ENDURANCE

You might think this is the end of the story. At the time I thought so too. I had lost over 100 pounds. I had pictures to prove it. But pictures are for “before” and “after” and life is for “during” or in my case, “enduring.” And not even the Kodak people can make “enduring” that photogenic.

Everything I have done, inside and outside the gym has been in some way upgraded by what I have learned by training with Greg. His sheer refusal to accept that a goal cannot be met (and met safely) has seen me through many, many firsts. The first mile I ever ran, the first pull up I ever did, he has gotten me through the first bone I ever broke and the heart wrenching, fist slamming frustration of being injured.

More than the tangible “athletic” results, training of this caliber has made me see that there is advantage in what is hard, what makes you feel your lungs heave and your pores gush. When you overcome one of these hurdles you begin to be oddly grateful that they keep showing up. It’s a throwback to early childhood I guess a constant tide of failing and succeeding: sitting, crawling, walking, running, and on and on. The struggle is… oh so infuriating… but it’s also kind of a map to our own buried treasures, miracles yet to come if only we don’t stop the digging. For me the miracle is better than the one I fervently prayed for- for decades: losing weight, being able to wear whatever and shop wherever I choose; the miracle is that if you told me I could stay this way forever without exercising I wouldn’t stop, couldn’t even bear the idea of stopping. What began as simply a means to an end has become a gift in and of it self. I began personal training to increase my metabolism intent on converting fat into muscle and we did. I continued training because in the process we turned dread into enthusiasm, capitulation into fight, work into sport, fleeting into forever. All of which has made me want to eat less, eat slower, eat better, and eat less often merely as a byproduct.

Every day I feel the need to repay the people who hauled me out of that spiral that I could not have revealed to them even if I wanted to. But how do you repay that? You answer the question not just with a statement but with your life. Do you keep training because you are afraid to stop? No. I don’t train because I am afraid that I will skip workouts or forget about supersets or proper form. I train because every minute of every day the darkest part of humanity lies in wait to snatch me back and all I have to beat back those demons is the muscle we build. Our effort is not just for me now but to strengthen the better angels in any one who feels like they can’t start over again. As Greg would say…”There is always something you can do”. Intellectually most people believe this; but they don’t know what the “something” is. If I have learned one thing it is that soldiering on alone and hoping for inspiration when there is expert help available is the worst kind of arrogance and waste.

After all, the whole world loses when someone, even someone as inconsequential as me, withdraws their power, their dreams, their light. If you or I press on without joy how can we live up to our purpose? How will I live with myself if I don’t live a life that says: “You can do this because you were born knowing how and learned how not to.” “Your muscles are designed for this and have no choice but to comply. “You can transform just like a child, who has wisdom beyond vocabulary and whose actions constantly say: “My body (I) can build on the simplest skill.”“I won’t die if I fall down or fall short”“I can try an infinite number of times”“Smart caring people who know how to do this will be right with me”

They reminded me and I want to remind you:

• Moving is a birthright.
• Being stranded is an abomination.
• There are people who come with torches no matter how dark it gets.

In some small way I pray these words make me one of them.

RECRUITING MUSCLE

So, I had this revelation. My body is not the problem. I am the problem. Now what? God knows I had tried everything short of surgery and Phen Phen. I am thinking: I have been fighting this since the second grade. I mean if mastering the calories in -calories out equation hasn’t happened since before I was allowed to write in pen or stay up past 8:30PM, what am I going to do now that I am 35 that’s going to make a difference?

In December, 2002 I walk into my friend Stephanie’s gym for the first time. I was so intimidated just crossing the threshold there was no way I could face the calipers and tape measure of the club’s initial health assessment. I decline the health screen and race through the orientation. Essentially I doom myself to the care of the least expert person in the building--me. I spend all of my time doing cardio and have no idea what to do for strength training. I saw the trainers working with clients every day; but considered this a service for “serious athletes” and an extravagance for someone like me.

One day, in passing one of the trainers asked me if I had any questions. “How bad is it that I never do any strength training?” was my reply. We talked about signing me up for 5 sessions so that I could at least get comfortable with the equipment, etc. After two sessions I recognized the huge benefit of working with someone who is simultaneously applauding your efforts and raising the bar. The impact went far beyond performing the prescribed exercises; so, I doubled my sessions. It was a major investment to me and still is today. But, if they offered me my money back in exchange for the education, motivation, and measurable results that personal training delivers, I wouldn’t take it. How much academic or professional training can you say that about? I would rather give up my college degree than what I have gained in personal training, because with every rep the person I want to be gets stronger (literally) and her opposition (doubts, excuses, and inertia) dims.

Addition Versus Subtraction

People think that weight loss comes from resisting: resisting: temptation, bad habits, etc. For me nothing could be further from the truth. I never had any lasting success cutting back or avoiding "bad" behavior. For me, weight control was and still is an addition problem. Every time I set out to eat less or curtail a habit that all the "experts" derided like eating in front of the TV or late at night, invariably I would screw up. But, if I concentrate on eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking one more glass of water, chewing gum when I am standing in front of Doritos, or going for a bike ride with my kids--I do better. Ultimately, I know I am eating fewer calories and breaking old patterns- but my focus is adding, getting more of the good stuff. I don't know why it works. But it does. Last week I was lucky enough to borrow a few hours from chores and errand running to stop and visit my cousin. The conversation is always a bit of a runaway train-- then suddenly she paused mid-sentence and asked: "Is your shirt on the wrong way?"

I've been doing this so long, I almost forgot about it. But, I looked down at the tell tale logo bleeding thru the fabric and smiled:

"No, my life was on the wrong way--so I turned it around."

TRUCE

As I write this my two beautiful, amazing children are sleeping-- so free of stress, of pain, of projection, I endeavor to emulate them. But today, it’s a battle. Try as I might to stop it, the ache in my right leg gets referred to my head. There is probably no way this is neurologically possible, of course. I’m taunted today by a heckler that accurately (but cruelly) points out: “You’re not getting any better.” It’s a loop tape in my brain that analyzes and reanalyzes my stance and stride. Alarm bells of dread and worry wring a knot in my neck and the queasy feeling in my stomach surges in a silent threatening undertow. Five years ago, I might not have noticed any of this. The sore unsteady tightness in my side, the way it expands the more that I do. Five years ago, it’s a lifetime…Ryan’s lifetime. I consider my son with his increasing array of Jedi sound effects and Lego masterpieces and have to wonder…which of us has changed more since the day he was born? On that day I remember a nurse midwife told me that the chief reason for labor pain was that it makes motivation irrelevant. You are in it to the finish with your undivided attention. But even with an epidural, labor taught me in a day what I had missed my whole life: I didn’t have to figure out how to accomplish this miracle. I didn’t have to declare, decide, or defend my tactics. I just had to get out of the way. My body, despite years of my treachery, did everything right. This so-called shell of my soul that I had been despising and cursing, undermining at every turn as one would a traitor, delivered us both that day. And in so doing could no longer be the enemy.

TORCHES

When I was in school a little girl fell down a well and her story made every headline and newscast. Volunteers came from all around and they lit torches through the night. They came with experts and oxygen and offered kindness and prayers to her desperate family. At nearly the same time a neighbor of mine fixed a tray of Christmas cookies and asked me to take them to my family. Something lured me into a dark descent of my own that day. Sinking into a window well behind snowdrifts and shrubbery, I hid the sweets there for days. Eventually I finished eating all of them, driven to isolation, cold and shame caught in the spell of sugar and spice.

Somehow when I was not much older than little Jessica I slipped underground, not into a well, but into a pit I could not escape. And like her, every move I made in my frustration, my anger, and apparent isolation put me in more jeopardy. So, I learned to keep still and I got used to feeling low. All the while I raged inside at ineptness that buried me alive, not in an avalanche, but an inch at a time.

But that subverted rage did nothing but fortify the demons dwelling there. Time and again I swallowed the lies they fed me and I forgot what I knew from infancy:

• I forgot that moving is a birthright;
• I forgot that being stranded is an abomination;
• I forgot that there are people who come with torches no matter how dark it gets.

YOU CAN’T FIX IT ON A PLATE

—After losing over 100 pounds this former Weight Watchers leader is convinced:
YOU CAN’T FIX IT ON A PLATE

I stop in at Weight Watchers to keep my account current. I am about ten pounds under my goal weight but haven’t been in for 5 or 6 months so they charge me $14. I start to wonder why I even bothered coming. Basically the job of leader never felt right to me. I did it because I wanted to give something back to people. But Weight Watchers wasn’t the right thing.

They were the right people, though. Standing in front of them, I’d smile and introduce myself. But my name barely stirred a glance or more than a couple of polite nods. I never minded. I was just waiting for the right moment---

Some of them are brand new, you see, but most are like I was. They’ve seen it all and tried it all before. And, even though we are determined and successful as employees and students, as moms, daughters, wives and sisters, we have failed here over and over. It’s a wonder we can make it in this door and can face these clipboards at all anymore. There are a couple that I know are under immense pressure to prove they deserve this hour and the $14 they just paid for it. There is one whose medication is making her go ounce for ounce with my scale. I’m positive the ten year old with downcast red rimmed eyes begged her mother not to make her come... I remember pleading like that.

I look to heaven for inspiration worthy of them.

“I’m not good at losing weight” I tell them. “The truth is I have failed every single time since I was nine years old—except once. Five years ago I joined after my second child was born. I had ups and downs. I had to reregister multiple times when my progress (and motivation) lagged and I couldn’t justify paying for all the meetings I missed. In 2002 the weight range for my height and age was so out of reach I told my husband I would never make an official goal and never have the privilege of lifelong membership. But with all of that, here I am standing in front of you and telling you truthfully, still surprised to be saying the next 4 words: “I lost 101 pounds.”

And now the heads snap up and the once merely courteous group is riveted, watching the way you do when you see a magic trick and are aching to know the secret. This is where you’d launch into your pitch if you had one. But that’s not what I’m here for. I have earned nothing and will sell them nothing except that inside all of us a miracle is waiting. I am living proof. It is a force so clear and bright and undeniable that once in a while the craziest thought dawns in the back of my mind…

If I had never been so lost and despairing I would never have known the feeling of being blessed beyond my measure.


Back at the weigh in, my jaw hits the floor though when they tell me about "Rachel". This bright committed successful WW member turned leader who went through training with me. When I met Rachel she was the only other person I knew who had lost more than 100 pounds. Now the news spins around and around in my mind.

“She gained it all back…”

I repeat their words haltingly. They catch in my throat like a pill you have to force down. I need to sit down. Suddenly I feel like I am going to throw up. Oh, believe me, I know this happens all the time. But the similarities between Rachel and me are too strong and take me from grateful to terrified at breakneck speed.

We lost approximately the same amount of weight, gradually over the same two years. We had the same tools, support, and training. Actually, Rachel is better at leading. She had a stronger connection to her own leader and was more in sync with the program. Rachel was the quintessential WW spokesperson; where I took what worked for me and resisted what did not;. That’s not why I asked for a leave of absence. But it is why I don’t plan to return as a staff member. I can’t stand up and say that being on Weight Watchers is what changed me for good. Apparently Rachel can’t say it either. I wish she could. But, that’s the old me talking. The one that must carry her blackest misery and self-loathing around all day and pretend she doesn’t mind. That’s the problem with weight wishing and watching.

I used to wish that I could be like other people, people who can eat whatever they want. I grew up with so many rules for eating: when to eat, how fast to eat, what not to eat, which foods are “good”, which foods are “bad”. I was on my first diet in second grade and by the time I was 12 or 13 I could recite the calorie and fat content of most common foods from memory. But here’s the problem with being “wired” for food; and the problem just migrates to Weight Watchers and self made plans—knowing these facts did not make me want to eat less, eat slower, eat better, or eat less often. So even when I pulled it off, even when I got results, I still wasn’t one of the “other people.”

Finding Yes -An Introduction

When you are overweight life says NO a lot. Your body physically says NO; NO you can't fit into that; NO you can't do that, NO that hurts...etc. And, your brain says NO even more, NO that's too hard, NO that's too embarrassing, NO ...

Even still sometimes I would muster up the motivation and courage to take some kind of action. Then the multitude of "experts" would say NO. NO you can't have that, NO that's cheating, NO, NO, NO,

And then would come the worst NO of all...NO I can't change, not really.

One day I was watching the film version of the play The Miracle Worker. In the final act before the famous scene at the pump, the Kellers are applauding Annie Sullivan because Helen now behaves herself.

Annie is far from satisfied. She replies "I taught her one thing…I taught her NO." The Kellers go on to say this is more than anyone has been able to teach their daughter--they are thrilled. Annie retorts "I wanted to teach her YES."

Really, without that mindset, maybe none of us would ever know the story at all.

That's the key to this story too. A teacher appeared who could look at something, deemed by all to be a lost cause, and see brilliance inside and dig it out with sheer genius and tenacity. Any progress I have made in this journey is all because of finding YES.