Things that you may have heard as kids…. “You better eat it all too…”, “You know you ain’t hungry you just being greedy … but go ahead”, “You ain’t leaving this table until you eat all of those peas…”, and my all time favorite, “It’s a lot of hungry kids in Africa…!” LOL, THIS is what I call pre-conditioning for obesity! For some odd reason, at least in the black family, WE DO NOT believe in wasting food! Stopping before your stomach feels like it’s going to separate from the rest of your body or before the all mighty “itis” kicks in is not an option either. Well at least it wasn’t for me. I didn’t develop a conscience about these things until around 2008. I mean how was I to know that I had been eating WRONG all my life!! Tipping the scale @ almost 300 LBS, I figured I probably should lose weight at some point but it wasn’t a priority. I mean I was “Shapely”, I was comfortable, and chicken wasn’t chicken if it wasn’t fried. As I said before, I accepted my role as being the bigger one.
My father had been struggling with diabetes for years, but got progressively worse in 2006. Let’s see…he had a light stroke, a bladder infection that disrupted the blood flow some other medical mumbo jumbo that led to Dementia/ Alzheimer’s. In September of 2006 he developed sores on both feet and after a debriding (cleansing of a wound) procedure one foot had to be amputated. The decline was steady and watching it was HARD! Health is one thing but when you add mental state to the plate the difficulty level of “being able to deal” increases.
In January of 2008, my doctor informed me that I was pre-diabetic and that it was no longer a matter of me wanting to lose weight now I HAD to. Being that the complications of diabetes was so close to home, I knew it was no way that I was going through that or putting my family through that! This was a scared straight moment for me and I sought knowledge to make changes. Remembering what my sister had been telling me about it being a lifestyle change, I signed up for a gym membership and I just knew the weight would begin to fall off right?! Wrong...LOL! I walked on that treadmill for two whole weeks and NOTHING! (Sarcasm) Patience is a virtue, my friends! I mean it didn’t really occur to me that it took me years to gain this weight, so it would take some time to lose it as well. Not long after I began working out, my sister bought me the book “Fat Smash Diet” by Dr. Ian Smith and during my first days of detox I had the same “But nothing’s happening” syndrome until I stepped on the scale and saw that I was 8lbs down in 6 days! THAT was ALL the motivation I needed. From then I wanted to see how far I could take this! I was anxious to know what I would look like! For months I couldn’t see the difference. But others noticed and that felt so good. I wish I could say that it was a downhill battle from this point but…
Last year to date, my father lost his battle with diabetes, which should have been motivation enough but, I’m still not quite there yet. Instead, I went in the opposite direction and learned that I am an emotional eater whose poison is Caramel Cake, Red Velvet Cake, Lemon Cake, pound cake, I think you get my point! This “Like” helped me gain some of the weight back over the last year. I have been re-dedicating myself for months now! Some days the motivation is not there and I struggle with not beating myself up over it. Some days I just wanna go to American Deli, have my Chicken Philly and French fries and not think about the amount of calories I just consumed!!! But I CAN’T!!!! Which is annoying, but it’s a good thing! I’ll never be the same and I will continue to fight with these genes! I have hope that one day the fight will get easier. Motivation, dedication, persistence, Blah, blah, blah! None of that makes it easier, but who said that it would be! The quest to be healthy is "to be continued"! I’m taking it one day at a time and just because I made poor choices yesterday, doesn’t mean that I will tomorrow. This is still the beginning of a never ending journey to the real freedom and a less tragic ending for me!
RIP Dad
Sincerely,
E. Louise
