Life IS Different Here.....

Riding my pink Vespa to The Coffee Shop to "check in" to my office?  Check.  My pink Vespa was my gift to myself last year, because I was worth it.  I told myself that the moment I wouldn't look ridiculous driving a Vespa (of ANY color) I would get one.

Pre-Healthy-Weight emotions are still right under the surface, about how I used to feel.  Firstly, regarding riding a European-style scooter, at any other time in the last 22 years of married life (save the first 6 months of marriage when I was a healthy weight, and 4 months back in 07 when I was a healthy weight....) whenever I envisioned myself on a scooter thoughts of "Circus Clown" entered my brain concurrently. 

We are so hard on ourselves, aren't we?  I remember being morbidly obese and just feeling strong feelings of disgust about myself, and about my body.  How?  That was the biggest question on my brain.  How had it come to this?  How had I gotten this way?  How had I allowed myself to gain 10-15 pounds a year for 10 years after getting married, and how had I NOT done anything concrete about it yet?

Yes indeed we are unkind to ourselves, we ARE our harshest critic.

When I began this journey with Take Shape For Life in July of 2010, I vowed to myself that I would FORGIVE myself.  AND, I would FORGIVE my body.  After all, it was only doing what I had instructed it to do, and even with a degree in Human Nutrition from a State University I literally had no clue how to lose the weight that was killing me and keep it off.  Until TSFL.  The Medifast 5&1 has the science of fat burning DOWN, it is the best out there for the purpose of attaining a healthy weight, and TSFL has the TOOLS for keeping it off DOWN to a science. 

So I plugged in.  Drank the kool-aid as it were.  The Medifast Cranberry-Mango Drink that is.  I lost 140 pounds.  I've kept a majority of that off for 18 months, returning these last couple of months to the 5&1 in order to attain a BMI of 21 which I didn't even do the first time. 

And I feel liberated on my Pink Scooter.  I feel free.  Free from the bonds of the Lose-Gain-Repent-Repeat cycle.  Free from feeling BAD about myself, or feeling BAD about my body.  It is doing exactly what I am telling it to do now.  It follows my instructions very well.  Always has. 

When I was eating more calories than I needed, my beautiful and precious body would dutifully set about storing every extra calorie, in a super-efficient way, as fat.  It is hard-wired to do that, you know.  That is part of our awesome design.  And before I realized that we are also hard-wired to eat the entire berry bush every tie we come across one, I thought I had a problem with willpower or self control or self discipline.  Turns out I didn't  Turns out we were designed this way also, hard wired as it were, and I simply needed to learn how to handle these two competing desires:  my hardwired (also by design) desire to eat the whole berry bush, and my desire to live an optimally healthy long and productive, fulfilling life. 

I have those tools now in my arsenal.  I am utilizing those tools every day to organize my life around what matters most to me. 

I got this.  Oh Happy Day!  Life is Different here.

At a Healthy Weight, life is about living and loving and laughing and helping myself, my family, and my community in every way I can.  It is about riding pink scooters and dancing the line dance for HOURS at a cowboy saloon, laughing the whole time, not getting tired and loving every minute of it.  Life is about running up a trail in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, NOT being out of breath, and feeling on top of the world.  Life is about being able to go swimming with my son and husband.  It is about riding the roller coasters at any amusement park I want.  Life is about being ABLE to get the seat belt of ANY car around me with plenty of room to spare.  Life is about NOT worrying whether a chair will hold me up, or whether a chair will even contain me if it is an outdoor patio chair with hard metal armrests.  Life is about NOT worrying whether I'll fit in the fixed seat booth.  Life IS about being able to go horseback riding.  Hot air ballooning.  Trampolining.  Surfing.  Entering a triathlon.  Life IS about reaching ALL parts of me in the shower, and FITTING in my bathtub to take a bath.  Life IS about knowing that if people are staring at me it is NOT because I am morbidly obese and they are thankful they aren't me.  Life IS about people holding the door for me now, meeting my smiling gaze with a smile of their own.  Life IS about squeezing every bit of God-given potential out of this amazing person, ME!  I like me.  I love me, really.  And THAT journey, my friends, has been one worth taking.  There IS joy in this journey.  Are YOU on the path to optimal health?

Yeah, life IS better here.

Rinse and Repeat!