Happiness...

"Miserable and happy are not functions of what you have, what you look like, or what you achieve." ~ Geneen Roth

I've spent a lot of time over the past week or so reflecting on happiness.  Each of us has our own idea of what happiness is, how it is achieved, and how deserving we are of it.  It seems to me that, for as long as I can remember, I've always associated happiness with a lifestyle that is unachievable to me as someone who is profoundly overweight.  There is a simplistic idea embedded in my psyche that equates thin-ness with happiness.  I have this idea in my mind that, if I were thin, life would be significantly better.

You know that conversation you have in your head when you buy a Powerball ticket?  The jackpot is $200 million, and you buy your ticket with the, "Why not me?" question hanging in the air as the clerk hands you your potential fortune.  What would you do first?  Would you tell anyone?  Who would you tell first?  Would you quit your job immediately?  Would you donate a percentage of it to a church or a charity?  I love imagining what I would do first.  I love the idea of being in a position to actually help people in a significant and meaningful way.

In this same manner, I fantasize about being thin.  What would it feel like to sit on an airplane and have neither of my thighs touching an armrest?  I wouldn't have to worry about riding in a friend's car and not having the seatbelt fit.  What clothes would I buy?  How would I dress?  It's been years since I wore high heels - would I buy a boatload of 3-inch heels?  Would I join an indoor sports league and take up soccer again?  In high school I used to love to play golf on our local 9-hole course; would I be able to pick the clubs up again and play a round on a Florida course?  Would I take up a friend's offer to go out for a night of drinking and dancing?

I think what the quote above means is that we need to learn where it is that we find happiness, because losing weight isn't going to be the answer to it any more than winning the lottery is.  Perhaps that's why so many jackpot winners go broke so quickly after winning.  Happiness isn't in the things we buy, and it probably isn't going to be found underneath the layers of fat I'm shedding.  That's a big change in thinking for me. 

When I think about the happiest times in my life, it is almost exclusively tied to three things: people, travel, and learning.  For me, happiness lies in the moments shared with family and friends - memories of laughter, story-telling, and shared experiences.  "Remember that time Dad nearly burned down the vacation rental in Maine?"  Ahhh... good times, good times!  "Remember that huge blizzard when we were going to sled down the road, and when we got to the bottom the snowplow was coming straight at us?"  "Remember when we got to Paris and didn't have a hotel room booked, and we walked all over the city with our luggage trying to find somewhere decent with a room?" 

I, like many people who carry as much excess weight as I do, have battled clinical depression.  I am certain that it started as situational depression, but unequipped to handle the emotional consequences of bad choices I'd made, it became a long-term situation... and then I just kept making bad decision after bad decision, compounding everything.  If I didn't have two brilliant children (of whom I am immensely proud), I would call for a do-over... 'cause I think I can see how and where it all went wrong.  And it only took me 25 years to figure it out!

So it appears that losing this weight will not help me pay the IRS what they allege I owe them (dear sweet mother of God, if any of you reading this can fix that... talk about fantasy!).  It will not guarantee that I will find a man who is amazing and wants to share his life with me.  It won't even promise to make it possible for me to buy the clothes I want... after all, I'm still wicked short and decidedly un-wealthy.  Plus, designers don't generally create fabulous fashions for a 24" inseam.  It will not mean that I will have more time to do the things I wish I could do, or more money to do those things.

There's more to ponder here, but I'm starting to think that I'll be better off in a year or two if I keep my expectations for weight loss firmly planted in reality.  I can trust that I will be healthier a year from now.  My cholesterol will be lower.  My triglycerides will go down.  It will be easier for me to climb stairs, and I will have more energy than I do now.  I will probably feel more at ease in social situations, but being introverted is not going to change.  Who I am will not fundamentally change.  I will still prefer quiet settings to loud ones.  I will still need to remind myself that, just because someone doesn't like me doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with me.

Happiness, for me, would be having my entire family living within 2 hours' driving distance of each other.  It would mean that our children would know each other and be able to begin stories with, "My cousin and I..."  A place for family and friends to gather and share our stories and adventures in life.  That's where happiness is for me.  Size 6 or size 26, I think it's important to recognize that this is a weight loss journey - not a journey to nirvana.

Where does your happiness lie?

Scotland

I've been listening to BBC Radio Scotland a lot lately.  I don't just love the accent - it feels like home.  The more I listen to it, the more I find myself wishing that I could live there.  Not for the rest of my life - my family is in America - but for at least a year, or possibly two.

I visited Edinburgh in 1995 at the end of a very significant relationship.  I had been convinced that he was the one I'd be with forever.  He was from England, and I was from a rural New England town where most of my peers' parents worked at the local light bulb factory.  He fascinated me, and I loved being in the company of someone who had a different view of the world.  He was intelligent, and I indulged in many, many hours of dialogue with him - whatever time he would give me, I showed up for it.  I didn't know what to do when the relationship ended horribly, abruptly, and completely, so I traveled.  I made no reservations, I just left.

I took a bus to Boston, a plane to London, and a train from Victoria Station to Edinburgh.  As I crossed the Tay Bridge in Dundee heading north, I was transfixed.  The further north I went the more amazed I was by the beauty of the coastline, and I was shocked by the lack of real-estate development overlooking the water.  It was mile after mile of yellow fields and green grass on the left and towering brown cliffs and blue ocean views on the right.  The gigantic bales of hay - in enormous, bound circles - I marveled at how much they must weigh and wondered what sort of equipment lifted and hauled them.  I attended a Midwestern university and had friends who actually grew up on farms, and I'd never seen anything like that.

A man on the train saw my Gary Larson day calendar and asked me if I'd ever read anything by Bill Bryson.  I hadn't at the time, but promptly purchased The Lost Continent while I was in Edinburgh.  During our short conversation the man also told me that I looked Scottish - that I had the complexion of a Scotswoman, and I was very flattered.  Of course, when I returned home and told an English friend of the comment, I was informed that it simply meant that I had ruddy cheeks.  But at the time it felt like a small confirmation that I belonged there.

I only spent two nights in Edinburgh, and I didn't have enough money to visit the tourist attractions, so I spent a lot of time just walking.  I loved the gardens at the foot of the castle.  I sat on the top floor of a 2-story Burger King (on Princes Street, I think?) and marveled at the juxtaposition of eating fast food whilst overlooking a medieval castle.  It felt wrong - almost disrespectful.  Tasty, but disrespectful.

I visited the National Library briefly and wished that I had more time to research my family name.  My Great Uncle Bill had just published his extensive genealogical research about our family right before I went to Scotland, and I hadn't yet taken the time to read it.  If I had, I would have found that my ancestry goes back to the late sixteenth century in a small town called Stonehaven, just south of Aberdeen on the east coast. 

It was probably the first trip I ever took that was purely about the journey.  I didn't go there with the intent to visit anyone, or to sightsee with a fellow traveler.  I went by myself and hardly spoke for the two days I was there.  It was the first time I wanted nothing more than silence and space to grieve the end of the relationship.  I was exhausted emotionally and spiritually, and when I arrived in Edinburgh, I felt like I was home.  The whole city was a welcomed relief - it felt like a giant stuffed armchair next to a roaring fireplace in a cozy cottage on a winter's day.  It was everything I needed it to be.

I'm at a very different place in my life now, and I don't know if I need it to be anything more than what it actually is now.  I want to visit Stonehaven.  I'd like to walk along the waterfront and listen to the waves.  I'd like to visit their local heritage society and learn more about the seat of my family's lineage.  More than all of that, though, I would love to feel 'home' again.  The town where I grew up doesn't feel that way anymore, and I wonder if Scotland still will?  Or was it just the balm I needed to soothe an aching heart?

As I rack up the miles on this weight-loss journey, I find myself daydreaming of literally having Scotland as my end destination.  Perhaps divine intervention will strike and I will be gifted with a brilliant story to write, and I will become the next J. K. Rowling.  Until then, however, I will stick to my treadmill, renting videos from my local library about traveling in the UK to entertain me while I walk.  Unless someone out there reading this knows of a company in Scotland just dying to hire an American for a couple of years?

The Introverted Exhibitionist

When I was in college I worked at the front desk of the dormitory in which I lived. During one of our staff meetings a Myers-Briggs personality test was administered so that we could all ultimately get to know one another better.  When the results were revealed, most of the staff was surprised to hear my result: INFJ.  The first letter stands for Introverted. (Click here if you're interested in reading the full explanation for this personality profile.)  I don't come across as particularly introverted when I first meet people, and I believe that is simply due to having had excellent parents.  My siblings and I were all taught how to behave ourselves in public.  We traveled frequently, and we were required to dress nicely and be on our best behavior (which is very difficult for a little girl in an itchy dress, incidentally).  We were instructed in polite conversation and were expected to greet and speak with people of all ages.

When they explained the results to us at the next staff meeting, they told us that the primary difference between being Introverted and Extraverted is where you find your energy.  Introverts tend to recharge their batteries, so to speak, by finding a quiet place to be alone with their thoughts; whether it's a walk outside in the park or a cozy corner chair with a book, their energy is renewed and solace is found unaccompanied by other people.  Extraverts prefer to convene with others - share stories and ideas - and gather in groups to uplift one another's spirits. 

I lean towards the introverted side, but I also have a very strong need to be heard - to affect people and impart knowledge in some meaningful way, which seems rather extraverted to me.  It struck me while I was walking the other day that I'm something of an introverted exhibitionist.

I know after many years of therapy (and much reading of self-help books) that not wanting to be seen plays a significant role in my obesity.  Being morbidly obese almost gives a person his or her own personal cloak of invisibility in today's world.  Most people avert their eyes when they see a very large person, and I'm sure that most of them do that because they don't want to be caught staring.  That has almost exclusively been the experience that I have had, and for the most part, I'm comfortable there.

There are others, though, who gawk openly at fat people and, out of ignorance or hatred, choose to belittle with names, laughter, pointing of fingers, or outright assault.  Several years ago I was walking with a very fit, very attractive female friend, and we were heading to a bar.  A young man standing next to a bench actually made a moo-ing sound at me as I passed and sneered when I turned to see who was doing it.  I didn't acknowledge him in any other regard, and I know the friend I was with made some snide remark in my defense, but I couldn't tell you what it was because my face had turned crimson red, I could barely breathe, and I heard nothing else until we got to the bar.  She mercifully claimed she needed to use the ladies' room when we arrived, giving me a few moments alone to recompose myself.

The time I spent in pubs and bars in my early thirties with my two very, very good looking friends confirmed that I would rather suffer one humiliating moment every 10 years or so than spend every weekend trying to find gentle ways to stop the advances of every man who thinks he's got a right to hit on every woman he finds remotely attractive.  Women who are thin and fit are far braver than I am.  The two friends I mentioned are both extraverts, so I suppose they probably see it from a different point of view, but I loathe conflict.  It turns my stomach in knots when I have to tell someone something I know they don't want to hear.  I don't want to have to thwart anyone's attempts at flirtation.  I watched countless men approach them, many with a very forceful way about them, and I was frightened by it.  It didn't seem to frighten my friends, but I knew then as I know now - I'm not equipped to handle outright advances like that.

I have chosen to lose weight for a plethora of reasons, though the top reason is to extend my life expectancy.  A part of me dreads what happens at the other end of this weight loss, though, because I'm truly not ready to be seen.  As an introvert, I'd really just like to make my way about the planet seeing what I want to see and being seen only when I choose to be.  It's just too bad that reality doesn't seem to be agreeable to my preferences.  Anyone have any suggestions on how to overcome the fear of being seen?

V-Hold

I feel like my life is still in the v-hold of fine tuning.  Those of you from a younger generation will have no clue what I'm talking about.  When I was a child, televisions rarely had crisp, clean picture clarity, and there were two knobs on the back of the tv that adjusted the screen.  They were so far back that my arms could barely get to them, and my face would be stuck to the side of the television set as I strained to reach.  My sister and I would work as a team to fix the picture on the screen. I'd turn the knobs, and she would tell me when to stop. 

The first knob you'd adjust was the v-hold, or vertical hold, because sometimes the picture on the screen would move up and down or just start looping as if it were on some sort of cylinder that was spinning.  Once you got the v-hold steady, then you could move on to the finer tuning of the horizontal hold - that was what brought clarity to the picture. For those of you who are so young that you can't even picture this, there's some information (thankfully) on Wikipedia about v-hold, cathode ray tubes, and all that joy of years gone by before flat-screen televisions and plasma.

But here's the point: the vertical hold was the first thing that had to be adjusted.  You had to get the picture to stop spinning before you could fix it.  My body is on this cylindrical loop - and I realize now that I haven't made the proper adjustments to my attitude and discipline to move on to the finer tuning. In order to attain a proper v-hold, I have got to figure out what I want from this body - from this life.  I thought that weight loss was a simple mathematical equation: 1lb = approximately 3,500 calories.  Through a combination of calorie reduction and exercise, I did the math to figure out about how many pedestrian miles I would have to log to lose the total amount of weight I want to lose.  I didn't understand when I undertook this... this - reconstruction - what I wanted from it, other than the obvious desire to get off of the meds I currently require for Type 2 diabetes.

My sister sent me a book yesterday called, Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth.  I generally prefer more of a bullet-point approach to self-help books, but this one takes a winding path that I am delighted to find that I enjoy. 

Here's the passage from the book that really got me thinking last night:
"...compulsive eating is basically a refusal to be fully alive. Those of us who are compulsive eaters have anorexia of the soul. We refuse to take in what sustains us. We live lives of deprivation. And when we can't stand it any longer, we binge."

Here is an absolute truth about me that is at the very center of all the ripples in all the waves I've created in my life: I hate emotional conflict.  More than anything in this world, I hate it when people fight, I hate it when I disappoint people, and I hate being disappointed.  I have virtually no conflict resolution skills... I appease; I do not resolve.  I have a borderline autistic personality when it comes to big emotions - they make me miserably uncomfortable, and I don't know how to express them in a "normal" manner.  It's like being lactose-intolerant with emotions - I don't have the necessary enzymes/tools to digest stressful situations.  I need a handbook to reference for appropriate responses to various struggles in life.

The book asks us to go back as far as we need to go in our memories to recall a time when everything was okay in our lives - when it was a pleasure to wake up and have the whole day ahead of you - when hope lived and nothing was wrong per se.  For some people they can't recall a time like that, and I am blessed because I can... but it was a loooong time ago.  A lot happened between 1985 and 2011, and I imagine I'll be spending some seriously introspective hours trying to piece out how I allow those things to affect me moving forward.  I'm also going to be looking into books at the library that directly address conflict resolution techniques, because it's clear to me that my only pleasure came from eating because it was the only pleasure that I alone could control.  It required no permission or denial from anyone else, so the only conflict with eating came from the easily-shushed inner voices.

It was published in the New York Daily News last week that a recent study shows eating fatty foods produces the same response in your brain as marijuana.  Here's the article.  Sadly, the research is being done so that drugs can be developed so that we, the helpless human race, won't have to do the hard work to stop ourselves from over-eating.

I don't want to dismiss weight-loss surgery, because I think that for some people it truly is the best available option.  People who will further damage their bodies by exercising - I think it's a godsend for them.  But I think a lot of the people who have had it feel like it was their only option, and they feel like it was a shortcut.  Because for most people it is a shortcut.  I did not gain 140lbs of excess weight in a short amount of time, and I didn't gain it by nibbling a bit more than I should have.  I gained it over 26 years, and I feel good about earning my new body the hard way because it will give my body a chance to move with me as I slim down... and it will be easy to maintain when I get to my goal because I won't have gotten to that goal through trickery or deprivation.  I will attain my goal by simply being healthier.  The weight of my body will reflect my daily decision to choose better health over inactivity and poor diet.

I believe in personal accountability, and I am accountable to my daughter and to myself.  I owe my child the best possible parent that I am able to be, and I owe it to her to try to be here for her as long as I am able to be here, because life is hard!  And if your mom is a good mom, you want your mom there to help you through the tough times.  I have been blessed to have my mother with me to help me raise my daughter.  Especially when she was an infant, I needed my mother to be there.  I want to be there for my daughter in that way.  I've taken it for granted that I have control over that.  For a long time I just assumed that I would live at least until my seventies.  Well, I did until I found out I was diabetic. And I am accountable to myself for having the life I dream of and making it as live-able and enjoyable as I want it to be.

This journey is making me brutally aware of the choices that I make, whether actively or passively.  It makes me sad to realize how many things were my decision to make that I just surrendered to the universe for no good reason.  It is important to actively choose happiness.  I may not be there yet, and it may be a couple of years of working through the cause and effects of 1985-2011 before I really figure all of this out.  But for now, anyway, I know that the path to happiness starts every morning on my treadmill, when I choose to return to the body I gave up on so many, many years ago.  It feels like having my face pressed against the side of the tv, struggling to reach around to the back: uncomfortable, but necessary for the end goal to be attained.

Motivation...

This morning I got up early, stretched a bit, and put on The Holiday with Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, and Jude Law.  It is one of my favorite chick flicks, possibly because it involves bi-continental relationships.  The fact that it's America and the UK helps.  I just love the accents from around Great Britain (which probably accounts for why I listen to BBC Scotland so much online).  Anyway, I had a carb-rich breakfast before getting onto the treadmill, and I walked for TWO HOURS!!! 

It's not like I ran the whole time (or even for more than a few short bursts, really), but it was a feat for me because there's just nowhere in this town where I want to walk for two whole hours.  There are no hills in Florida.  Seriously.  No inclines of which to speak, save for the overpasses on the interstate.  I enjoyed being able to pretend like I was walking up a hill for a change.  The only complaint I have about the treadmill is that it doesn't feel like the whole-body effort required to propel one's self on a cement sidewalk.  The upper body is not involved at all.  If anything, it feels a bit like a duck's legs in water.  Everything is smooth up top, but under the water they're moving quite fast.  I just feel separated from the lower half of my body on the treadmill.  Happily, that doesn't mean that I'm doing any less good for my body on the whole.

My brother called midway through the movie and we talked for a little while.  He told me to do an exercise that involved clapping my hands above my head with my arms fully extended.  I laughed and explained that, due to my arm flab it could pose a serious risk to my hearing.  If I clapped my hands over my head, I'm fairly certain that the flab, fully covering my ears, would cause a negative-pressure situation and burst my ear drums when removed.

It's all good, though.  I feel better today than I did yesterday, and a lot better than I felt the day before that.  I don't think my weigh-in will go well tomorrow, but I know that the weigh-in on July 20th will be great.

On a somewhat negative note, though, after exercising I sat down and took my glyburide.  That's the medication that forces the body to produce insulin.  I'm out of test strips, and I didn't feel like the workout was enough to sufficiently lower my blood sugar from the carb-rich breakfast - so I guessed at it and took the glyburide.  Then I took a shower, and by the time I was getting dressed, my blood sugar was way too low, and I had to rush out to the kitchen and drink some of my daughter's orange juice.  Need to buy some test strips, I think.

I really enjoyed watching The Holiday while I was walking, but I think I'll be going to the library this week to rent movies about Scotland. What better to watch while I'm Walking to Scotland every morning? Anyone have any recommendations?  I think I'm going to start with Brigadoon!

Happy Birthday!

Okay, so it's not even close to my birthday.  But I am reminded of Frosty the Snowman in that fabulous Christmas cartoon, and when they put the hat on his head, his first words are, "Happy birthday!"  As cheesy as it may be, that's how I feel right now because I finally, finally, finally got the bloody treadmill moved into my bedroom.

Was it easy, you might ask? Why, no. No it was not.  After a sufficient amount of stuff was sorted, tossed, and reassembled into a new pile, and after the bed was moved back to its original position in the floor plan, I was finally able to navigate my way through the halls with the treadmill to the door of my bedroom.

Once I arrived at the door, however, it would not fit through.  It needed just a little more room.  I sat on the bed for about 30 minutes staring out into the hallway, unable to fathom that 3 weeks’ worth of slow-moving progress was going to result in absolutely nothing.  That made me really mad.  Not being a particularly handy person, I am thrilled to report that I successfully removed the door from its hinges, pushed the treadmill through then reattached the door.

I now possess everything I need to defeat the excuses in my head.  I have a treadmill in a private, air conditioned space, facing a television, with a fan easily position-able behind me.  I have my private bathroom and shower steps away.  Simply put, I have no excuse not to get up and get moving in the morning.  None whatsoever.  Which makes me feel like tomorrow is like a birthday... the birth of someone who takes this advantage and literally runs with it.  Okay, well, walks to start with – ‘cause who am I kidding? Ha! We'll get to the running in time...  Weigh-in on Wednesday!

Freedom

Weight at Start: 229.6lbs
Current Weight: 220.0lbs
Weight Lost: 9.6lbs

It’s been a while since my last post - sorry about that.  I am down to 220.0 pounds – finally a loss!  It feels small, but the total for 5 weeks is 9.6lbs, so that’s healthy, right?  I’ll take it!  I found a denim skirt (a staple of my quotidian wardrobe) at Dillard’s on a sale rack for $9.99, and it was a size 20.  I was skeptical, but figured at worst I would have a look-forward-to-it skirt to hang in my closet… but it fit!  It’s made by Levi’s, so I was pleasantly surprised.  Topping it off, there was an extra 30% taken off the price at the register, so it was only $7.41, and you can’t beat that – not even on eBay! 

In the time since my last post I’ve been a big jumbled mess of emotions.  One day I’m gung ho and can’t wait to get out the door and kick it into high gear (which, unfortunately for me, is about 3.2mph) for a few miles.  The next day I stay in bed thinking to myself, “If you can’t even manage 10lbs a month, and this is the beginning, just think how much harder this is gonna get. I might as well be well-rested.”

One of my weight-loss buddies is down nearly 20lbs in this same time frame, and I am thrilled for her, but simultaneously immensely frustrated by my own slow progress.  I imagine how I'd feel if I had lost 18.6lbs already, and in my typical self-defeating thought process, I think, "If I'd lost that much already, I'd see a difference, and it would inspire me enough to get me out of bed every day!"  I heard a quote last week that I really liked: "Delay is the deadliest form of denial." ~ C. Northcote Parkinson 

This past week was when I finally realized that my body requires carbs to lose weight.  I’ve been so focused on eliminating all “bad” carbs from my diet over the past year that I neglected to realize that some of them actually serve a purpose.  I lost 3lbs over the past week, and my body finally gave up the weight when I gave it simple carbohydrates prior to exercising and sometimes afterward.  If I don’t give my body the carbs it needs, the weight stays.  It’s been a bit like hostage negotiations, really.

This is the first week since I started where I have felt somewhat discouraged.  I think I get overwhelmed a little more easily than most people, and when I started this journey, I didn’t realize how intertwined each aspect of our lives are.  It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it – to grasp the concept of mind, body, and spirit?  For two or three weeks now I’ve been saying that I really need to get the treadmill moved into my bedroom… and I have wanted the treadmill in my bedroom.  I abhor working out in front of other people. 

The thing about the treadmill is this: I am on the verge of being considered a hoarder.  My room is full of stuff.  I do not save trash, but I have a very difficult time letting go of paper things that are sentimental, and I loooooove magazines and books.  LOVE them!  I love learning.  Knowing lots of stuff about tons of things makes me happy because it means that I can communicate with a wide variety of people about things that interest them – it gives me common ground with a bigger portion of the world than most people.  That makes me feel good about myself.  Living in a body like this one hasn’t afforded me many other opportunities to feel that way.  Intellect and humor – that’s pretty much what I have going for me.

I have now parted with the magazines.  At first I sorted them and kept only the ones I really love, like National Geographic, Cook’s Illustrated, Vegetarian Times, or Smithsonian.  I kept some Christmas editions of Gourmet, Woman’s Day, and Good Housekeeping because they always have fabulous cookie recipes, but on this last pass I recycled them ALL.  It was a huge step for me, and a part of me was heartbroken because the tangible aspect of possessing these things brings me joy.  I delight in the photographs and the information.  Likewise, I love books.  I was an English major in college.  I still have every anthology I was required to purchase for my literature classes – and most of the books I had to read, though admittedly I could not get rid of Heart of Darkness fast enough once that Brit Lit course ended.  Joseph Conrad – a pox on your family.  I waited ever so long on eBay for an original copy of A Plea For The Queen’s English to appear, and I pounced on it when it did.  I love old English textbooks and grammar tutorials.

That said, my bedroom is full of stuff.  The past two weeks have been very busy with work, but I have a lot of trouble focusing on my work because I am so very focused (obsessed?) with losing this weight.  Like most fat people who finally decide to lose weight, I feel like, “Hey! I made the decision – why isn’t anything happening?”  Clearly patience is not my strong suit.  Working from home, from the desk in my bedroom, is making focusing even harder… because this pile of stuff stands (literally) between me and my goal of getting the treadmill moved into my bedroom.  I spent most of last weekend sorting and throwing away stuff, and I feel like it’s one of those never-ending bowls of pasta – like I think I’ve made a dent in the pile because I’ve spent so many hours working on it, but then I leave the room and come back, and it’s just as big as it was when I started.  Sigh.

Some of you are surely saying, “Just chuck it! Throw it away without looking!”  But what you should also know is that I am horribly disorganized, so IRS paperwork, photographs from my youth, DVDs, cassette tapes of my college radio show – they all reside in the piles of stuff.  My history is in this stuff.  I watched the tv show Hoarders last weekend while I was cleaning to help me focus on the important stuff.

Last week on the Bob & Sheri show, in honor of the 4th of July, they asked their listeners to call in and tell them what they were free from. Of course you had your calls about people being grateful to be free from ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, but the most interesting thing I heard came from one of the show's staff, Max, who said that for him, there was freedom in finally knowing, "If someone doesn't like me, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with me."  I was going to call in and say how grateful I was to finally be on the right track with weight loss, and that next year at this time, I'd hopefully be free of about 90 more pounds, but after hearing that, I decided I liked his thing better.

I am grateful to be free from the addicting cycle of sugar consumption.  I am grateful that this challenge was presented to me in a way that I can handle.  God doesn't give us more than we can handle, but He does expect us to put forth a reasonable effort.  In my case, I was given the opportunity to address an important health issue before it became a critical health issue.  I am grateful that I had to give up sugar, because for me it was like heroin, and I don't know that I could have given it up without the consequences at hand.  I am, perhaps, most grateful that I have friends who are fighting this same battle with me simultaneously, and I rely on their successes to reassure me that these are not insurmountable odds that we face.  This weight loss is possible... and I will get that treadmill moved into my bedroom in the next 7 days.  I might even photograph it as evidence.  Stay tuned.