Overcoming Me

One day my soul woke up - and it was fat! It didn’t happen overnight. I wasn’t always fat. I had spent the last eleven years eating emotionally. It started with my husband’s death. We had been newlyweds. Emotional eating stayed with me long after my wounds began to heal and even after I remarried. It had become a habit. I had a clue that I was hurting myself, but I felt powerless to overcome it. Food held control over my life, but I was ready to live differently. There was a glimmer of hope that my life could be different. Then Spark People showed up with a soft knock and an invitation, “Can Audri come out and play?” This began a journey of self-discovery I never could have imagined. See, I didn’t realize my personality and my future were being slowly buried!

Spark People helped me realize for the first time that to be successful I had to make some serious changes. It wasn’t enough to make a New Year’s resolution and hope for the best. I had to truly commit myself to being different, but first I had to believe it was possible. There were some things I knew to be true, so that is where I began. I knew I had not always been fat. I knew others had overcome even greater weight obstacles than mine. Mostly, I knew that through my faith, I could lean on a very special promise – “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,” Philippians 4:13, if this is something God is bringing me to. After acknowledging these things, I felt prepared to commit myself to whatever it took to conquer myself. Within a week, I came to understand there were four strategies I would need to use to set myself up for success.

First, I had to honestly assess my battle with food. My “if they don’t see me eat it, it doesn’t count” attitude had to go! Using the nutrition tracker, I took a close look at my food choices, and my eyes were opened! Over time, I chose to eliminate caffeine, table salt, alcohol, sodas, and excessively high-fat, high-calorie foods from my nutrition plan. Some were harder to let go than others, but one by one they fell by the wayside in exchange for healthier options.

Second, I had to stop hiding my struggle. Those who loved me had known all along anyway – my size 18 wasn’t a good disguise. I was only fooling myself. I realized I had fallen into a habit of secretly losing a little weight with the hope that others would notice. When the loss wasn’t noticed, I would become discouraged and eventually quit. I decided to try a different approach and bring my family and friends into the program with me. This way, I was encouraged and held accountable. Eventually, I joined a team and even started one of my own.

Third, I had to have goals to work toward. I set concrete short, medium, and long-range goals based on my interests. Some I knew were attainable, like doing cardio four days each week. Some were a stretch for me, but also attainable with hard work, like climbing Mt. Fuji. I needed to have something on the horizon to aim at, a target. It was important to have it close enough that I could focus on it, unlike looking at my overall weight loss goal. If I had begun by focusing on losing the whole 70 pounds, I would have become overwhelmed and possibly quit.

Fourth, I set a concrete plan in motion to help me succeed. I wrote out my plan on my Spark Page to keep myself accountable. This included making my nutrition and fitness trackers public, so others could see what I was tracking. I devoted myself to following my plan, even on the days when I wanted to quit. I determined there were only two choices: to quit or keep going – and quitting wasn’t an option.

Along the way, a funny thing happened. I found myself! Each honest step I took loosened the control food had on me. Once I began to see the fruits of my labor I realized that I could have done it all along. I had been making excuses and giving away my freedom to choose a better life. Through overcoming the old me, I realized that my personality had been stifled. I wasn’t energetic enough to be on the outside the person I was on the inside. Now, I have a zeal that was lost for years. I am alive! I’ve even tackled new physical challenges and along the way come to think of myself as an athlete. That’s amazing to me!

Perhaps the greatest consequence of my weight loss (59 lbs. to date) is that I have the ability to speak into the lives of others in a meaningful way. I never thought I would see the day when others would call me an inspiration. Living as a fat person enabled me to relate to the “fat struggle.” I guess those eleven fat years weren’t completely wasted after all.