Go Mommy -- GO!

This life of mine includes days filled with emotional sunshine, gray confusion, and seemingly unending challenges. Knuckled in with regrets and a little ‘mommy’ guilt, there are accomplishments of which I am proud. One of my life’s greatest challenges continues to be a battle with food. Long, long ago I did something right. I exercised. I exercised some more. After cramping, aching and complaining, I continued to exercise. The first chapter of this story showed me standing at 5’ 8”. My weight was a sturdy 240 lbs. I wore a whopping size 24. After losing 90 pounds I have managed to keep the pounds away from me. Here is my story.
I am well rehearsed in the discussion of dieting. I could counsel the obese on the values of shopping the outer perimeter of the store. I would tell them to stay away from boxed foods. “Eat foods that once shared oxygen on this planet of ours,” I would say. I have been there, and I have done more than all of that. I was a human rubber band. Every time I dieted I was successful. I would lose a whopping 50 pounds each time. After dieting (starving), I would eat myself back to the previous weight and typically add another 10 pounds. After too much dieting and weight gain, I decided that I would never diet again.
My sister-in-law invited me to be a bridesmaid. Delighted, I accepted without hesitation. In a gentle and understanding whisper she added that the dresses she loved were not as big as the dress size I wore (24). The largest size was a 16. I held my breath, counted to 10 and said that I would lose that weight. I knew I could do it. I had lost large amounts of weight so many times before in my life.
My personal relationship with obesity changed that day. Like many others committed to a healthy life, I belonged to a health club. I found excuses for delaying exercise every day. It was too late. The kids needed to be driven to their games or activity. I was tired. I was hungry. I didn’t have the right clothes. I promised myself each day that I would begin fresh tomorrow. Tomorrow sometimes happened very late in the week. I created failure every day.
I made the decision to change my routine. It simply wasn’t working for me. I would not travel to the gym. The door to my workout would be the same door I walked through every day, my front door. Beyond that door I would walk, run or crawl every day. My kids were excited that I was going to begin the challenge of losing weight. Kids love activity and so playing outside was right up their alley. I challenged them to ‘play’ with me. My youngest daughter was 6 years old. My two sons were 7 1/2 and 10 years old. My oldest daughter was 12 years old. They’re kids. They loved to run. They dared me to race.
I was grateful for the kid excitement, enthusiasm and electricity. They didn’t see the huge pending doom. They didn’t know that every step I walked I would pray for another step forward. Carrying an extra 90 pounds around our family-created track seemed to be more of a challenge than I could tolerate. I looked at their faces. They were proud of me. They were excited to be part of my play time. They gave me what I needed most, hope.
I sent my wild beasts off to begin the run. They agreed to stagger at different points of the ‘run.’ We created a ‘track’ where every child was visible. My two older children would ‘race’ to the end of the stretch. They would ‘race’ back and meet me at the 1/4 point. My two other children would run ahead of me and wait at the 1/2 point. When I arrived at their points, we would high five. They would pat me on the back and yell how great I was doing. Delighted, my children would run ahead of me again. Yelling, ‘go mommy go’, ‘you can do it mommy’, and ‘you’re almost here,’ were words spoken by my child trainers. Every step I managed was followed by more steps forward.
The first few weeks I struggled to walk. When comfortable with the walking, I added a bit of a hop. Finally, I graduated to jogging. I would say that I eventually ran, but that would be teasing the definition of the word. At my finest hour my kids clocked me in at a 10 minute mile. We were very excited. I was shocked!
My children made a personal commitment to exercise great family time. They were so proud of my accomplishments. They clocked each other. We high fived each other and congratulated our success. It was fun running in the rain, the sun … and no, it is never fun to run in the snow. We did it. They cheered me through the tough spots.
My sister-in-law’s wedding happened. I wore a size 16 dress. The wedding was more than 16 years ago. I am no longer in a size 16. I now wear a size 12. The battle continues. Self talk commits my routine to almost daily exercise and good nutrition. There are bleeps and gaps and guilty snafus in the regimen, but I know that I am not a fat person working to get thin. I am a healthy person working to stay healthy.
My children are older. They have their own front doors. Soon they will high five with their children when they all go out to play. Visualizing is an effective and necessary tool during my daily workouts. My imagination brings my children back to our front door where my life’s challenge began. I imagine when I work out that I am jogging to catch up to my four children. A quarter of the way into my workout I am high fiving two kids. Midst the drudgery of each step ‘forward’ I can hear them in my heart. As I imagine coming round the final loop, I high five my other two children who jump up and down waiting for me. I can hear them, “Go mommy, go!” “You’re almost here.” “Mommy, you can do it!”
Because of my four children, my workout partners, my life has never been the same!