Eleven months and 17 days ago I walked into Lifetime Fitness Eagan a very broken person. I didn't believe there was hope for me physically or emotionally at that point, and as I have said before in the blog. I had resolved to let obesity kill me. I saw this all as a last ditch option.
Since that day I have lost 87 lbs (for a total of 116 lbs, as I had dropped some before going to LTF by giving up soda), I have gone from existing to living, my world has changed completely, and, as one of the trainers said today, I have gone from being a boy to a girl *grin* (albeit a girl with a gun *smile*).
And most importantly I have a grasp on the future too. Which when you are as obese is one of the biggest things you sacrifice. You stop dreaming because it is too hard to see the path. You accept where you are and live with the anticipation of it getting worse not better. Hope becomes the enemy!
There is no way a year ago I could have imagined telling my trainer I wanted to start jogging again, or that I would be genuinely excited that I am about to walk a 5k (and have hope that by next year at this time I will be jogging or running in that same 5k) and would be told that those things are very doable.
But for as much as has changed and as positive as it all looks right now, sometimes life comes back and reminds me how close to me that previous life is. As great as the conversation was today with my trainer, with figuring out how to conquer escalators (my last remaining travel foe) and how to get me jogging and how to reach my next weight goals, it all closed in around me in one moment, in one scene.
I had gone to get a towel and spotted one of the clubs newer members, who is just starting their journey, and watched him stand and wait for the elevator to leave the workout area. In that flash I was back those 12 months and it was me standing there waiting. I knew what he was feeling and my heart broke for him. I remember that major let down moment every time I left working with the trainer and being so excited about whatever I had accomplished and how fast reality would slap me in the face when I couldn't manage to leave via the stairs. How many times in that moment I questioned if I was kidding myself that I could really accomplish anything through training and a lifestyle change. If it was all just a cruel joke I wasn't in on.
It wasn't but it still amazes me when I see people I haven't seen in a while and they are shocked at how I have changed. Because what very few people realize is that no one is more shocked than me, each and ever day.
For all the hard work and tears and torment I have gone through to get here, I still am not sure it has sunk in that I have really accomplished what I have. I still don't think I truly "get it" how far I have come and even more so how much of the world is open to me now that wasn't before.
It just doesn't logically seem possible to me that in 11 months life could turn around so fast, and my brain hasn't caught up to it yet. I still have to stop myself from saying "No" when people ask me to do something because I still think about things in terms of the limitations I had before, I still have to get on that scale way too often to reassure myself that I don't weigh 300 lbs, I still sit and marvel at my body like a baby would when I notice the muscles on my legs or a change in my stomach.
I was putting up pictures today on the previous post and was so frustrated because I couldn't find one of me in the raft. And then I realized, I had looked at the picture with me in it at least a dozen times flipping through them. I just didn't recognize me. I saw staring back at me a normal sized person and just couldn't get my brain to wrap around not looking for that fat out of place person.
I love who I have become, and who I am headed for, but would someone please put a name tag on her, because I am still not always sure who she is!
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