"It's hard sometimes. Realizing that my body has limitations,
that it will always respond to the instructions I give it, I have to
say, sometimes I catch myself having a little pity party with thoughts
such as "Why can I just be be "normal" and eat "normal" and live a
"normal" life? Why do I have to log and measure everything I put in my
mouth? Why, if I go off my eating plan for a couple of days, will the
weight just pop on magically with NO regards to how hard I worked to get
it OFF in the first place?"
Well, to that I have to say "suck it up, Buttercup!" Yep. Then I pull
out my Dr. A's Habits of Health book, my "Refuse to Regain" book, my
"Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It" book and take some time to
reboot my brain.
Because I know when I'm thinking those thoughts I'm drifting down the
rabbit-hole of denial and deprivation, and that is NOT the mindset I
have trained myself over the years to have.
SO. Let me talk for a moment about what is ACTUALLY hard.
Being FAT was hard. People scrutinizing everything I put in my basket
was hard. Not fitting in to a booth seat at a restaurant was hard.
Needing to ask for a seatbelt extender on an airplane was hard. My son
calling my "Sully" from Monster's Inc. was hard. Knowing I wasn't
living my best life was hard.
Being fat is hard. Losing weight is hard. Choose your hard."
I wrote that blog late last week, as I was beginning to struggle with a
deprivation mindset. On Saturday I learned about a friend I had made
just out of High School, named Patrick Chawki, and the "hard" kind of
life he has had since I knew him in 1987. I realized that it is a
LUXURY to struggle with the things I struggle with, some people don't
even get to CHOOSE which "hard" they want. It made me very mindful of
the fact that life can simply be, well, hard.
Here is the link to Patrick's story, as told in 2009 by ESPN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5mYQnHoaw8
In 2000 he came down with "Locked-in Syndrome" which is very rare, and
awareness of this disease, or syndrome, was raised in 2007 by the movie
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" which portrayed the experiences
someone with Locked-in Syndrome has, from a first-person perspective.
If you watch the 14-minute video, I can almost guarantee that you will
be crying by the end. I know I was.
It hit me that this young man, with a wife and 2 beautiful children,
lost his ability to speak, to walk, and to eat within the span of 20
days. In 20 days his life went from HAVING choices to NOT having
choices. Here I was thinking I was struggling with feelings of
deprivation because I "couldn't eat what I wanted when I wanted to" and
this friend of mine can't even EAT anymore.
Patrick has been in this condition now for 15 years. My heart breaks
for him, for his family, but he is an inspiration to me. He didn't
choose his "hard" and he is still smiling and giving a "thumbs up" even
amidst his present circumstances. Patrick is a lesson to me. A lesson
in contentment in our circumstances.
The thing is, my "hard" choice is STILL a choice, and here I am whining
over "having" to watch what I eat, "having" to log my food, "having" to
say "no" to the "yummies". Wow. How spoiled am I, really? I don't
know what "hard" is.
Anyway, I wanted to expound a little on these thoughts today. For
anyone who may be able to walk, to eat, to talk, to live the life they
choose to live, these things we can never take for granted. I am guilty
of taking them for granted.
