You know how you have your demons. Come on, admit it, you have at least one. Most likely two. No, I'm not talking your children. I'm talking those "things" that float about you, those "voices" that either keep you from doing what you have always wanted to do. Or compels you to do what you do and you don't even realize it. Yep, I have one. It's seventy years old and sits on my living-room sofa. She's often referred to as the barnacle, the monitor (as in the phone monitor because she'll hover over the phone to see who calls) and other sordid names, that as a family based reading material, I'm just not all that comfortable divulging right now. Most notably however, this particular demon, is my mom. At 4'11" and currently 247 pounds, she's at her lowest weight in we don't know how many years. With long-term health issues ranging the gamut from diabetes to gout (note: women typically don't get gout, men do. Men usually get it in their big toe. She got it in her pointer finger...go figure) and everything in between, most of it life threatening and weight related...also hereditary, my little demon has passed onto me some genes from the shallow end of the gene pool I'd just as well rather not wade in. But alas, I must deal with the hand I am dealt.
To make that gene pool just that much more shallow, my father died from a heart attack at the to young age of 52 after having had a stroke just 4 months earlier. He had a plethra of health issues as well, most notably diabetes, and well, hypertension. So when it comes to the gene pool of life, I really did get the shallow end.
As it stands, I've never been a thin woman. I was a skinny kid however, growing up an only child to a single mother (my parents divorced when I was 7) I spent a lot of time over at my grandparents home. Not that that is a bad thing, it's just that my grandmother, "grammy" showed she loved you by having you "eat, eat...don't let that go to waste" and if you didn't...lord help you and the guilt she would lay upon your shoulders! She meant well, she just did my hips no favors later in life! So as time progressed, my weight crept up, never really becoming an issue. After all, it was "baby weight". Can I ask you this...when do you become to old to have baby weight? Then after you give birth, when is it to long to blame the baby for the extra poundage you put on? Baby weight has a shelf life of 2 years, MAX. Then you need to accept it and move on. Wrestle that demon, pin it, claim that 3 count and win the round. Otherwise you will never move forward.
I'm just sayin.
These are the sorts of things I'm dealing with on a daily basis as I try to get healthy.
So a few months ago, I have the barnacle at the doctor's office. "Well, Mrs. Barnacle, what is it that will make you happy" You can just imagine....(I swore she was going to say a jelly doughnut) she says "Well, I know that I can't breathe well (DUH) and I figure that if I took some of the weight off it would help (ya think?) and I know that would make me happy (really?), so, yeah, that would make me happy." Oh, I was surprised by this revelation I tell ya. I had no idea. She goes on to say that she neeeeeeds Weight Watchers because she can't do it on her own. She doesn't know how. I point out to her, that Weight Watchers doesn't do it for her, they give her the tools so that she can do it for herself. After all, she was the one to put the jelly doughnut in her mouth. She's got to be the one to take the weight off.
What I discovered about the barnacle in all this. She doesn't want the accountability. She doesn't want to have to work to get the weight off.
What I learned about myself in all this. I didn't either. YIKES!
That was a revelation!
So I joined Weight Watchers. I'm doing it online. In the beginning I had my husband and the barnacle doing it with me. Nearly 10 weeks later, the hubby is still hanging in there. The barnacle dropped out about a nano second after starting.
When she realized there was some accountability.
I'm still hanging strong. Even with having to have some accountability. Turns out I do NOT want to be like the barnacle. The hubby says...THANK GOD! lol
So that's how this started.
If it were easy, everyone would buy it. So now, I have to work for it. Every day I have to keep reminding myself that. When it gets tough, do me a favor? Remind me too?
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