jarom, but I was far enough ahead of him that I had time to sit down, stretch, and pretend to take a nap. When he finally got there, I congratulated him like the good sport I was.

“Ha! I kicked your butt. You weren’t even close. Teach you to try and race me. You cheated and
still
lost.” I probably said a few other choice phrases, but I’m embarrassed enough for one chapter.

When Jarom finally caught his breath, “Yep, you sure did. You ran the whole four miles. Didn’t have to walk once.”

It hit me like a running shoe to the head: I had run four miles. I had done the impossible, and just like I had predicted, the fabric of reality unraveled… I actually gave myself credit. For once, I was in the moment of the achievement, not looking ahead at how much more I had to do. Or looking at how long it had taken me to do it. (Even though I was faster than Jarom, I was still pretty slow.) Nope, for once I was able to appreciate the simple fact that I had done something.

Earlier animosity forgotten, I grabbed Jarom in huge bear hug. Then I started a new, better victory dance.

“I ran four miles.
I ran four miles.
I am a goddess!” Hey, I didn’t say I was humble about it. Baby steps.

***

My bedroom has a set of his and her IKEA wardrobes. On the doors of the wardrobes were three calendar pages, one for the current month and the following two months. Using a book (what else?), Jarom had come up with a training schedule that worked for us and put it on the calendars so we could easily track how far we were running on what days. It had been intended as a tool to help us plan ahead and arrange our schedule accordingly. My four-year-old, Lily, saw it differently.

One day, she came into our room as I was checking off that morning’s run.

“Hey, Mama, is that your sticker card?”

“Huh? What’re you talking about, Lily?”

Lily ran out of the room and brought back the reward chart that I had made for her earlier that week. We had recently been having a little trouble with naughty behavior in our household. Lily had been seeing an occupational therapist for the past six months for sensory processing issues. The therapist had suggested the reward chart as a way to not only encourage positive behavior but also recognize it. Every time Lily did a good job at following directions, shared with her sister, or didn’t flip out when she put on her shoes (long story), she got a sticker in one of the boxes. When she filled up a row with stickers, she got a prize. Looking at her paper, I understood why she made the connection. It too was gridded and blocked similarly to the weeks on my calendar.

I looked at my schedule in an entirely new way. Instead of seeing how many more miles I had to go, I looked back at all the check marks showing the miles I’d run. Holy crap, that was a lot of miles. Cumulatively equaling 172 at this point.

“Yes, Lily, this is Mommy’s sticker chart.”

Lily once again ran out of the room. This time she returned with a page of metallic star stickers.

“You forgot the stickers. Can I do it?”

“Sure, Lily. Just make sure you don’t cover up the numbers so I can see how far I went, okay?”

Hoisting Lily up so she could reach, we put little star stickers on each run I’d completed. I’m sure if I had let her have free reign, she would have filled up all the future boxes too. We stood back and admired our handiwork.

“Wow, Mom, that’s a lot of stickers. So what’s your prize?”

Haha… if only. I tried to figure out how to explain to my little girl that grown-ups didn’t get rewards. Then I started thinking, Why the heck shouldn’t I get a prize? I’ve earned it!

“I don’t know, Lily. Why don’t you go ask Daddy?”

I chuckled as Lily ran from the room, yelling for her Daddy the entire way. A few minutes later, she came panting back.

“Daddy says it’s whatever.”

I’m not sure if Jarom meant whatever I wanted or more likely had no clue what Lily was talking about and so responded with a “Whatever.” I decided to use my new powers of positive thinking and believe it was the former. The pants I had bought for my birthday a month ago had gotten a little roomy. Perhaps a little trip to the mall was in order. I looked again at my “sticker chart.” Yep, I totally deserved it.

***

My newfound powers of observation didn’t belong solely to my running. Nope, it leaked into my everyday life as well. Let me warn you that I’m altering names and a few key details to protect the not-so-innocent. I was at a friend’s wedding reception, staring longingly at the gourmet cupcakes when I was tapped on the shoulder.

“Is that you, Betsy? It’s me. Stacey Jones. Well, now it’s Stacey Adams. You look uh-mazing! How the heck are you?” She then accosted me with a hug.

*inward sigh* Yes, I recognized my former classmate’s voice before she gave her name. With an ear for music and pitch, I had excellent voice recognition. It’s a curse. Cue fake smile.

“Stacey… so good to see you. I didn’t know you were friends with the bride.”

“Oh, no. I’m the groom’s cousin.”

Of course, for all the rotten luck. Remember a couple of chapters ago, when I mentioned that I left the music behind in college because of some of the criticism I received. Well, a large portion of that had come from the woman standing in front of me now.

She grabbed me with her manicured claws and dragged me off to a table where she could devour me in private.

“So fill me in. What happened after you left school? Did you ever finish your degree?”

It was tempting to lie about it or give my omitted Facebook answer. Instead I owned up to the truth, the whole truth.

“You know what? I managed to get my associate’s in liberal arts and then got busy and never got around to finishing.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. But if you were too busy to finish, you must have had something great going on. Did you get a big job or a gig playing somewhere?”

Okay, was somebody giving this lady cue cards or cheat sheets of all my buttons to push for maximum insecurity?

“Nope, I just got busy with life. Got married, had a few kids. Girls. One of them’s a real handful, and she keeps me pretty occupied.”

“Oh. Well, I got married too, see?” She blinded me with the oversized gem weighing down her claw. “But no kids yet. There just isn’t time with Jim being a doctor and my master’s program. How did you find time with your career? What did you say you did again?”

I could have given her the author line or tried to make myself sound more accomplished and important, but for once, I didn’t feel the need. Everything about her was trying to scream “I’m better than you.” From her huge diamond, designer clothes, and casual dropping of her husband’s profession, all of it was too in your face. It was a calculated attempt to make her seem bigger and badder than she was. She reminded me of a blowfish, prickly and full of hot air.

I had nothing to prove to this woman. After this torturous conversation, we would go our separate ways and, God willing, never meet again. I didn’t need her approval of my life. I only needed my own. With a start, I realized that I had it, at least on some of the most basic levels. Sure, I still looked in the mirror and bemoaned my skinny rolls. (I didn’t have fat rolls any more, just the loose flaps of skin left over from losing sixty-five pounds.) I still kicked myself on occasion if I felt I could’ve done better. But I had come to see that the woman I’d become was an accomplishment in its own right.

I had the hardest job on the planet. I was a stay-at-home mom. Two little lives depended on me. I was responsible for making sure they ate nutritious foods, stayed clean, got enough sleep, learned right from wrong, used their manners, stayed in bed when they were sick, and most important, felt that they were loved. I was a housekeeper, a short-order cook (drive-thrus count), nurse, teacher, spiritual leader, and entertainer all rolled into one.

And I didn’t get to clock out at the end of the day either. Being a mother never ends. Who else would wake up in the middle of the night and clean up vomit, then stay up with them the rest of the night, bowl at the ready. By the end of the day, my girls were alive and hopefully a little better and a little smarter than they were the day before. Me too. If that didn’t make me feel like a success, then nothing else I did ever would.

I didn’t actually say that entire rant out loud, though I probably should have. Instead I proudly proclaimed my profession and made my exit.

“I’m a stay-at-home mom. Worst paying job in the world, but the perks are amazing. Now if you’ll excuse me, I should get home to my two little perks about now. Lovely catching up with you. Good luck on your school. I’m sure you’ll graduate and get to be a mom soon.”

I got up and left her flabbergasted by my abrupt and slightly rude departure. I was pleased with myself both for the personal revelations about my everyday accomplishments and for the restraint I showed by not bashing her head with the vase. I had faced down a demon, not Stacey, per se, but more accurately the feeling that I needed to be ashamed and apologize for who I had become. For probably the first time I could look at my life with a sense of accomplishment for what it was instead of a sense of loss for what I wished it would have been.

I
can’t lie convincingly to another person, and I can’t play poker to save my life, but I am a master at self-deception. I could fool myself into thinking I was on the right track when in fact I was going the wrong way on a one-way street. That was one of the reasons my diet efforts always failed, because I lied to myself about how much I was really eating. Sure I counted calories. I knew one portion of Chex mix was 140; I just ignored the fact that their portion was a quarter cup and my portion was half the bag. But in my little food journal, I faithfully wrote down my one portion of Chex mix and patted myself on the back for my excellent tracking skills.

Now that I was measuring every darned thing that went into my mouth, I could see how ridiculous my behavior had been. I had put blinders on to everything that didn’t gel with what I wanted. Sometimes, I knew I’d done wrong and feel guilty about it, but most of the times I talked myself into actually believing the BS I made up to excuse my actions. Here are a few of my favorite food lies and myths that I used shamelessly.