Hi there friends. I have so many things to be thankful for and don’t know where to begin. First of all, to 7&4 News, Arielle Berlin, Melissa Smith, Brody, Mark, Joe, Mark Watkins and the fabulous team for making my family and I feel so welcomed. You made me feel like more than just a news story, in fact, I felt like one of the team! My children had an experience that they will talk about for many years to come and your hospitality just confirmed to me what I already knew, 7&4 News is simply the best!
Now, about my journey … It is continuing with a year membership to Grand Traverse Athletic Club and continued support from Ryan the Magnificent, who has become more of a friend than a trainer. I can’t say enough about this man’s ability to relate to people like me, those desperate to seek change in their lifestyle yet needing compassionate guidance. Ryan, I love you like a brother! I cannot tell you enough how grateful I am to have such a strong advocate working beside me! We make a good team even when you are kicking my backside pushing me to run on the “stairs to nowhere”. I have been to other gyms, and it seems like I go there for a week or two get frustrated and stop going, but GTAC has become a home to me, one I will never leave! I never thought I would be comfortable working out anywhere but at our small gym at Baker College, but it looks like I have graduated to the “big gym”. I will never forget where I started though, and that first time I stared the treadmill down and decided to conquer my biggest challenge.
The stats are in, and by now I am sure you are aware that I lost a grand total of thirty inches since I started working out with Ryan. I lost thirteen inches in my chest, an entire foot in my waste and even an inch in my calf. That moment when Ryan took my measurements was beyond remarkable. I had tears in my eyes. It was proof positive that hard work and commitment will be fruitful and produce results. I am by far a happier person today than I was when I started this journey with 7&4, and even more since I began making a lifestyle change in May, 2012, a month before my dad passed away.
I have not talked significantly about what motivated me to begin my journey because I wanted to focus on the progress during Scaling Back but to date I have lost ninety-seven pounds…and counting! I began this journey with a medical scare. I was facing being possibly diabetic, which is the disease that was a continuous battle for my dad. I woke up one morning and hit my feet to the floor with such pain in my ankles and hips I nearly fell over. I looked in the mirror and said to myself “I am being conquered by a condition that is far deeper than simply liking food”. As I cried in self-pity I began to think to myself that the only way I was going to change my situation is to be vulnerable and ask for help.
A couple of days passed before I began to do some soul searching but in the mean time I began to start the only diet I knew to show results. I knew my weight was four hundred forty pounds because I had weighed on a doctor’s scale secretly during one of my children’s appointments but I was so ashamed I wouldn’t go to the doctor until I was below four hundred pounds. I look back now and regret waiting to go see my doctor, Doctor Holmes, a doctor superior to none other! He and his nurse Misty were so kind to me and sympathetic they gave me the courage to continue-begin this journey!
My next step was reaching out to a friend. I speak about her often because I am so blessed to have her in my life. I remember the day I first texted Danette and told her I had begun a journey and wanted her to come along. I knew she was wise when it came to weight loss and exercise and I wanted to do things right this time, I wanted to somehow rally a team of supporters that wouldn’t judge me but that I could count on to encourage me. I didn’t have much to offer her, I was the one seeking her help, but what she offered me is a gift of friendship, support, and understanding that can only be spoken of as miraculous. She is my angel.
As my process began I started to realize that this journey was going to be emotional because I was changing a relationship with food that had brought me comfort since childhood and to myself, I had personified food with so many different emotions that it became a coping mechanism for just about every struggle I had faced in life. Food for comfort, food for grief, food for depression, food for rejection, food for loneliness, food for thought…and somehow I was going to have to fill that void inside me in order to successfully lose weight. Danette told me that exercise would be a perfect way to fill that void but exercise is work! It was another month (a few days after my daddy’s funeral) that I made that step into the gym at Baker College.
Physically I was doing everything right. The next step in the process was probably the hardest for me! I have said before that people don’t get to be four hundred and forty pounds just because they love food and I was discovering many reasons that food had become a vice for my emotions. In a quest to regain myself, I sought help from a professional counselor that I trusted. As I began to remove the layers of protection I had put in place I noticed that my body was following suit. There is nothing shameful about asking for help! I love psychology, I have a degree in Social Work, yet weeding through my own personal baggage brought more freedom to me than losing one-hundred pounds could ever do. It has also given me the strength I need to confidently help others who find themselves in my situation.
Scaling back has given me a voice that I never thought I would have. I am humbled at my meek beginnings. I am a daughter of a preacher, we are not a family of wealth, and we have fought for everything we have. There were times our family struggled but by the grace of God we never went without. Until Scaling Back I was just another person living in Northern Michigan going about my daily business striving to raise my family but now it’s time to pay it forward because this journey has awakened a passion inside me to help others who are in the shoes that I replaced with my running shoes the day I began this hard voyage to self discovery.
I will continue blogging for 7&4 for as long as they will have me, and will continue to give you updates on my progress as I begin to reach out to others along the way. I have a long way to go. I have several more pounds to lose, and then face surgery to remove the skin (which I refer to as battle scars) from my body. I want to be a Danette to someone who needs an encouraging friend! I want to be the Ryan to someone who needs guidance and a little advice, and I want to finish conquering my battle with weight!
I am but one face of many struggling like I am. I only have one chance to live life and I want to do it helping others just like my daddy did! There is a drive and passion inside of me that burns with the fuel of opportunity to touch the lives of others. I want to show you, just like Ryan, Danette, and Dr. Holmes showed me that with a little bit of help and a lot of hard work… Dreams do come true!
So…I bet you thought I wasn’t going to give you an assignment this week, but that would be completely out of character for me so here it is...
Do one thing this week out of character for you to show someone what they mean to you! Pay it forward with a nice big smile to someone who needs a friend, and continue with me on this journey of self-discovery and change.
I love you all,
To be continued…
Misty
