The Turning Point(s)
One of the parts that I cut from the essay I submitted to the writer's workshop, about breaking up with food, that my readers wanted to know more about was the turning point, how I decided to finally say goodbye to that bad relationship.
For that instance, the turning point was finally getting myself to therapy, after a very miserable 5-ish years of post-pharmacy school life, at my heaviest non-pregnant adult weight. We started with movement, strictly from an endorphin perspective. My husband, who was not working at the time, and I would walk together early every morning, through our apartment complex and into the wooded area behind it. Not fast, especially not for him, with our 14 inch height difference, and I would usually listen to music on headphones. He was there as my security patrol, really; it was dark and there might be animals and I didn't want to go alone. It's not the first nor would it be the last time I relied on him to simply give me his presence so I could feel safe.
Eventually the walking got boring, and it got colder outside, and so we started run/walking on the treadmills in the complex's gym. He'd never run before, and neither had I, but we both seemed to like it, so we kept doing it. I wanted so badly to run outside once the weather got nicer, but the hills here were so hard for me. I was discouraged, but kept working on the treadmill, hoping to get faster and stronger.
The therapist and I worked on food issues. Food as a stand-in for love, food as community, food as comfort. We tried to reformulate my processes and plans for hard days and trying times. We worked on really tasting food. I stopped binge eating. I learned to cook better, and got in to the farmers market scene and locally sourced food.
About a year and a half into this work, we decided to move to Buffalo for 9 months so I could do a masters program there. And it was in Buffalo that the transition fully happened, where I ended my reliance on food and really got in to exercising.
The campus gym was really nice, free for me and super cheap for my husband. We went together nearly every morning to run, bike, or do the elliptical. He sometimes lifted weights. The terrain is flat, and my outside running ability blossomed. We ran an 8K. I was dead last, but I did it. I found a hot yoga studio I loved in the little hippie neighborhood, and sweated out my frustrations and tears in the 90 degree room and rigid series of poses. Though it was a very stressful time, I did probably the best job I've ever done at taking care of myself and putting myself first, and not relying on food to comfort me when shit got real. When we came home after those 9 months, we bought a CrossFit Groupon, and planned a half marathon for that fall.
I lost about 50 pounds over the two and a half years from when I left my first faculty job at East Tennessee State University until I got pregnant with our first son. I was able to go off two of my three blood pressure medications. My lipid panel was excellent. It was a great time, health-wise, for a pregnancy, but that wasn't my motivation. It was really the first time my motivation for exercising or eating well was internally, rather than externally, driven.
My family thought I'd lost my damn mind. None of them are runners, or really do any kind of activity for fun or recreation. I'd been told my entire life that I was not athletic, had no coordination, wasn't built for sport, that my gifts were all related to scholarly endeavors. I'd never win any races. Why wasn't I eating dessert, or having third helpings? Can't win, might as well eat the donut. The endorphins are real and helpful, though. Listening to music and running is a form of therapy, a moving meditation, for me, which is hard to explain to folks living a mostly unexamined life. This is one example of how our culture treats fat people trying to better themselves; for Christ's sake, why would my family not being encouraging of increased activity in whatever form makes me happy, since they had tried for years to get me to diet and exercise to lose weight? Why would anyone make fun of an overweight person in the gym? For my family, I think it was because my goal wasn't to explicitly lose weight. Inner peace doesn't count as a worthy goal.
This was a turning point. There were ones before, usually motivated by wanting a boyfriend or a certain item of clothing that only came in regular sizes in high school and early college, later by wanting to look better for my husband, or to finally achieve the all-powerful bliss that all unhappy fat girls assume that all thin girls possess. There were ones after, motivated by trying to regain equilibrium after the birth of each child and control the mood changes that accompanied them. There will likely be additional ones in years to come.
When I wrote the original piece while in Buffalo, I thought I was done. The battle over, the war won. Unfortunately, it's not so simple. Unfortunately, I see now that I will always struggle. It will always be hard, and I accept that. I've heard the saying, "The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.", attributed to Theodore Isaac Rubin (and later popularized in a slightly simplified form by that noble sage, Captain Jack Sparrow). If we all could solve our big problem once and for all, no one's weight would ever fluctuate; drug addicts wouldn't relapse, smokers would become non-smokers forever. It doesn't mean you stop trying to work on it, it means you accept this particular stone around your neck and find ways to lighten the load. Sometimes it will be heavier than other times. You'll have to find new, creative ways to ease the burden. We all have to do it; resistance to persistence and resilience is the problem, not whatever the stone is for you, and there's no point in feeling bad about it. Being disappointed in the outcome of your actions while not hating yourself for it is a new skill I'm working on; to love yourself in spite of, and perhaps because of, your challenges.
That may be the most important turning point yet...
For that instance, the turning point was finally getting myself to therapy, after a very miserable 5-ish years of post-pharmacy school life, at my heaviest non-pregnant adult weight. We started with movement, strictly from an endorphin perspective. My husband, who was not working at the time, and I would walk together early every morning, through our apartment complex and into the wooded area behind it. Not fast, especially not for him, with our 14 inch height difference, and I would usually listen to music on headphones. He was there as my security patrol, really; it was dark and there might be animals and I didn't want to go alone. It's not the first nor would it be the last time I relied on him to simply give me his presence so I could feel safe.
Eventually the walking got boring, and it got colder outside, and so we started run/walking on the treadmills in the complex's gym. He'd never run before, and neither had I, but we both seemed to like it, so we kept doing it. I wanted so badly to run outside once the weather got nicer, but the hills here were so hard for me. I was discouraged, but kept working on the treadmill, hoping to get faster and stronger.
The therapist and I worked on food issues. Food as a stand-in for love, food as community, food as comfort. We tried to reformulate my processes and plans for hard days and trying times. We worked on really tasting food. I stopped binge eating. I learned to cook better, and got in to the farmers market scene and locally sourced food.
About a year and a half into this work, we decided to move to Buffalo for 9 months so I could do a masters program there. And it was in Buffalo that the transition fully happened, where I ended my reliance on food and really got in to exercising.
The campus gym was really nice, free for me and super cheap for my husband. We went together nearly every morning to run, bike, or do the elliptical. He sometimes lifted weights. The terrain is flat, and my outside running ability blossomed. We ran an 8K. I was dead last, but I did it. I found a hot yoga studio I loved in the little hippie neighborhood, and sweated out my frustrations and tears in the 90 degree room and rigid series of poses. Though it was a very stressful time, I did probably the best job I've ever done at taking care of myself and putting myself first, and not relying on food to comfort me when shit got real. When we came home after those 9 months, we bought a CrossFit Groupon, and planned a half marathon for that fall.
I lost about 50 pounds over the two and a half years from when I left my first faculty job at East Tennessee State University until I got pregnant with our first son. I was able to go off two of my three blood pressure medications. My lipid panel was excellent. It was a great time, health-wise, for a pregnancy, but that wasn't my motivation. It was really the first time my motivation for exercising or eating well was internally, rather than externally, driven.
My family thought I'd lost my damn mind. None of them are runners, or really do any kind of activity for fun or recreation. I'd been told my entire life that I was not athletic, had no coordination, wasn't built for sport, that my gifts were all related to scholarly endeavors. I'd never win any races. Why wasn't I eating dessert, or having third helpings? Can't win, might as well eat the donut. The endorphins are real and helpful, though. Listening to music and running is a form of therapy, a moving meditation, for me, which is hard to explain to folks living a mostly unexamined life. This is one example of how our culture treats fat people trying to better themselves; for Christ's sake, why would my family not being encouraging of increased activity in whatever form makes me happy, since they had tried for years to get me to diet and exercise to lose weight? Why would anyone make fun of an overweight person in the gym? For my family, I think it was because my goal wasn't to explicitly lose weight. Inner peace doesn't count as a worthy goal.
This was a turning point. There were ones before, usually motivated by wanting a boyfriend or a certain item of clothing that only came in regular sizes in high school and early college, later by wanting to look better for my husband, or to finally achieve the all-powerful bliss that all unhappy fat girls assume that all thin girls possess. There were ones after, motivated by trying to regain equilibrium after the birth of each child and control the mood changes that accompanied them. There will likely be additional ones in years to come.
When I wrote the original piece while in Buffalo, I thought I was done. The battle over, the war won. Unfortunately, it's not so simple. Unfortunately, I see now that I will always struggle. It will always be hard, and I accept that. I've heard the saying, "The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.", attributed to Theodore Isaac Rubin (and later popularized in a slightly simplified form by that noble sage, Captain Jack Sparrow). If we all could solve our big problem once and for all, no one's weight would ever fluctuate; drug addicts wouldn't relapse, smokers would become non-smokers forever. It doesn't mean you stop trying to work on it, it means you accept this particular stone around your neck and find ways to lighten the load. Sometimes it will be heavier than other times. You'll have to find new, creative ways to ease the burden. We all have to do it; resistance to persistence and resilience is the problem, not whatever the stone is for you, and there's no point in feeling bad about it. Being disappointed in the outcome of your actions while not hating yourself for it is a new skill I'm working on; to love yourself in spite of, and perhaps because of, your challenges.
That may be the most important turning point yet...
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