Nobody Can Do it For You--BUT

The day you pick up the phone or stop someone in the gym and ask about training should get circled on your calendar.  But I bet it won't be. In the beginning such a pivotal move feels ordinary, even pointless, but it's not; it's heroic.  No one could have felt more pathetic walking into a health club than I did ten years ago.  Now, a decade later that day trumps most of the occasions that seemed calendar-worthy then. I look back at that me and still cherish the five minutes of sheer courage it took to just...begin.  Why I so resisted just admitting that my own results were abysmal and that an expert was required still confounds me.  But, at least the next time I "got it" faster.  

After five years of maintaining my hundred pound weight loss and exercise habit, I had to face some facts: 1) I am not Elastigirl and 2) gravity definitely carries a grudge.  So, I started consulting plastic surgeons to literally pick up the decades of slack that no diet, workout, or trainer could erase.  And if I felt out of place at the gym, that was nothing compared to a surgical consult. God knows I had many reservations. But they just ended up being so much weaker than the disgust at my own reflection or the salt-stung view of lacy gifts from my husband that I knew I'd return. I wasn't looking for perfection.  I was looking for normal...the me I would have been had I not spent thirty five years trying to feed my soul from the outside in.  It was the third surgeon who made me a believer, tackling my physical fears and the ghosts of the stranded girl I once was.  But, it was also this amazing doctor who flat out told me that my insurance would never cover a cent of  the expense-- because (of all reasons) now I was too fit. The same insurance that would cover post gastric bypass excisions, reconstruction or revision of a scar, would have me wear my old self for the rest of time. 

And, I would have, would have swallowed that crap and blamed myself too, except that my family simply refused. It's true that nobody can change your diet for you and nobody can workout for you either.  But, having people who stand up for you (Really stand up for you, like sell-the-car-that's-their-pride-&-joy-write-you-a-check stand up for you)  when all practicality and reason tells you to relent-- is a sacred thing and all too scarce for a world so full of scales and mirrors.