Bringing the Spirit Home...Part 1

I knew when I headed into my "airline camp" weekend it was going to be a lot different than last time. I knew I was going to be able to do a lot more and it would be a much less physically taxing experience than my last trip to the Delta HQ campus. I wasn't prepared for it to be an emotional journey also. So I found myself very overwhelmed sitting nearly alone in an airport hangar, staring at a 767 and crying.

Actually the emotions started walking to the Heritage Museum from the hotel. I did much of that walk in 2007 and I struggled. I had to keep stopping, I didn't think I could do it and every step I worried about catching my foot or my leg giving out and landing face down on the sidewalk.

This year it was like doing it as another person. Not only in great heels, but without a single thought of tripping and at the front of the pack. For the rest of the group walking on the campus was about the buildings and where we were, but for me it was about just being able to walk and to do it without thought or effort.

As we rounded the corner near the museum I had to laugh at myself as I thought "we're here already, hmmm I remember it being a lot further away".

For anyone who hasn't been to the Delta Heritage Museum http://www.deltamuseum.org/ it is comprised of two hangars. The first holds many of the early planes and memorabilia of not only Delta, but also Northwest and the other airlines that were bought or merged with Delta over the years. This building also holds the museum gift shop (I bought a bright pink luggage tag!).

Walking into the first building my emotions were mostly about Delta Airlines. It hit me how if two things in recent history had gone differently, the attempted take over by US Airways or the merger, all this might not exist any longer. Having been a part of the "Keep Delta My Delta" effort, that was a heavy reality. But nothing like what was to come next.

In the second hangar is the Spirit of Delta, the 767 purchased by Delta employees that I was describing in an earlier post.  She has the hangar mostly to herself (other than her companion the Platinum Moodalian).

And when you walk in the gleaming 767 an impressive site, especially if there are very few people in the hangar. Ironically when I entered one of only two in there at the moment was Brian, who had been with my on my visit in 2007 and who also flew on one of the Spirit retirement flights. There was probably no one on the planet I would rather have had there at the moment.

Now some confessions about my last trip to see the Spirit, right after she was placed in the museum, for as much as I wanted to reboard the plane, after having flown the "Bring the Spirit Home" flight a year earlier, when I was at the museum in 2007. I didn't...because frankly I COULDN'T. There was no way physically I could manage the stairs at that point. I didn't have the strength to climb them, and I was more scared of falling coming down them. I had to sit and watch while others walked through her interior, which is now a museum in its own.

While my friends were climbing up on her engines and having photos taken, I stood on the ground watching, because it was all I could do.

There was no way this year that was going to be. For me standing in that hangar every sore muscle, every dollar spent, every lunge I have grumbled through and every stress I have faced working out with trainers for a year became worth it.

I was able to climb those stairs, board that plane, sit in the seat I sat in on the retirement flight (and easily fit) and bring MY spirit home.

It is hard to put into words the catharsis I found in that hangar. I had no clue I had left so many ghosts behind, until I stood and faced them in the shadow of that beautiful bird.

Four Days at "Airline Camp"

Before I post about how my weekend went, I feel like I need to explain why I was at Delta and how this all came to be, as this is not a normal occurance that is going to make much sense to most of my friends.

As most of you know I travel pretty heavily for work. The term most often used for people like me is "Road Warriors" (RW's). We spend lots of times on airplanes, in hotels and rental cars. And I like MOST people thought, before I got into this lifestyle, that it was glamorous jet setting, seeing amazing places and first class all the way. The reality, for most road warriors, this is a pretty tough way to live. You are jumping city to city, usually seeing the airport, the hotel, the client's office and the airport again. The places are often little towns and small cities. More time is spent in transit than anything.

One of the ways that RW's make life a little easier is by joining loyalty programs (frequent flyer programs, hotel loyalty programs and the like). This does two things....1) by earning points for travel you are able to use those points for vacation and fun travel and 2) when you reach the higher levels of these programs you are often able to tap into perks and more importantly when things go wrong (what we often call IROP's or Irregular Operations) you are taken care of faster and sometimes better. I personally am at the top tier of the Delta (Diamond Reserve), Hilton (Diamond) and Hertz (President's Club) programs. Another way some of us try to find fun in the RW lifestyle is through finding ways to maximize the points we earn in these programs.

Needless to say there are VERY few people in most of our lives that get this culture around being a RW, it is hard to truly grasp unless you live it. So as the internet has developed online communities have been born to link RW's and other Frequent Traveler's. One such website is www.flyertalk.com. I still don't remember how I found this website 5 or more years ago, but I did. At one time I was a pretty active participant, in the last couple years not much.

One of the outcomes of this website is that those of us traveling try to catch up with other "Flyertalker's" (FT'ers) as we cross paths in different cities. Sometime it is just one on one, such as my "airport husband" Dave and I who had dinner every Friday night in the Detroit airport for about a year. And sometimes it is larger groups (known as "do's" which are planned in a specific city or at a specific venue.

While most of these events are planned, supported and attended by the online community, in some cases the programs we are loyal to have become involved in them. This weekend my trip to Atlanta was a "do" sponsored by Delta Airlines and attended by about 120 loyal "Delta-ists".

This was not my first trip to the Delta Campus, for me another great benefit of FT has been making some personal connections inside of Delta that have allowed me some great experiences and friendships, but this was definitely a memorable weekend. As one FT'er called it tonight, it was like going to Airline Camp!

Our agenda looked something like this:

Thursday:
      Morning - Delta Heritage Museum tour and lunch at the Museum

      Afternoon - Briefing by 7 of the top Delta excutives (including the CEO Richard Anderson) who not only shared with us where the airline is headed, but also were brave enough to let us ask them questions and give our opinions. For the size of the group it was a pretty intimate chance to interact with these folks running the airline)

     Night - Dinner sponsored by Delta Airlines (including a trivia game lead by Deltalina (if you don't know who that is just check You Tube). And of course the winners got a boat load of skymiles!

Friday:

     Morning - Tour of the Technical Operations Center (TOC). For anyone who has flown into Atlanta and seen the "Fly Delta Jets" sign, that is the TOC. It is where the planes, their engines and components are serviced and maintained. Again we were right in the thick of it. After a briefing we were taken to the different maintenance shops, the engine shop, to the hangars where the planes were being worked on and thoughout the facility. And this was not a stand behind the rope and look tour. This was touch it, stand next to it, smell it, feel it. We could NOT have been any closer or any more in the middle of things.

     Early Afternoon - Flight Simulator Time. We were given a chance to fly the same simulators that pilots are trained on. We flew take off's, landings and some crazy things like under bridges. This was my second time in the Delta sims and it is an incredible experience.
     Afternoon - A tour of the Operations Control Center (OCC). The OCC is where all the folks controlling which planes are going where, what gates they are using, what crews are on board them is centered. Also managed here is meterology, customer service and a zillion other things I am forgetting. This is the heart of how we all get from one place to another and how they keep 2500 flights a day organized and how when things get crazy due to weather, delays or other problems they manage the situation. Again this was hands on and up close, from watching the group of people who manage which plane is doing what, to seeing the real time flight delays in progress.
    Evening - Dinner at Prime Steakhouse sponsored by Amex and Delta.

Saturday and Sunday:
    This was when the hands on got real. Two different options were available both days and most people did one one day and then the other the next.

     The first was "Walk a Mile with ACS"...basically gate agent for a day. This gave our group the chance to be paired with a Delta gate agent and actually do what they do, again hands on and up close. We were scanning boarding passes, rearranging seating assignments, dealing with misconnections and reroutings for passengers in the Atlanta airport.

     The second options was "Road Warrior Training". We went to the Delta Training Center and were taught many of the things flight attendants learn in their 7 week training and then must recertify on annually. The experience was both educational (lecture and lessons) but then also experiential, utilizing the plane mock ups that the FA's practice their scenarios in. We covered medical emergencies, self defense when dealing with an unruly passenger, fire procedures (and yes they put us in a plane and filled it with smoke), emergency landings and evacuations (including deloying a slide and having to empty the plane that way) and the best part, a simulated water ditching (emergency landing into water which is simulated with an airplane cabin in a pool). Where we got to evacuate using our life vests, swim to the raft, pull our plane for of people into the raft and then prepare it for waiting for help.

It is hard even writing all this out to explain how amazing (and exhausting) this all was. I am going to try in a couple upcoming blog posts to talk about my own personal experiences with it. But I already know it is going to be nearly impossible to capture what a truly outstanding experience this was.

I also would be remiss if I didn't stop and thank every employee at Delta we interfaced with in these 4 days (and there were 100's of them). It is hard to believe but I think they were as excited to be doing this with us as we were to be there. From the CEO down they were welcoming, energetic, fun, entertaining, informative and just really genuine. As much as we got to see the mechanics of an airline this weekend. We also saw its HEART. And we were part of that heart.

I can personally say I did not once feel like I was a visitor or a customer at Delta Airlines this weekend, we were genuinely treated as part of the Delta family!!!! Anyone who thinks all big businesses have lost track of who they are really needs a few days at "Airline Camp".

A Second Chance at a Once in a Lifetime.....

Not often in life do we get a chance to relive one of the greatest experiences of our life and make it even better, but this weekend I am getting to do just that!

As most of my readers know I travel a lot for work, and in past years it was even more than it has been this year. I am what is often known as a road warrior...spending a significant amount of my time on planes, sleeping in hotels and driving rental cars. And as glamorous as that seemed when I started this career 7 years ago, it really isn't. Instead of seeing the great cities of the world in style like people imagine I am usually shuffling from town to town often seeing little more than the airport, the hotel and the clients office. And the travel involves delays, tight connections and crowds of people.

But for as frustrating as that lifestyle can be there are times when a few great perks do come your way. Some of those perks are the published benefits of the frequent flyer programs, and some are less known. A smart traveler picks an airline, a hotel chain and a car rental company and becomes very loyal. Not only because of banking the rewards miles, but also because despite the negativity around how callous companies are these days, loyalty DOES matter to these companies. And when the chips are down having that connection to a travel company does smooth the path. My loyalties are to Delta Airlines, Hilton and Hertz.

Hilton and Hertz have treated me well, but my the place my heart lies in all this is with Delta. Through some unique twists of fate I have had the sheer pleasure of getting to know some of the Executive Management at Delta and it has afforded me some great behind the scenes opportunities.

Originally my alliance to Delta was completely for selfish reasons, they code shared with El Al airlines and I saw that partnership as my chance to use my frequent flyer miles as a way to get to Israel. I would never have guessed at that point how unimportant that would become in this relationship.

It's no secret to anyone who reads the news that the last 10 years have been a roller coaster for the airlines, and Delta. Bankruptcies, mergers, strikes and the like are everyday news now. But through all that Delta has kept focus on its frequent fliers and made sure we weren't left behind. Ironically it was many of those low moments that truly drew my heart to Delta.

When Delta was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2006 many choices had to be made to protect the airline. One of those was to retire "The Spirit of Delta".

This 767 is a part of Delta's lore. Purchased in 1982 the Spirit was a gift to Delta by her employees. The effort started by three flight attendants resulted in $30 million dollars of fundraising to buy the plane. This plane could not be lost in the bankruptcy and so was retired and now lives in the Delta Heritage Museum. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had the chance to fly on one of the Spirit's private retirement flights in Cincinnati. To be part of sending her off in style with the employees who had purchased the plane, who had kept her flying (her nickname was the Hangar Queen for how often she was out of commission) and who had been with her from day 1 was beyond emotional. I was one of the few who got to be part of that history. Oh yeah and being on board when the pilot buzzed the runway was pretty darn cool too *smile*.

There were many changes during the bankruptcy, but Delta made a concerted effort throughout to reassure their staff and frequent fliers that they would survive and thrive. They started hosting a chain of invitation only events in major cities around the world, their "Behind the Velvet Rope" tour. Where the executives stood up, told it like it was and also showcased how the new Delta would emerge stronger than before. I was lucky enough to attend this event with a few of my flyertalk friends in Atlanta in 2006. It was at this event that I forged friendships that would forever change my relationship with Delta.

As the bankruptcy was completed Delta became ready to embrace her future, but at that point the future was unclear, as Delta became the target of a hostile takeover attempt by US Airways and Doug Parker.

Again those that loved Delta rallied. A grassroots campaign "Keep Delta My Delta" was started by the employees and was soon embraced by many frequent fliers like myself.

Luckily the takeover was defeated and Delta did emerge intact. As part of their rebirth Delta hosted a huge block party for its employees on May 12, 2007 at their headquarters in Atlanta, and through a couple great relationships I got to be part of the day. Myself along with three other frequent flyers (Jim, Brian and Carol) had the experience of our lives. Not only did we get to attend the party, including watching then CEO Gerald Grinstein dance to YMCA with thousands of his employees, but we were giving an amazing behind the scenes tour of the Delta campus. We got to see the Heritage Museum, the Operations Centers, the office complex and many other parts of the complex usually kept off limits.

But the highlight of the experience was being able to fly the flight simulators. Wow doesn't even start to explain what it is like to control one of these birds. They are as lifelike as it comes without actually taking off. I was paired with Brian and we got to fly the 737 and 777 simulators in and out of NYC, Washington DC, Salt Lake City and San Francisco. It was a chance of a lifetime I will never forget.

But I have to admit for as amazing as all these experiences were, none of them was untainted by my physical limitations. I look back at the Velvet Rope event and remember struggling and feeling like a fool because I couldn't take the stairs and had to ask many people for help in finding an elevator to the main floor of the receptions. I was embarrassed and felt completely out of place.

On the Spirit retirement flight it was the battle to find a seat belt extension. And the worst was the Delta Block Party Day. For as wonderful as it was to see the campus it was also torture for me, and unfortunately my limitations impacted those with me too. Not only was it extremely hot, which when you are over 300 lbs in a huge issue, but I was not up to the walking it required. We had to stop over and over again for me and my leg. I couldn't full enjoy the event in any way. Even flying the simulators I backed down and let Brian take over the "left seat" because I couldn't control the rudders.

The pain of how hard it was has kept me away from similar chances. Last year I passed up attending the Delta Road Warrior training event because I knew I couldn't get through the door easily of a plane, I knew I wouldn't be able to easily jump down the slide and would hold others up.

For as great as those experiences I have had were, that is what I most remember, my limitations. And I thought that would be the memories forever. But this weekend I am getting the chance to re-write them, on a huge scale.

Since the four of us took our in 2007 Delta has embraced this experience for its frequent flyers and this weekend I will be one of over 100 people who again will be invading the Delta campus. For four days we will meet with the Executives, attend dinners hosted for us by Delta, American Express and SunTrust at three great hot spots in Atlanta ,we will visit the museum, the technical ops center, the fire houses and again get to fly the simulators. I will also get to take part in the Road Warrior Training I passed up last year (this time 2 days long).

And beyond being a little nervous about food, I get to come into it this year as a totally new person. What would have kept me away a year ago, like reading "be prepared to walk over a mile", now holds no limitations for me at all. I know that my body will be able to keep up, that I will not be the weak link in the group. I won't need to worry about hiding when the cameras are out or give excuses for why I can't participate.

I am getting the chance to rewrite all the pains of the past and I can't wait! Oh yeah, and I intend to do it in cute shoes!!!!

The 4 is a 2....in record time

This has been a really good week. I feel like a lot of stressors that had been hanging over my head melted away last week (or more accurately put exploded away) and I feel good about life. I had a great week at work, got to go to Houston and give a wonderful presentation to an audience twice the anticipated size (and drive a hot red rental car with great colleagues) and then 2 days with one of my favorite clients and today catch up.

I also feel like I am 10000% back on the track in the gym. Starting last Saturday I knew my love and passion for being there was back. It was the first time since July that I felt like I was fully there and wanted to be and was giving it 100%. And it feels great! I am now seeing only the good in the trainer change and that is helping a lot. I can see how physically and mentally the change was the best thing that could have happened. My body needed something different and I needed someone with a new outlook on my training. For as bumpy as the path was to here, I am right where I should be.

The best part is for whatever reason the weight loss plateau has broken, in a BIG way. For the last 10 or so weeks I have bounced around in mostly the 240's. It was incredibly frustrating. I would lose a pound or two and then gain it immediately back. To say I was getting frustrated is an understatement of epic proportion. We redid my metabolic testing, we scrutinized my eating, I spoke to my physician...nothing was budging. As I said in the blog a couple weeks ago, I was ready to give up. Then last Saturday I got the shock of my life.

On Monday October 4th I weighed 238 on the scale in the lower room (the equivalent of 240 or 241 on the trainer's scale), just as I had for weeks. Saturday I hopped on the LR scale expecting the same and it said 229. Beyond being shocked I was skeptical at best and had my trainer weigh me during our session, and sure enough it was right, 231 on the trainer's scale (there is always 2 lbs difference). By Monday I was down another pound and since then 3 more. Today I was 227 when Nick weighed me and 225 after my session when I got on the LR scale.

I can't explain it, I can't figure it out, but I am completely grateful for it. Whatever my body was fighting with that it was holding on to it has for now let go of.

I feel like my two next weight goals are a possibility again.....

211 by Thanksgiving (which will mark 100 lbs lost in exactly one year of training - I started last year on Black Friday)

and the biggie...

199 by New Year's Eve.  I would love nothing more than to say that the 300's were in 2009...the 200's in 2010 and the 100's are for 2011 and forward.

I am a little hesitant yet to believe this can happen, merely because there are so few weeks left in the year, and we need to get the weight loss back to a healthy loss per week (what I have lost this week and last is too much too fast and not something I or my trainer are comfortable letting happen for long). But I am giving it all I can!!! I am not sure there could be any greater accomplishment in my life than going from 300 lbs at the start of one year to 199 at the end of it!

I would be remiss if I ended this post without thanking the people who have worked so hard to get my through the plateau! Nick, Todd, Tiffany, Tony you guys each gave me little pieces that somehow came together to help me make this happen and I am grateful for how long and hard you dug for answers, how much you put up with out of me and just for being there for me when I wanted to give up and run away. I may not always say I am grateful, and I may fight you tooth and nail, but I do appreciate you every day (even if we are disagreeing on something I still appreciate you....being I am from the east coast we argue and scream at the same time we love!)

Also thank you to the friends who cheered me on, held me up and kicked me in the ass!!! I am lucky to have the support system I do. And thank for being there even when I lose track of you being there!!!!!

On to 211 we go...........

The Past is the Past...but should it be?

I wrote this post a couple days ago and am finally getting to post it. The pictures are new today and I felt they paired well with the post, as I am emotionally confused by them. I am impressed, no awed, by the difference between them. But I can't connect the two in my brain. And I think it is as much about as not being able to remember life in the before as anything....which leads to my post....

The Past is the Past...but should it be?

I received a great comment today, on a previous post, from a former client whom I now consider a good friend. She was one of those bright spots on a less than easy project and it has been a pleasure getting to know her outside of that environment, especially as our lives have undergone many transitions. Her comment today was not only wise, but really timely and worthy of posting about.

Her comment was

“Anonymous said... Hard reality: when your body makes decisions about what it needs, you don't always get a say. All you can do is consistently give it what you've learned works and let yourself adjust in time.

Another hard reality: when you achieve your goal weight--and you will!--going forward will mean having the strength to stay put. This means no rush from compliments, nor new body frontiers, even the clothing acquisition bug will wear off (especially if Visa catches up with you first.) And you'll have to have the strength to do what you know works--week in and week out--with no rushes, just to stay where you are.

Think of this time as perfect strength training for the future. It will teach you the beauty of here and now, Grasshopper.

From your friend whom you tried to help find one Vision in a hostile land.... ”

Had I gotten this comment even a month ago I am not sure I would have seen the wisdom in it, but today it made perfect sense. While she talks about needing to find a new internal strength once I reach my goal, the reality is I am already having to find that strength in ways I hadn’t expected to face yet. I, like my reader, expected to need it down the road.

I have said before I regret I didn’t capture more of my “before”. I wish I had video of my struggle to walk across a room, I wish I had more pictures of how horrible my clothes were, I wish I had journaled how terrifying a flight of stairs was. I wish I had a better way to hold onto my past. I am forgetting and that worries me. It is becoming more and more like recapping someone else’s life when I talk about my life before.

One of the first comments people make when they learn about my weight loss (or even those who have known about the journey but not seen me in a while) is “it must feel great”. Their meaning is how much easier my life is, how much more I can do. And they are right, it should feel great. But the great is waning, slipping into the past, becoming a distant memory much faster than I expected. And quite frankly must sooner than I wanted. I don’t want to forget, I don’t want to take where I have come from for granted, but just like the face of a friend you haven’t seen, it is getting harder to remember.

I got on the plane today and easily secured my seat belt, I can logically say I couldn’t do that in the past and it hurt, but I can not in all honesty remember what that hurt felt like. I am wearing great new shoes today, and I can speak about how it used to feel to only wear flats and sneakers, how scared I was of anything else, but I can’t tap into those feelings. I am losing track of how far I have come because I am losing how it all felt before. And as good as it feels to close the door on that chapter of my life, losing that reality scares me. I fear taking it all for granted because life has become too easy. That pain and struggle is part of what kept me moving forward and I worry about becoming complacent.

I mentioned her post was timely, there is a second part of losing my past that hit me today on the treadmill. I was working out and one of the PT staff members stopped by to chat for a minute. She is someone who has been around since the start. We were giggling about my sparkly nails, my cute shoes lately and my new found obsession with pink. It was a fun conversation, but it was more than that. It was also an exciting conversation, because we both felt the difference in where I came from and how much I have overcome to get here. That doesn’t happen as much these days as it used to.

Lately there has been a lot of change in my life. People who started the journey with me leaving, new people coming into my life. I am surrounded right now by great, really positive people who are the right people for me at this point in my metamorphosis. I couldn’t be happier with that part of my life now (ok yeah if I was dating that would be good to, but that is another post *smile*).

But the downside to the changes of those around me, is that I have a lot fewer people in my circle who I have that shared history with. Most know where I am, they know where I am going, and they can somewhat value the past in hearing about it, but it’s not the same as it was sharing it with those I started the journey with. I find myself rationalizing, explaining, validating and justifying things I do as being important or a big accomplishment. Not because they need that, but because I do. I need the value of how far I have come to still matter or more accurately to still be motivational. And without that shared history it seems to be that a lot less. Just as my reader said!

Please don’t mistake my feelings in this post, I am not a person who likes to live in the past. I wouldn’t chose to go back to where I was a year ago for all the money in the world. But I am a firm believer that if we don’t learn from the past we are bound to repeat it. I fear the lessons that keep moving me forward are fading, I fear someday not realizing how precious it is that I have found a second chance at truly living my life. As much as I love the ease I have gained in my life, I am not ready to for it to be easy.

I need that sense of past to help me truly value how great my present is and how outstanding my future could be.

Brutal honesty at 4am.....................

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Settling In For A Long Winter....

It is October 4th and I already have my heater on, this is not a good sign!

There is very little to be said positive about being fat. But one of the few things I can say about it, it definitely made life warmer. I miss my polar bear layer!

Whether it was because of my size, or what being obese did to my body chemistry I have always been warmer than everyone else. Part of it was obvioulsy biological, my normal body temperature when I went to the doctor tended to be around 97 degrees, if I hit 98.6 I had a fever. Anyone who rode in my car or came to my house knew to expect the windows open even in winter, the AC on full blast in the summer. The last time I bought a winter coat was the early 2000's. The most I normally needed even in the dead of winter here in MN was a sweatshirt.


As wrong as I know this all sounds, especially to my southern friends, it is what I have known my whole life. So that fact that since early September and I have been dressing in heavy sweatshits, leggings and had my AC turned off for over a month is more than a little strange to me. I have been wearing long sleeves since the State Fair was in town, that is just bizarre!!! And I am not really a fan of.


This is one of those changes I hadn't anticipated or really thought through. No one tells you its coming. And because my brain still thinks fat I hadn't reasoned it out either. And I have to admit it worries me, if I am this cold all the time at 240 lbs what will it be like if I ever get to my goal of 150. I may seriously have to reconsider how far north I live.


In speaking to others who have gone down this path before me, the common answer I get is that it does get worse the more you lose, and even after you stabilize it takes a good 2-3 years before you get used to the temperature at your lower weight. Fun!


I have decided to take on this change like every other one I have encountered on this journey...it's an excuse to shop!!!!!!!!! Particularly since nothing long sleeved I owned fit anymore anyway. In the last two weeks I have bought 2 coats, 4 cashmere sweaters, 2 long sleeved dresses and a bunch of shirts. Also a suit and 3 new pairs of pants. I am anticipating my next purchases to be boots and long underwear (which is something I have never owned). I also purchased a few pairs of yoga pants because even at home now I am finding I need to dress warmer.

I am either going to end up with the best winter wardrobe ever or someone south of the Mason-Dixon line is going to have to adopt me for the winter, cause I can't feel my fingers as I type this.

Please Stop Asking Me to be Ok with Things that I Shouldn't be......

"If you aren't moving forwards, you are moving backwards"

This has been a long week. It's week 9 of no weight loss and my urge to keep trying is getting harder and harder to maintain. That played out this week in my cardio workouts. It has become more and more of a struggle to get to the treadmill and even once I am there my passion for it is waining. Today I stopped 4 times and was ready to give up, but forced myself through the hour. But have to admit I did most of it in tears.

I am just at that spot of utter frustration. I am working so hard....forcing myself to eat, 3 times a week with the trainer, endless hours on the treadmill and yet not one bit of movement on my weight. I know plateaus happen, I know it isn't going to be as easy as it once was, but this unending march of no movement at all is wearing me down. The things that had worked a couple weeks ago, to keep me going despite the frustration, setting challenges for myself (5K, 10K, speed) aren't masking how I really feel anymore. I can't hide it from myself and others like I was.

And I have to admit I am losing patience with the people around me. I know they are all trying their best to be supportive and understanding, but I have to say if I hear one more time "but look at all you have done" I am probably going to unleash on someone who totally doesn't deserve it.

I know everything they are saying.....I've lost 100 lbs...yup aware of that! I have worked really hard to do that...painfully aware of that! I have a lot to be proud of....and I am! But I am sick to death of what I have already done being used to placate the fact that I am not making any current progress. The past is totally irrelevant to where I am now.

How long am I supposed to lean on what I have already done? What good is that doing me? I know the people saying "but look at how far you have come" are trying to be helpful but you are all missing the point. While the past is great, and I am very proud of all the changes in the last year I have made, I am not ok with stopping there. I am looking at and worried about the current and the future, and right now I don't like what I see. For me to not be upset that I am not moving forward because of what I did in the past is as irrational as "Jump in the Saddle Band" considering their music career a success after one hit in the 80's. (and let's see how many of you even know what that hit was).

YES I used to weigh 338 lbs, yes I am proud of the fact that I don't anymore, and I worked really hard to get to 238, but 238 is NOT acceptable. I am not willing to be happy that I still weigh over 200 lbs, I am not willing to be ok that I am still considered morbidly obese.

I have always had an issue with the "things could be worse" mentality people use to try to show someone upset or hurting that theirs isnt the worse thing in the world. We all know that! But I don't feel that I, or anyone else, has to suppress dealing with what is on their plate currently just because they or someone else could be in a worse situation. You can still be hurting miserably without being the most destitute person on the planet! We all have to live with where we are at any given minute, not where someone else is or where we could have been!

I should be upset that nothing is working, I should be frustrated that the scale isn't moving. I should be worried this is as good as it gets. Because complaceny is not a solution! I don't get why those around me don't get that!

There's No Place Like Home...

Sorry I have been kind of silent again. I am going through one of those periods where there is lots going on but very little to say. I hate saying the same things over and over, so I have just been silent. 

The plateau continues, it has been over 8 weeks now with no movement on the scale, that part is frustrating and a little scary. Training with Nick is going well, it feels more and more natural as the weeks go by. I feel like the corner has been turned from where it feels like something I was forced to do but am glad about to just something I am glad about. It was a good change for me.

My eating is still a challenge, but I feel like I am learning a lot more about my eating issues in the last couple weeks than I have before and hope that will help me control it better. My realization for this weeks has been that it is not just one issue, but at least two and they each manifest very differently. The first, which I talked about in a previous post, I believe to be a true biological issue, where something triggers my body to not want food and to not be hungry. When this is in play I feel sick when I try to eat and nothing tastes good. But there is also a second stress related component that also leads to me not eating, but doesn't cause the food repulsion feeling or sick feeling, I just don't think about eating and if it isn't easy and convenient food isn't worth the effort. I wrestled with the second on my trip this week. The first I don't feel I have a lot of control over yet, since we don't know the trigger, but this second one I need to get better about. I need to force my way through that mood.

Part of what was stressing me out this week was being away from home. That sounds so weird coming from someone who loves to travel and who is a "road warrior" but I realized this week it is yet another one of the changes in my life over the last year. In some ways it is a good and comforting change, in some ways it is a negative I need to figure out.

First the good. This is going to sound odd to those that don't know me well, but for the first time in my life in the last year I have been homesick. It sounds weird to call that good, but what is good about it is that for the first time in my life I do feel like I have a home base that I am connected to, that I miss. While I have lived in many cities and homes in my life, I never really connected with any of them. This is the second house I have owned, but the first I truly feel is a home. Beyond just my own house, I feel that way about my life in general at home. For the first time in my life I have places I feel I belong, I have a routine I am used to and being away from that is unnerving at times for me. When I am away I feel off kilter and can't wait to get back. I feel lost when I am away. This is a totally new and unusual feeling for me.

The second part, and the part I am trying hard to overcome, is how unstable my eating and workouts become when I am on the road. Part of the instability comes from being in situations where I don't have control of my time and access to food, but part of it is also just reverting back to that stress reaction.

This week I truly had no excuse to let my food and workouts suffer. While I am traveling my days were spent working at the home of a dear friend and colleague. Hilary is an amazing house, keeps her house well stocked with very healthy foods, is totally supportive of my food restrictions and issues, and yet I still had two days where my calories were SIGNIFICANTLY below where I should have been. I have no one to blame for that but me. Add on top of that that I packed multiple food items to suppliment things if needed, and still I didn't eat enough.

The sad part is I have myself stressed over how food is going to go before I even leave and probably sabatoge my first few days before I am out the door. I have a short vacation coming up in late October and today started panicing over whether to go or not because of food and being away from the gym for that long. The trip is over 3 weeks away and I was obsessing on it already. I came very close to cancelling, but luckily I have friends around me who remind me that I can't stop living or all that I have accomplished is wasted.

I would be lying if I said I don't miss the joy I used to find in traveling, for work or pleasure. I miss it being a natural part of my life where my greatest concern was if I would be upgraded or not. I want to find the fun in new cities like I used to. I want the carelessness back I had with food and eating on the road before, but I know this last one will never come back. Because that carelessness was typically just not eating and I can't go back there. But I do look forward to the day when this new way of eating will feel natural and manageable and not be a roadblock to me wanting to leave home.

The good news, I get to go home tomorrow!!!!!

From Zero to Warp Speed Overnight........Maybe this is why I fight with food....

WOW! There really is not another word to explain how the last 48 hours feel. I wrote in here how I felt very little was happening about trying to figure out what is going on with my body and not losing weight. I had barely pressed the post button and that all changed. Since Sunday afternoon I feel like I have gone from stuck in neutral to moving almost too fast to think. So if this post seems a little disjointed I apologize, my mind is going a lot faster than my fingers.

First the back story, no one who has read my blog before needs to be told I have eating issues. I have covered this extensively. But what has become really clear in the last few weeks is something is triggering it. I do really well for a period of time (a few days, a few weeks) and then like someone throwing a switch I have a day or more when I just cant deal with food. I really hadn't noticed this pattern until I started working with Nick and focusing on my eating. He had asked me when we hit a previous couple days of anti-food if I thought it could be weather related, or something I ate the night before and I kind of blew off the ideas, they seemed too simple. But yesterday when I hit another hard day I did notice it was grey and rainy out and started to research if there could be a link with weather.

I started my searching with a question to Todd (who is now officially part of my team doing my metabolic testing this weekend, but more on that in a minute). I asked about weather and appetite research and he sent me some great information on Melatonin. I figured that was the end of the topic but boy was I wrong. That set off a chain of emails, phone calls and reading that has me for the first time in my life fully realizing maybe the food issues are NOT just me not trying or being emotional, that there may truly be a biological a cause here, and the ironic part, we may have known the cause for the last 15 years and just never put the pieces together.

This next part may be confusing, I will do my best to share this without going tooooo neuro-geek! If you read back in the blog I have mentioned many times my neurological issues in the 90's. At the end of a very long battle with Pseudotumor Cerebri (aka Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension) in 1996 we realized that I have something called a Sulfa Conjugation Deficit Disorder. Simply put there are some enzyme issues in my liver that if I eat certain foods (anything high in Tyramine or anything with artificial sweeteners in it) or take certain medications my body totally wacks out. And for me this imbalance results in excess production of the fluid around the brain and spine (known as CSF or cerebrospinal fluid) and terrible headaches.

So why does this happen, because the enzymes that are out of balance in my body are the start of a long chain of events. For the geeks in the group...the chain is too much MAO (monoamine oxidase) is produced, MAO breaks down serotonin (so I have too little at times) and too little Serotonin lets the body make too much of the fluid.

The great part to the story is that we learned all this and resolved my medical nightmare by accident. I found an old article about CSF and MAO in the medical library and after I found that things moved VERY fast to finding my answer. I feel like I may be standing at the edge of another one of those moments.

In the 90's we stopped digging after we solved my PTC, we never went on to look at what else this might mean. For 14 years I have avoided certain foods and medications and never gave all this more thought til yesterday.

Being stuck on a plane for 3 hours I started digging for more about the Melatonin Todd had mentioned (got to love google and in-flight wifi) and how it all worked. Specifically I wanted to know if there had been any studies on Melatonin and Anorexia. I still thought I was on the sunlight path at that point, boy was I wrong.

One of the first things I started to see what that there was a link to serotonin and then I saw it.....MAO is involved in the Melatonin production process. Too much MAO can lead to too little Melatonin and too little Melatonin can lead to anorexia/anorexic tendencies. It was all there in black and white. At 37,000 feet I finally felt for the first time in 35 years that maybe this wasn't all my fault. That there could truly be a biological explanation for why I fight so hard with food at times, and it is all the same path that we already know is deficient in my body.

As I read more I realized that the sunshine path wasn't important (or was a lot less important) but it was Nick's other suggestion that was probably on track....it is things I am eating the day before. The same foods that have the potential to trigger my CSF issues are possibly the cause of my eating issues also. In full disclosure I had a hot dog Sunday at the farmer's market, I know it is not a safe food for me, but I wanted it so I took the risk. That single hot dog could very well have been the trigger for my bad eating days the last two days. Something so simple could be behind all this, as it was with my years of spinal taps and surgeries for PTC.

I have spent the last day picking the brains of people I respect on this topic, including my previous Neurologist, and it seems like this is a real possibility and I thought that is where this would stop for now. At this moment there was nothing concrete I could do to know if my Melatonin was off or even go farther with the theories.

Then tonight I came back to my hotel and had an email from the nutritionist I saw a few weeks ago. One of the tests he had done on me finally came back. The test measured Adrenal Gland related levels. One of the results was a DHEA. DHEA is also part of this overall system (it is broken down by the same enzymes in the liver that we know are abnormal for me) and as I flipped through the results I saw it, my DHEA was elevated. Back to google and I learn that Melatonin and DHEA are often linked, if one is up the other is down. Yet another sign that this may really all be tied together. I may finally have an answer. And even if I don't have an answer, we have a path to examine.

So what comes next.....

Friday 
I have an appt with the nutritionist to go over the test results (I have mixed feelings on this as he kind of bailed when I wasn't eating, but he is very knowledgeable on all this neurochemical stuff so I figure at least I will gain more information if nothing else)

Sunday
Todd is redoing all my metabolic testing. I am having my Calorie Point (calories needed to just exist) test and my Cardio Point (heart rate ranges the highest percentage of fat are burned in) test repeated. We are also going to go over all my old blood work and see if there is anything obvious we should be re-examining.

None of this may come to anything, but I have to admit if even if this just a false blip on the radar, it has helped me a lot by just making me feel there is hope. That there could be a biological answer for all the struggling I am doing with food. That I am not just weak and unable to cope with food, but that there could be a reason this is happening. Even if Melatonin isn't the right answer, it has me back on the mission to find the answer.

PS for the geeks in the crowd.... the graphic at the top is a ribbon diagram of an MAO molecule.

Sundays at Lakeville, 400 lbs and rainbows from the rain....

"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so even better things can fall together" Marilyn Monroe

Life never ceases to amaze me...how the bad can reveal good, how a place of discomfort can become the greatest place of growth and how the changes we fear the most can turn into the greatest gifts. I have learned, or probably relearned, all three of these in the last 8 weeks.

Have all the lessons in all the change I have been going through been positive, no, I wont pretend they have. I have been reminding  that sometimes those you think have your best interest at heart truly can have alterior motives, that speaking your mind with some people is a waste of energy and that sometimes people you think are good at what they do were merely lucky.

But I am choosing to focus on the positive lessons, because the good far outweighs the bad over the last two months.

I guess the best way to explain what I am talking about is to recap where I am in life (along with apologizing for how long it has been since my last post).

Workouts and Trainer...

The trainer change has become a great blessing. For all my angst over needing to find a new trainer and then over trying to choose between Nick and Todd, it couldn't have turned out much better than it has. I am loving training with Nick and still have Todd as part of my "team" helping me with the metabolic side of things and an amazing support person. Instead of feeling like I had to pick one replacement in the ended up with a team of people around me and it is better than I could have imagined.

Nick has turned out to be a great trainer. In some ways a much better fit than Gui was for me. He gets what drives me, being a goal orientated person, and has worked with me to tap into that. We have come up with a list of goals for my workouts, my cardio and my longer term physical goals, and we re-evaluate/tweak them weekly (or as we cross each one)

The goals started out on Sept 6th as:

Cardio....do a 10K on the treadmill, get the 5K under an hour (at that time it was taking 73 minutes)
TRX....30 straight squats
Strength Upper Body....up my bench press max by 10 lbs a week
Strength Lower Body....leg press 400 lbs
Nutrition....1 month of all days over 1500 calories
Long term goals....getting back to down hill skiing, scuba certification, 3 day breast cancer walk and rock wall climbing

I added one other in my mind, not sure if Nick agrees with this one, but I truly want to be at 199 lb by New Year's Eve!

For me having these goals has been really empowering. I do my best when I have a focus.  I am proud do say in the almost two weeks since we have set these I have met a good number of them...

Cardio....did the 10K last weekend, on the 5K today I brought the number down to 58 minutes and 45 seconds.
TRX...done last Tuesday
Strength lower body....last Tuesday I did the 400 lbs!!
Nutrition.....12 of the last 14 days have been over 1600 calories and most were over 1700.

My goals for the next month...do a 5k outside at least twice, lose 5 lbs, get my TRX number to 50, my upper body weight goal to 100 and my lower body to 425.

I am incredibly proud of myself for these accomplishments. It is only looking back that I can see how complacent both Gui and I had become with my workouts, how I had been coasting and just doing it and really wasn't moving forward any more. I feel like I am back in the game and it feels wonderful.

And the best part is that with the changes in the people around me, I am now surrounded by people who get as excited about when I reach as milestone as I do, and that is helping me truly value my own level of pride in myself because I am not letting other people's indifference make me indifferent to it. And having that positive energy around me pushes me to try to go harder, longer, faster and reach even further.

The end to the story is I am actually glad the change happened. I still hate how it happened, and still have some anxiety over how unresolved parts of it feel to me, but I would never go back. I am glad I have the new people around me I do, they make me a better person in ways I could never have expected.

Weight...

I wish I had as much positive to say here. This is probably my greatest area of frustration now. I am still up 4 lbs from where I was 7 weeks ago and nothing I do seems to be making a difference. I am working out, I am eating all this food, I am avoiding carbs, most dairy, sugar and still nothing. I feel like I am trying so hard and not making any forward progress.

There is part of me that is really scared too. I try to fight the thought but I still wonder at times if I have lost all my body is going to let me lose or if there is something more major metabolically/biologically that we haven't addressed and unless we figure it out I am doomed to stay where I am at.

And if I am totally honest it is stressing me out that we aren't being more aggressive about trying to figure out what is going on. I know I should probably be more patient, but I feel like we are wasting a lot of time with very little action to try to find an answer to why I am stalled. I know I am seeing this with a greater sense of urgency than everyone else, but I am just scared the longer we let this go on the harder it is going to be to get it moving again.

But just like the trainer change, I am trying really hard to focus on that at some point some good will come out of this frustration also.

Another LTF Goodbye....Lance....

Just found out another member of the Eagan LTF team is moving on, time for more more mixed feelings. And I have to admit I am not sure what the proper expression of my reaction is, which is why I am blogging about it, trying to figure my head out again.

This time around it's Lance who is leaving. He is being promoted and the position he is moving into is at another club. First and foremost Lance congratulations!!! The members at your new club are very lucky to get you, you are awesome at your job and am really glad LTF realizes that and is recognizing you by promoting you.

I have talked about Lance in the blog before, but for those who are newer readers the background. Lance is one of the Member Advisers (the term for the membership sales folks). He was the first person I met at Life Time. From our first meeting he has been incredibly supportive and my greatest cheerleader. Any time I hit a milestone it was Lance who was the first to congratulate me and often he was not only proud enough to tell me but was also (without me knowing it) sharing my photos and story with others within the club. It was Lance who first mentioned the Twins nomination to me and it was Lance who was there celebrating with me that night.

While I have valued Lance all along on this journey, in this last month he has also been my safe spot at the club. More than once I have ended up in his office in tears over the trainer changes and before my first session with Nick he was who I went to for advice and as a sounding board. That night turned out as well as it did because my talk with Lance opened my mind to what a great possibility Nick could be.

While I am really proud of Lance and happy for him on this next step in his career. I have to admit I felt the wind knocked out of me again when I got his email that he was leaving. I feel like I am losing another piece of my support system at a time when I am barely managing losing the last piece (Gui).

The difference is this time I am truly afraid to tell him how much I am going to miss him and how much him leaving saddens me because of how bad that blew up in my face with Gui. So my first reaction was I was going to go in today, smile, pretend I think this is wonderful and all that, but truth that is not who I am. I can't be fake, I can't lie about how I feel, and truth I am not sure I even want to. If the roles were reversed I would want to know people were sad I was going, that is a great compliment! We only get upset over losing those we value. But after how much grief admitting I was upset Gui was going caused I truly don't know what to do. At this point I am sorta hoping he is busy, that we don't cross paths at all and I don't have to deal with it. I know that is a cop out, but am too confused what face I am supposed to put on to deal with it. At this point no goodbye will be easier than messing up another valued friendship with honesty.

I wouldn't be completely honest in this post if I didn't say this didn't (again) have me kicking myself for letting people into my life and becoming dependent on their support. It is one of the changes I have made in the last year, letting people like Lance matter to me, that I am still not sure is the best thing I have done for myself. Don't get me wrong, I know the benefits have been immense, I have gotten to know some great people who have truly enriched my world, but the downside is that it seems to be resulting in an awful lot of goodbyes also, and right now I am just not handling them well.

I am sure many of you reading this are thinking, wow she is way over reacting to some sales guy leaving. But this is a part of the realities of my life I think are hard for a lot of people to understand. I am single, I live alone, my interaction with my family is next to nil (I talk to my brother on Facebook but beyond that I have no interaction with my family). My support system is solely made up of my friends and acquaintances. And when it comes to my journey in the last year that has been primarily centered around key people at LTF. This is the second of those key people I am saying goodbye to in a matter of weeks and it does feel like that part of my support system is slipping away from me. I realize nothing is permanent (I can hear Gui's words repeating over and over in my head on that one) but I just feel like I am losing my safety nets before I am ready for them to be gone. Especially after the weight gain of the last month.

I am sure there are also those of you reading who find this post incredibly selfish. And truth, part of me feels that way even admitting my feelings about all this. Please do not mistake me, I am exceedingly happy for Lance (as I was for Gui). I wish them only the best and the greatest success and happiness the world has to offer them. I would never want them to have less than that to make my life better/easier. But despite that, my life will be changed and I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit that change saddens me and makes me feel alone in all this.

Now it's time to get ready to head to the club, put on a smiley face and not end up in tears on Nick over this. The chances of that feel fleeting but its the goal!!!!

Good luck Lance, I know you will do a great job in your new position. And know you will never be forgotten for all you have done for me! Always remember sometimes having fun instead of trying to make the sale can be the start of changing someone's life!!! Thanks for doing that for me.

A secret club and those who treat you different without the fat........

A dear friend shared an article with me tonight she said made her think of me... http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/09/02/tf.lost.100.pounds.fat/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

I have to admit reading it brought me to tears because it is so on the money. And if I feel that way only part way to my goal I can't imagine what it is like when you are truly there.

I think the part that hit me most was how different people treat you. I have really struggled with this. Anyone who knows me for any length of time hopefully realizes that honest, straight forwardness and integrity are the three qualities I value most in the people around me (and a lack of them is the quickest way to have issues with me). I have much more respect for someone who tells me to my face they hate me than someone who pretends to my face they like me and then trash me behind my back. I have very little room in my world for game playing and faking things. I'll tell you how it is, you tell me how it is and we will get along great. Some call it a "NY attitude" I just think it is the right way to be.

So it has been a challenge for me over the last year to learn of people in my world who used to pretend they accepted me how I was that I have since learned used to make really nasty comments about my weight behind my back. I just recently learned of a coworker who knowing me merely minutes who made very derogatory comments to another colleague about my weight, but had pretended for over a year to be a good friend.

It has also been a real challenge for me to watch opportunities open up for me (professionally and socially) that I was held back from before because of how I looked. Looks to me are such a fleeting, unimportant thing, and to know that I wasnt considered good enough for these people and opportunties before but I am now, when nothing about who I am has changed, but my outward appearance has has been jarring. To learn of a conversation between coworkers about how I am now "acceptable" to be in front of a group brought me to my knees and left me hurt in a way I am still feeling months later.

As the author of the article stated so well, I also find that since my body has changed I trust new people around me less and question their motives more. That sounds so weird if you haven't been in this position. But when you are over 300 lbs you know that most people in your life for any period of time are there truly because of who you are on the inside. They love you DESPITE what you look like. As the weight melts away you have to wonder more. You no longer have that safety filter that gets rid of the people who are there for shallow reasons.

It is going to sound really bizarre to everyone, except my fat or formerly fat readers, but there is a big part of me that worries about what this will be like if I ever do get my body to my goal weight and become what I would consider attractive. Will I know who is in my life because of me, and my brains and what I have to offer and who will be there because of looks. Obviously this is going to be the hardest issue related to dating and intimate relationships. Again when you are fat you know if they are even willing to date you that isn't why. Having beenf at my whole life I don't feel like I yet know the skills for handling dating and relationships of that nature without that filter, and it is a new direction that I do think about.

Even with less intimate relationships, I have to admit I don't know how to react when someone makes a comment about how I look, be it my hair, my figure, whatever. I have been fat since I was 5. These are not comments I am used to hearing or more importantly trusting. The only time I heard I was pretty growing up was quite frankly when I was being abused by my father and he was trying to manipulate me. I have never had anyone I dated or around me tell me until the last few months that I was pretty, or looked good or they liked my clothes or any of this new, and I still don't know what to do with it.

At first I thought it was an issue of not being able to take compliments, a topic I discuss with a friend quite often, but the reality is that isnt the case. When the compliments are about my work or things related to my brains, I have no problem taking them. This is different. This comes from that "brain fat" I have blogged about before. When someone tells me I look good or how great I look now I truly don't know how to believe it. I still figure I am being lied to, or they feel they need to (or are supposed to) say it and I just file it away as BS or they want something. I know I need to get past all this, but if you have never dealt with it before how do you get used to it.

There really needs to be a school for joining the world of the "beautiful people" because it is not intuitive!

I will say as much as changing has lead me to question those new to my life. It has also made me truly value those people who genuinely loved me fat and who love me now less fat and who I know will be there if I ever get to skinny. I can count that group probably on two hands, the number isn't large, but the value is. To those of you who have treated me the same no matter the number on the scale...THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!