This is a bit long, but well worth reading ...
Five years ago I never turned on the television before my feet touched the ground in the morning to see if it would be a good day to take a walk. I never walked over to windows at mid-day and looked outside hoping to take a walk after work. Five years ago, I never believed I could change the wretched life I was living weighing over 400 pounds. Walking changed my life.
I began to walk for two reasons. I read an article where a group of women had lost weight when they walked every day, even though they ate the same way, so I started to walk in case my diet failed. Secondly, I had an Alfred Hitchcock stomach, and I also read that walking was the only way you could reduce that hump. With both of those reasons pushing me out the door, I began to walk.
Walking was not something I embraced; I hated it. My anger over the mess I was in being morbidly obese escalated every time I tried to bend over and tie my sneakers, or put on “men’s” clothes to have something cover me while I walked. I headed to the park every day with an anger directed at everything, and everybody. I blamed the whole world for my weight problem; I believed I was the victim of their abuse.
I weighed around 325 when I started. Think of putting 50 pounds of potatoes on your back, 50 pounds around your waist, add another 50 pounds to your chest, and you can understand what a person 150 pounds overweight feels like, walking. I used to dedicate my walk every single day to someone who had hurt me. I was in so much pain trying to walk, I was not about to think of anything pleasant. Obesity is not a malady that just hurts physically; mentally you suffer twice as much.
It was late in winter when I began and I walked through rain, snow and freezing cold. Spring began to burst all around me. Mother Nature took a hold of me, and wouldn’t let go. She forced beautiful sunsets on my weary bones, gave me a soft breeze to cool me on hot days, and greeted me with a calmness every morning I had never experienced before. I was still alive, I was thinner, and the world around me was beautiful. My head began to calm down.
Step by step, I quit being so angry at everything and everybody, and I started to enjoy my new freedom. I loved how it made me feel. Foods, and all the problems I had with it, were miles away from me. I began to covet the time I could walk each day. I was beginning to heal.
A pattern began to emerge without even looking for it. I would get to the park frustrated with the day, start walking, and forget what was bothering me. Long walks made me wonder why I was so angry. Somewhere in that park I lost my anger at life. If I went to the park and had thoughts of eating myself to death with all of the food I had said “no” to that day, I was now basking in my victorious walk.
It was as if every day I won my own Olympic race. I was the only contestant, and I pushed myself to walk further and faster. Where I used to count park benches before I turned back, I was now calculating how many miles I had walked. My Ipod became my new best friend, and we set out every day to experience what a wonderful life I had missed for so many years.
It took me miles and miles of walking to ask myself, “Why did I ever let the power I gave food destroy so much of my life?” Today, I openly admit to being a compulsive overeater; a food addict. Walking enabled me to forgive people for the way I was treated weighing over 400 pounds, but even more important than that, I forgave myself for letting it happen.
Get some sneakers, find some flat land, and change your life, one step at a time. Give yourself time to heal from all of your past attempts at this never-ending war on obesity. Reach inside yourself and find out how strong you really are. It is not about the food, it is about the way you respond to life around you.
