I was convinced I was too fat to exercise. 

When I talk with people facing mega-weight loss this topic always emerges as one of their core frustrations, embarrassments and concerns. It was one of my core concerns, for more than a decade.

I will tackle the physical barriers in another blog.  But, in my opinion, the MENTAL hurdles are just as fearsome.

So how do you get your mind to quiet down enough so that you can get your butt to the gym to get started??!

It seems to be a radically different tipping point for everyone. 

My tipping point?!  When I finally understood that food alone was not going to get me where I was trying to go. If I was going to control T2 diabetes, exercise had to be added.

I had to get moving.

From the point where I knew I HAD to add exercise to where I set foot in the gym?  Six months. I spent six months battling the demons in my head. (List below.)

When you are obese and totally out of shape and you finally take the big, brave step to join the world of the physically active you feel VULNERABLE beyond belief.

I felt ragged and mentally exhausted before I even set foot in the ‘gym’.

(Gym?! I use the word generically to mean any place where you are going to make an effort and will BE SEEN. Walking down your street, classes at a community center, hitting your city pool.)

So what kind of thoughts were zinging around in my head for 10+ years? Here are my “I am too fat to be seen trying to exercise” thoughts:

1. Fat people don’t belong in the world of fit and thin people. We are not welcome and do not belong.
2. I am desperately afraid someone is going to mock me, laugh at me or be mean.
3. It will be UGLY. I am not a pretty crier. I am not a pretty ‘sweat’er.
4. I am beyond help.  I don’t know where to start.  Why bother at this point?
5. Thin people are disgusted by fat people. I do NOT want to see the look of pity or disgust when I wind up next to them on a treadmill at the gym.
6. I will have to shower after working out. Which means I have to be naked. The likelihood of having the locker room all to myself is about ZERO. Which means… Kill me now.
7. Did I mention I was afraid people were going to laugh at me?

Having just shared my fears… I must confess that one of my fears did play out early in my gym-going career.

Humiliating story, but I share it because the experience wound up providing me with clarity and motivation.

I had been going to the gym about a month. I was probably 325+ pounds. There were two guys on the mats near me. One guy stage-whispered to his friend; “Dude, why is she even trying? It’s not like it’s going to make a difference.”

I froze. I was the only other person around. They were talking about me. I was wounded. Mortified. Humiliated. I tried hard NOT to cry… Failed. I laid on the mats and cried once they walked away. It stung deeply for at least a week.

I had been worried people were thinking that EXACT thing about me. Someone had just proven me right.

But eventually it made me mad.

It ultimately made me more determined.

Why?!  When I stopped to really think about it, I had already seen progress in the four short weeks I had been going to the gym. Almost every other person had been nice to me. My blood sugars were better than they had ever been. My pants were fitting looser. I could walk more laps on the track.

I belonged there as much as he did.

As much as anyone did.

I may have been fat, but he was a jackass.

I’m now healthy, but I bet he’s still a mean jerk.

The rest of my experiences with going to the gym?  Routine.

Don’t get me wrong; The work was (still is!) hard. LOTS of sweat. Learning was scary. I had some physical challenges. I still felt totally intimidated. But really… The fears I kept rattling around in my head; were all just that. In my head.

No one cared that I was there.  Really.

No one laughed, mocked or made fun of me. OK. One guy, one incident. The rest of the time?People kindly asked me if I needed help if I stood staring at a machine.

No one cared that I was fat and in ‘their space’.  Seriously NO ONE was even looking at me or anyone else for that matter.

Do you want to know what happened the very FIRST time I went to the gym?

I walked into the locker room with my gym bag, looking like I was either going to cry or bolt. I am sure it was both. A woman saw my distress, waved at me and said ‘Hey – do you need help finding your locker? I did when I started here…”

She assumed I belonged. She offered to help and was friendly.  Not a hint of judgement. She instantly smashed some of my long held fears to smithereens.

It cost her nothing to be kind. I valued it deeply.

Have I had bad moments, met mean people, had pointed comments made to me? YES.  But the life-truth is that there are mean, ignorant people in the world, well beyond the walls of a gym. Are you going to let them stop you?!

Have I felt dumb and ill-equipped and out of my league?  I have fallen off of a stationary bike.  Twice. 🙂  This is where having a sense of humor and being able to laugh at yourself is KEY.

Have I wanted to quit? More times than I can count. BUT I was determined to win the war against T2 diabetes. I made friends who held me accountable and expected me to show up.  FRIENDS and staying focused on your goal are key in the ‘not quitting’ process.

I thought I was too fat to exercise, but I started anyway.

(What was your tipping point?  I would love to hear your success story!)

“How do you get through the holidays and not gain weight?”

I have been asked this question more than a dozen times this past week alone.

The Thanksgiving Holiday is the official start of an entire eating season. 🙂 

This is my fourth Thanksgiving (roughly 1,200+ days) with my new eating habits. So what is my strategy for staying active and eating healthy during our food-obssessed Holiday season?

I create and stick to a plan. 

My plan for this Holiday season is not very sexy/cool/fun. It’s simple and straight forward. If you have ever gone on a diet of any kind, you’ve heard most of the tips I now rely on.

The specific strategies aren’t the point. The point is that I have a plan.  And I follow the plan to the best of my ability.

So, what is my plan for Thanksgiving?

Activity. I am going for a run. I will work up a sweat. No, I am NOT exercising SO I can eat more. I am exercising to be healthy and live a balanced life. Exercise is a habit and a choice. I don’t skip it just because it’s a Holiday.

I wear snug, bordering on uncomfortably tight clothing to the meal. NOT gonna feel like over-eating if my pants are already cutting me in half.

I take along foods I know I want to eat, and that fit with my food lifestyle.

Good conversations, games, distractions. It should never be all about food.

I keep a flavored/favorite water on hand and TANK ON IT.

Eat a normal breakfast.

Load my plate with veggies and salad and fill up on that FIRST.

This is NOT the only meal of the day. NOT the only meal of the year. It’s not like I couldn’t make/get ANY of this stuff, ANY time. Don’t let perceived scarcity/specialness lure me into eating more than I intended.

Fruit for dessert.

When I am done eating, but I am tempted to graze? I chew sugar free cinnamon gum. Kills the taste buds. (I chew a LOT of cinnamon gum.)

I told you; nothing earth-shattering in my plan. Probably all things you have heard before.

HAVING a plan and sticking to it is really the point. (And having a pack of SF cinnamon gum. Don’t forget the gum.)

Happy Thanksgiving.

‘How did you reverse T2 Diabetes?’

July 2011 marked the start of a MAJOR life change to reverse type 2 diabetes.

I weighed 285. I was taking 3 shots a day, 7 oral meds.  I was considered well-controlled in the world of T2 diabetics.

This part of the story is hard to write simply because it was so wild.

I had a basic goal, but no real, detailed plan. I didn’t care. I was learning as I moved forward. If I waited for a concrete plan, for the moment I was totally comfortable with all of the details, I never would have started.

To the casual observer, my journey had to have looked like a total shit show.

But it was MY shit show.

The next 3+ years would be a frantic, chaotic, successful, mess.

I was finally ready to do the work needed to make changes. A much different feeling than the forced enthusiasm and hope that were present when I usually started a new diet.

This was different.

Entirely different. This was soul-deep and relentless and essential. This time I was not driven by fear or despair or guilt.

My desire to LIVE was finally bigger than my fears.

My only goal was to reverse T2 diabetes.

Focused on that thought alone, I picked ideas that provoked and energized me:

• Reverse T2 diabetes. Get RID of it.
• Choice between managing blood sugar or losing weight? Blood sugar. Every time.
• I was not doing this to please anyone. This was about saving my own life.
• No excuses. None. I was going to OWN my journey.
• No whining.
• Give 100% effort.
• Stay open-minded about solutions.
• Think long-term lifestyle shift. New habits, not quick fixes.

Then I spent 3+ years learning all I could about food, exercise and myself.

I eventually got down to a handful of ideas that continue to work;

• Let true belly-hunger be my guide.
• Keep working to have a peaceful relationship with and around food.
• Exercise will be a habit and a priority in my life.
• Stay focused on the healthiest, smartest food choices for my needs and goals.
• I have a small handful of people in my life to whom I remain accountable. They have unconditional permission to remind me to get back on track.
• Food is fuel. Not a reward.
• Say no to social situations where food will be an issue for me.

‘You have come too far to take orders from a cookie.’

I needed to share this background with you. This was the foundation that had to be built if I was going to be successful in reversing T2. I absolutely HAD to cement lifestyle changes for this to work long-term.

“HOW did I reverse T2?”

I talked to my doc and told her my plan; I was going to get off insulin and reverse T2 by eating less and moving more.

She sent me away for 3 months to lose weight, learn how to move more. I KNOW full well she was genuinely skeptical that I would stick with it.  I never had before.

I worked hard and then showed her proof of my commitment.

I went back to see her with improved numbers, weighing less, signed up for a 10K with my friend Hannah. I showed her my food journals.

I wasn’t screwing around. I wanted off insulin. She could help me or I would figure it out myself. I told her that, in those exact words. Then I asked her what the plan was.

 ‘OK. You really are serious. Here’s our plan…”

Getting off of all meds would take close to 2 years.

We decreased insulin in small increments weekly over many months.  It was NOT a fast process. I would decrease the daily bolus then we would watch my daily fasting numbers for 10 days or so. IF my numbers stayed steady I could decrease the bolus again… Repeat process.

There were periods of 25+ days where I could not decrease the dosage. I wasn’t losing weight, my diet wasn’t tight enough,  I had been sick or maybe I wasn’t exercising consistently. I would figure out the issue, work to get it corrected and we would start the process of decreasing dosages again.

At one point it finally dawned on me that I was trading one drug (Lantus, Metformin, Byetta) for another (food and exercise).

STAYING off diabetes meds would rely TOTALLY on ME maintaining serious lifestyle changes.

At the same time that I was eating better and working my way off of insulin, I started MOVING more. I was a hot, sweaty, mess. All the time. I didn’t care what I looked like working out, or what anyone thought of me.  I was starting to see the scale and my glucose readings drop. Seeing results strengthened my resolve and dedication.

I started learning to run. I bought a bike. I met the Gums.  I started lifting weights. I met Spencer, my running coach. I was buying REAL running shoes and then actually running in them. 🙂

And then the days I had been working for finally began to arrive…

February 2012 I was OFF insulin.

May 2013 I was off of all meds.

This past October my Doc said the most incredible words…

You are no longer diabetic. 

She gave me a hug. Told me I could put my glucose testing kit in a drawer. I weighed 164 and BMI was ‘normal’.

My HgbA1c was the lowest it had ever been. We were both proudest of that single number; it was ALL because of diet and exercise.  It reflected my lifestyle change. I had chased a low HgbA1c for over a decade and FINALLY caught it.

I left her office and went out to my car.

Bawled for about 10 minutes.

The odds had been against me. BIG time. I had purposely ignored that fact for several years.  It was finally hitting me.

But the BEST feeling of all???  Knowing I had developed solid habits that I could use to keep healthy and active for the rest of my life.

I got home. Hugged and chatted with my dad. Ate a healthy dinner. Got up early the next morning to go for a run with Hannah and Spencer.

Story continued…

(You thought this was THE END?  Hell no! I am JUST getting started.)

Legitimate question. Rude and hurtful, but honest.

I weighed 392 pounds at my heaviest. I’m 5’7.

How did I get that fat?

The 5-second answer is embarrassingly simple. I ate too much and I hated to sweat.

The layered, nuanced answer requires you to peek inside my flawed thinking. And yes, I am nervous about opening this particular set of doors, thank you for asking. But it’s time to be honest.

Here is the how I got to be 392 pounds before I chose to do anything about it:

1.  I had a life-long, seriously screwed up relationship with food. It controlled me. I thought about food from the time I woke up, to the time I went to bed. I was addicted to food and the comfort it gave. I would make or change plans based on food. My happiest moments growing up are centered around food. You can’t not eat. You have to have SOME kind of relationship with food. Food owned me.
2. I had given up hope and was flirting non-stop with apathy. I knew I weighed a ridiculous amount. I had been overweight my entire life. Diets had failed me. Why bother? I was just destined to be fat. If society was hung up on looks — screw ’em. I knew I was a good person, the packaging should not matter
3. T2 diabetes could easily be managed with drugs. I didn’t need to do the work. And how serious was it really? Plenty of people lived long lives with T2. Giving myself shots? There were worse things.
4. To reverse this train wreck would take serious work. I knew it would be unbearably hard work. Work you could never, ever stop doing.
5. I had failed every single ‘diet’ I had ever tried. Every. Single. One. Fen-phen. Nutrisystems. Weight Watchers. Alli. Medi-fast. South Beach. Atkins. Jenny Craig. Cabbage soup. You name it… I tried and failed at it.
6. I was hiding. Wait.. What? Those who know anything about me know that I am an unabashed extrovert. I am a genuinely happy person and in most cases – a totally open book. I also happen to have severe self-confidence issues about my body. Staying fat kept me well protected from dealing with unwanted attention. I have always been uncertain and nervous around men. Being fat kept me padded from comments or attention and was the perfect solution. I was not the pretty friend, I was the funny, kind friend who was the trustworthy side-kick. I could be happy and work hard and be confident about everything else in my life and yet successfully hide from the world in plain sight as a fat woman.

Ouch.

Getting to be grossly overweight is like the analogy of how to boil a frog. If you boiled a pot of water and then threw a frog in, it would immediately hop back out to safety. BUT if you took the same frog and placed him in a cold pot of water and turned up the heat gradually… You would wind up with perfectly boiled frogs’ legs. They don’t realize what’s happening. They don’t feel a need to jump to safety. They accept each passing moment as their new reality. It eventually kills them.

You get to be 392 pounds because you very slowly adapt and change to your increasing bulk. It never alarms you in the day to day. You just wake up one day and realize you weigh 392 pounds.  And it’s killing you.

It has taken years and miles of running and some blessedly patient friends with good listening skills to help me understand exactly how best to begin to answer this tough question…

*Work in progress. Stay tuned.*

I get asked a lot of questions about my journey in reversing type 2 (T2) diabetes and finding a healthy life.  LOTS.

They are probing, emotion-laden, frantic, rude, personal, funny.  They are never easy to answer. These are not casual questions, even if it might seem that way on the surface.

I began compiling a list of some of the FAQ’s and conversations starters that I have encountered these past 3+ years. The list is three pages long, single-spaced. I wasn’t kidding.  I told you… I get asked a lot of questions.

I also get asked at least weekly if I have a blog.

I do now.

I want to answer those questions. My answers are based only on my personal experience with this roller coaster of adopting a new lifestyle. I will be honest about the tough stuff that comes with mega-weight loss and battling T2 and learning to love being physically active.

Now for the disclaimer: I’m obviously not a doctor. I’m just a stubborn, former fat girl who decided she wanted something different. And started fighting for it.  And continues to chase it down each and every day. That’s all the credentials I can offer up.

I can talk about what it feels like to have a triple-digit weight loss staring you in the face.  I totally understand having tried every diet/pill/magic remedy no matter how ridiculous or questionable or unsafe. I know what it is like to be told to exercise when walking out to your car after work saps every spare ounce of energy you have left.  I will never forget the overwhelm when my doctor explained my T2 diabetes diagnosis, shoved packages of needles and syringes in my hands and let me walk out the door with no instructions on how to actually give myself an injection. I was told to ‘eat better’. Whatever in the hell that meant…  I mean my track record and the scale would prove that perhaps the judgement needed to ‘eat better’ was not one of my stronger skills.

There was no one to help me navigate those confusing and isolated paths. I would love to be the help or encouragement for someone that I really, really needed back when my health started to unravel. This is no way discounts my friends who never left my side.  But I desperately needed to talk to someone who had been in those 400 pound shoes. Someone to offer up a word of advice as I struggled to figure out a relationship with food that was overtly and ‘suddenly’ a poison to my T2 system. Someone to talk to me about starting to exercise when you wear 4X clothing.

How did you let yourself get so fat?

How did you learn to love running, because I absolutely HATE exercise?

So… Are you telling me that I can never eat ice cream/candy/cake/pie/pizza again?  Ever?

I have to lose so much weight this is impossible.

What’s your secret?  There must be some sort of secret…

I have found a scant handful of folks who have successfully reversed T2. And fewer folks who have lost significant amounts of weight and are successfully keeping it off.  (Surgical or not…)  It’s a lonely little club. Right now at least.

My new-found passion and quest in life?  Find others facing and battling T2.  Find others who are ready to tackle weight loss, want to learn to love exercise and understand that means they have to embrace radical lifestyle shifts.  I will help where I can with support and encouragement. I want to use what I have learned to HELP people.

I would love to grow this lonely little club into a freaking monster tribe of healthy and active friends.