Next Phase of the Journey

As I sit here typing this, thinking of all the things that being overweight has gotten in the way of or made hard for me over the years.  Thinking how I have not gone to certain events because I could not sit in the chairs and how I don't go to some places to eat because they only have booths.  I have not been able to walk and play sports like I once did and would like to, but most of all the toll it has taken on my health.  At 42 I am not able to do as much as some 70 year olds, I have constant struggles with cellulitis causing others to have to take care of me.  I have missed out on many opportunities over the years but no more.  Tomorrow I will be having bariartic surgery and then will start the next phase of the new me and a healthier me.  In the last 4 months I have been exercising and making changes that are healthier and have already seen many improvements.  Starting tomorrow will be the next big step to be a new healthier me by next summer.  I want anyone reading this to know one thing, I am not having surgery to help me lose weight because I want to look pretty or be skinny or because I think there is something wrong with heavy people.  I am doing it solely because at this point in my life the weight has begun to cause my body problems and made me very unhealthy and I have a lot to live for so I want to do what ever I can to be sure I am still here in 10, 20 even 30 years.  I don't need to lose weight to be pretty because I am already that, but I do need to lose it so I can be healthy.  If you are overweight I encourage you to move and be as active as you can, so you can be healthy and if you get to the point you can tell you are not healthy or are starting to slip that way, then seek out what things you can do to help change that, for each person that could be different things.  Life changing decisions like this have to be made by the person needing the life change and can't be pushed onto them by others.  So if you know someone who is overweight and you think they need to lose weight, don't gripe or nag them about it, they know it too, just love them and encourage and support them in whatever they do to try to get healthier.  Tonight I go to bed overweight and unhealthy physically, tomorrow I will start the journey to lose weight and be healthier physically.  My journey first had to start with me getting healthy emotionally, now God has put all the pieces together and soon we will see the new masterpiece he is working on. 

5 weeks and counting

Well surgery has been scheduled and I am on my way.  I am walking and trying to get as much exercise as possible.  I am making healthier eating choices and gearing up for the big changes ahead.  I will be having surgery Sept 9 and then will start the real journey to a new me.  I will make hard changes so that I can be a healthier me.  I want to lose weight but not so that I can be skinny or for how I will look, I want to be healthy enough to enjoy life again.  I want to be able to walk and play tennis and softball again and not get short of breath and have sore legs.  I want to be able to not wear compression stockings and to not have to take medicines.  Most of all I want to be around for a long time to enjoy my family and friends.  I look forward to all the new clothes I will be able to get and all the things I will be able to do again and some things I will be able to try for the first time.  I am praying that as I do my part God will multiple that so that a new me will emerge, physically, emotionally and spiritually, a new and improved me.  I hope that my journey can be an encouragement and inspiration to others who struggle with weight issues, they are no fun and people who have not weighed 400+ pounds can not begin to understand the everyday struggles we face.  I will keep you all posted as I walk this path and thank you for your support.

The Journey-The Beginning

About a month ago I started my journey to a healthier me.  It started with me making the decision to have bariatric surgery.  There was a time I thought this was taking the easy way out, but that was before I became educated about this procedure.  I know understand this is just a tool to maximize the hard work a person puts into this process.  I started this journey in May by going to the seminar and getting the information.  I then consulted good friends and my family and spent much time in prayer.  I feel this is the right step for me so I am proceeding.  I have now met twice with the dietitian and gained much useful knowledge from her.  I met today with the surgeon and got the green light to go ahead with surgery.  So later this week they will be calling to schedule my surgery and they pre op classes and tests needed.  Hopefully the surgery will be in about six weeks.  I went back and forth for a bit whether or not to share this information here as I was not sure I wanted everyone to know I was having surgery, but then I felt like God wanted me to share my journey with others so that it could be an encouragement to others.  Others who perhaps felt like me that surgery was the easy way out, trust me that is not the case.  I know this will be a task and it will be hard and will require commitment and hard work and I am determined to see it through.  For me the being smaller is just a side benefit, I want to do this so that I will be healthier and able to live a longer life with my family and friends and a better quality of life.  I have not entered into this process lightly but with much thought and prayer and I feel I have built an awesome team to help me though it.  I have family and friends who are there for me to encourage, to help me eat healthier, to take care of me after surgery and to be my walking buddies to help me get the exercise I need.  I also have a few prayer warriors who I know are covering the whole process in prayer with me and for me.  I have awesome co workers who are helping me by reminding me of the changes they know I have to make and encouraging me and supporting me.  I believe that God has created a team to help me through this and with their help and His guidance and strength, this will be a beautiful thing.  Stay tuned for more details to come.

New Direction

I started this blog mainly to bring attention to how people often put down overweight people and talk badly about them.  I wanted people to realize that we are people too and human and have feelings even though we are overweight.  Well apparently God has another plan for this blog.  I have been overweight most of my life and severely overweight for the last 10 plus years and it is starting to take a toll on my health so I after much prayer and seeking advice of my close friends and family have decided to embark on a journey to restore my health and you all will get to come along with me.  I am hoping that my adventure, determination and success will help others who might need to lose weight for their health.  Trust me though even if I lose a lot of weight and get healthier I will never look down on people who are overweight or think any less of them, because I understand what a difficult thing it is to leave with and to change.  I am in phase one of the journey now, where I am changing my eating habits and trying to break my addiction to diet pop and getting out and walking at least 5 days a week.  So far this week I have started off well but it is only Monday.  This dreaded heat does not make the task of walking easy, but I know that for each time I accomplish my daily goal of walking, God will honor and bless that with better health for me.  A friend told me a few days ago that I seemed committed this time to getting healthier, but I am not committed I am determined, I am looking straight ahead at the finish line and not letting my eyes wander to the left or the right.  I hope you all enjoy the upcoming posts and I hope that my journey down the path to better health can inspire others to do whatever it is they can little by little to improve their health everyday.  We owe it to ourselves and those we love to take care of ourselves and be as healthy as can be.

Life when you are overweight

I want to start off right from the first saying I am not writing this to get sympathy or anything, just simply talking about what it is like to be overweight in our world.

First there is the hard social challenges.  Being severely overweight like I am, I have issues when I try to go out to eat, does the place have tables as I don't fit in a booth.  Also when I try to go to concerts, shows, ball games, plays, etc.  Will I fit in the seats, do they have arms etc.  Also when riding in someone elsescar, will the seat belt fit.  I don't go to amusement parks anymore as I can't fit on the rides and often can't walk so much.  I often have problems doing many things so I usually just say no rather than be embarrassed.  It makes it hard sometimes because I don't want to tell everyone why I don't go to things and why I don't participate.  That then adds to the emotional baggage we all seem to carry as we feel bad about ourselves.  I know that my eating habits are the reason I am the way I am and there is no one to blame but me, but it still makes life so hard and once you get to this point, trying to reverse the damage that I have done is not easy.  That brings us to another problem, the toll the extra weight takes on my body.  I am just barely into my 40's and my health is really declining which brings me to a point I felt I had to face this problem head on and take drastic action to reverse this problem.  So this week I embark on a new journey to try to take off the weight that is killing my body little by little.  Am I doing this because I want to be skinny-NO.  I am doing this because I want to be healthy and be here for my family and friends for a long time to come.  I feel this is a decision that each overweight person has to come to on their own and I hope that the many others out there who need to do something about their health have the wonderful support system I do, my family and friends are the best.  The one thing I want to point out for sure is that no matter how much weight I might lose I will always believe that people deserve to be treated special no matter how big, how little, how tall, how short, how smart or how dumb they may be.  No matter their length or color of hair, no matter how many tattoos or piercings they may have, no matter if we like their bad habits or not, God calls us to love the person even if we don't like the things they do.  I hope I can continue to speak out for people and get people to understand that we need to love each other and care about people and reach out when we can.

Just Want To Be Accepted

If you are an overweight person or a person with many other things that society look down on I am sure you know what I mean by this.  As an heavy person there are many things in life that are harder to do than for average size people.  I have to think all the time because I don't want people to know that the reasons I do certain things or don't do certain things are because of my size, because that is embarrassing to me and because some people are not nice about it.  For instance, going to shows, concerts, football games, plays, church and places where you have to sit in small seats is hard for me because I never know if I will fit, so sometimes I just say no or sometimes I buy two seats so I have room.  Even going out to dinner can be hard if the place we go has chairs with arms or if they only have booths, it is hard for me to sit in them.  I like to drive mainly my own van because I know the seat belt in there will fit me, I don't fly because I am pretty sure i will not fit in the seat, even going to the bathroom in a public bathroom can be hard if they are too small and I don't like to use the handicap ones unless I have to because someone else might need it more.  About now some people are probably thinking, well it is your own fault you have these problems what are you griping about.  I am not griping, just pointing out that because of my weight, there are things I deal with that make life hard and it would be nice if people would not put me down because of it.  I realize I have a problem and I need to get healthy and I have been fighting the battle for a long time, more often failing more than winning.  I am sure many overweight people can understand that.  I guess I just don't understand why it is people who don't even know us can judge us and call us lazy, worthless, losers, ugly and more just by our size.  We like all people are different and some of us try really hard to no avail to lose weight, and some of us can't cope with other problems in life so we drown our sorrow in food much like some people do with alcohol or drugs, that does not make us or them bad, just needing help.  My best friends are the ones that love me for my heart and who I am on the inside and don't even see my weight.  I am a beautiful person under all this heaviness and someday I hope to be free of it all and be healthy but in the meantime, get to know me before you judge me and don't say hurtful things.  Just like you should not judge people because of the color of their skin, or the background they come from, or the family they grew up in, or they problems they may have, we are all sons and daughters of God and He accepts us as we are and loves us, then works to help us overcome the problems we have.  I think we should take a lesson from Jesus and be friends to the most unlikeable people and look past the problems and the outside of a person to see the inside.  You know sometimes the most beautiful people who seem to have it all together and are well to do, have a very cold and bitter heart and are selfish, I would take a heavy person with a good heart over that any day.  Just sayin, don't judge the book by the cover.

Words:Life or Death

As a Christian, the bible teaches me that we have the power to speak life or death with our words.  So often we throw words around left and right and don't even really think about the meaning or how they may affect someone else.  We say things like "I am sorry" or "I love you" or "I am here for you" etc without really thinking about what we are saying sometimes and often there are no actions to back these up and they just become empty words and broken promises.  Then sometimes we speak harsh or unkind words with out thinking about the lasting affect they may have on the person they are spoken to or about.  When a little kid is told often enough they are dumb or worthless and can't do anything right, pretty soon they start to believe it and give up trying.  When someone is told they are fat and ugly, they begin to start to think they are nothing.  Our society has become so obsessed with obesity that in their attempt to do a good thing in fighting it sometimes if not careful they are making the people who need the help a target group for being bullied and looked down on.  I was once told that they are two ways to say everything and one of them is nice.  I believe the truth needs to be spoken, as an obese person, I need to know that my weight and the decisions I make have an affect on my health, but the people who want to tell me this need to be sure it is said kindly.  I am not a horrible person who just sits around eating because I want to make my health bad or be a drain on society or inconvenience anyone.  A lot of times we have long stemming emotional issues why we eat they way we do and it is a battle that unless you have tried to fight you have no idea how hard it is or how long it may take.  Sometimes words that were spoken to help, because of the way they are said or the words chosen actually do more harm.  Let me share a true story with you on that.

When I was a senior in high school I was a little overweight probably 180 lbs or so.  I thought I was heavy because a family member often told me how I needed to lose weight and how much better I would be if I did etc.  I am sure I could have stood to lose a few pounds to be even healthier, but I was in pretty good shape, I played softball on the high school team and could walk and run and do a lot of things I can't enjoy now.  Then at my high school graduation open house, this family member stood before my table of honors and achievements I had acquired in high school and looked at me and told me if I would lose weight over the summer they would pay me so much per pound as an incentive.  Now I believe this person meant this in a good way as an incentive to help me however not knowing me as well as they should have, this was not how I saw it.  To me they were saying that none of the awards and achievements meant a thing, I was just the fat girl who needed to lose weight, then the boys would like me.  I replayed those words over and over in my head until I stopped caring, figured nothing but my weight would ever matter.  I stopped exercising, stopped caring about what or how much I ate and started consuming a lot of soda.  I kept this up for years, drowned my hurt in food, good ole comfort food, until I am now over 400 lbs and wow how hard it is to battle back to a healthy weight.  Now let me say right off, did this family members words make me gain weight and get fatter, NO, it was my choice to let the words affect me that way.  We are all responsible for our own actions and we should not blame others for our choices, I put the food in my mouth and I ignored the kind warnings of other family members and friends over the years, my point here is that we never know how our words will affect others and this family member of mine has often suggested and talked to me about my weight and needing to lose and most of the time it has a negative affect perhaps because of that day so many years ago, perhaps because I feel like all I am to them is "the fat girl", I am not sure why other than I sometimes can still feel the hurt from that day at my open house.  So please when speaking to anyone, think about what you are saying and are you saying in the kindest way possible and also in the proper setting and lastly does it really need to be said at all. 

Welcome to my blog

I am new to the world of blogging so bare with me as I get use to this.  I felt it was time to speak out and so this blog was born.  In case you have not guessed yet I am an overweight person, one in fact who is tired of society treating us as if we are less than human or second class citizens.  I have heard and read comments far too often lately that are just hurtful to those of us who are on the chunky side, so I decided to step out and be a voice for those are on the heavy side.

First let me say that I am by no way promoting obesity and that I do think eating healthy and exercise are important and that it is important to be as healthy as you can.  What I am saying is that we all have different reasons for why we are overweight and I would venture to say most wish that they could lose weight and be healthier but it is not always that easy.  Whatever the reason for our overweightness we should not be made fun of, talked down to, treated meanly and so on.  We are just like the alcoholics, drug addicts, smokers and many others who have habits that are hard to break.  When you have 100+ pounds to lose it is not as easy as cutting out sweets for a few weeks or changing your diet for a week or two or maybe stepping up your exercise routine for a month.  When you have that much weight to lose it is a battle and it can be a life time to do it.  I can not speak for all overweight people by any means but I hope to speak up for them in general and to get people to start thinking about how they speak to them and about them.  I have been appalled at some comments I have read lately by Christians that were just down right rude to overweight people.  I was always taught we were to hate the sin but love the people, hard to love someone you are making fun of.  I think our country needs to get better at not taking pot shots at or making fun of and putting down people in general.  My hope is that this blog is a place for overweight people to unite and be encouraged and for others to see us as real people with feelings and see that maybe they could and should be kinder.    Life is all about choices and my hope is that when we start to understand others we can make better choices.