Then and Now

So here we go…

The beginning of 2015 and the beginning of all those New Year’s Resolutions.

By now some of those resolutions have already been laid to rest, 2 weeks in to the new year. Maybe it was too much too soon. Maybe there isn’t enough hours in the day for all those resolutions to stay a priority when work, family, bills and (insert whatever else gets in the way here).

5 years ago, I was just on my journey to losing weight (and changing everything about my life). I don’t remember saying it was a New Year’s resolution. It was just a simple decision to stay away from the elevator and track calories. A very very simple version of watching the calories that were going in because there wasn’t enough calories going out.

It was never a declaration of “I’m going to lose 100+ pounds”. I knew I was morbidly obese. I knew my food was shitty. I knew that there wasn’t enough moving throughout my day. I just promised myself I would take the elevator up but not down (because it was too hard to walk up the three floors) and if I was willing to log the calories of something then I could eat it, but that I had to log every thing that went into my mouth.

I remember thinking this was more difficult than I was prepared for. Just that little change felt hard and that was a wake up call for me. I wasn’t getting healthier as I aged…I was getting fatter. I was getting more and more unhealthy with each passing year both physically and emotionally. I always thought “there’s still time” but then I turned 40 and I didn’t have nearly as much time as I thought I did.

Then those little changes got pretty easy. Instead of just taking the stairs down to the car at the end of my shift, I was taking them up as well. The food choices became just a little easier when the toxins of fast food were allowed to leave my body and the diet coke intake was replaced with crystal delight (still not *that* good for you but heading in the right direction). Those first few pounds that came off weren’t really celebrated because I’d lost weight in the past. But I hadn’t really stayed in the moment with those other pounds. I made myself sick. I took pills. Never did I incorporate looking at my food and moving just a little more.

As all those little changes got easier and easier I started to challenge myself. I didn’t want to be on the Wii earning my fried chicken leg icon (you remember those right?) any longer. I was down 20 pounds and walking my dogs early in the morning. I was walking during my lunch. I was parking my car in the farthest parking spot I could find. I was carrying my grocery bags instead of trekking them in a cart. I was looking at labels. I was moving in the right direction for the first time in my life and it didn’t feel like a temporary thing. I acknowledge that I was 270 pounds and in order to get down to a healthy weight I was going to need to lose over 100 pounds but now I was almost 1/4 of the way there.

I shuffled a little faster than a walk. I did it for 30 seconds. I had that copper taste in my mouth. My throat burned. I coughed for a long time afterwards. I threw up. I pushed myself for what seemed like the longest 30 seconds in my life but you know what I felt?

My heart working.

My muscles burning.

Sweat coming off my face.

My breath coming fast. 

I felt alive.

If a later version of me had been standing there and said to me “you have no idea what’s coming…marathons, ironmans, crossfit. muscles, triple digit weight loss, single letter clothing sizes“, I think I would have spit in my own face for telling me such lies when I was 250 pounds and puking because I couldn’t run for even half a minute. Even though I had no idea what was coming, I was always moving in the right direction.

It was five years ago I was struggling to walk up a flight of stairs.

It was five years ago I was crying over the food I was eating because all I wanted to do was bury my face in a Jack in the Box burger, and a vanilla shake.

I can’t imagine going back to the old me but I know that person is always lurking in the background. People wonder why I’m so adamant about my food and how much I move. It’s because I have too this adamant in order to make this a lifestyle that takes me into my old age. This was never about trying to look good for the beach or to get back to a high school body. This was always about finding the potential in me. In believing that for the first time in my life I could commit to a change until that change became the norm.

I do what I do in order to stay alive.

I don’t want to be depressed.

I don’t want to be morbidly obese.

I don’t want to watch life pass me because I’m on the sidelines.

I do this because I want people to know that weight loss and taking control of your life is not just a dream or a resolution that gets forgotten about 2 weeks in to the new year. It’s real. It’s possible and it doesn’t have to start by changing everything at once….

It can start with just a flight of stairs.

A glass of water.

A 30 second shuffle.

Small changes can lead to some amazing things…

Get up and get after them.