Weight loss a world — or rather an ocean — away

Only twice in my life have I been fortunate to experience happiness so profound that it caused me to both laugh and cry at the same time. Such happiness is unforgettable.

I remember precisely what caused it, both times, but it’s one particular instance of this that led me to one of the most amazing experiences in my life and one of the most amazing physical transformations that I have experienced thus far.

I was sitting on the couch, letter in hand. I was almost afraid to open it because only a short time before it I had another such letter in hand that shattered my heart to a million different pieces and I hadn’t yet gotten completely over the heartbreak.

I had sent out a single application to a single organization for a scholarship to study abroad as a foreign exchange student. I got the letter in response shortly thereafter. The tears poured out of my eyes as my heart broke. Rarely have I ever experienced such a level of heartbreak as I experienced at that moment — that moment when I read my rejection letter.

As it turned out, all of the available scholarships that year had been awarded prior to the application deadline because of the number of applications the organization received that year. I was crushed. And I thought it was the end of my story, but it was not.

They liked my application, and if memory serves, the letter sent to me said as much, but didn’t they probably say that to all the rejected candidates? Either way, I didn’t have a scholarship.

The new letter I held in my hands while sitting on the couch of one of my childhood homes was from another foreign exchange organization. It said so on the envelope. I hadn’t contacted anyone else. I wondered what was inside.

Nervously I opened it.

“Congratulations!” it read. I don’t know how much further I got before erupting in my hysterical bout of both laughing and crying. I had been awarded a scholarship for a full year’s study abroad in the country of my choice with an organization I hadn’t even applied to.
Germany.

I chose Germany.

That choice was one of the most amazing choices I have made in my entire life. It was an experience that transformed me in so many ways.

But one of those ways was a physical transformation.

When I arrived in Germany in July of 1992, I weighed about 220 pounds and wore a plus-sized 22/24. I was no small foreign exchange student.

I was reminded of that almost immediately as I was initiated into the German lifestyle during my first month in Germany.

Having to walk to the train and back to get to class every day and then another long walk to get to the place where I would get my cafeteria lunch with all of the other exchange students, I had a hard time keeping up. And oh, the blisters that formed on my feet as a result.

Then I lost the student train pass that was issued to me and for one reason or another, I wasn’t able to get another. My trek to school suddenly became all that more difficult as I had to power my own way to school.

I didn’t walk, but I did ride a bike that my host parents fixed up for me. Riding on the bike trail that ran alongside the Autobahn proved to burn quite a few calories and it showed me just how out of shape I really was. Riding a bike uphill to get back home was brutal, even though it was only mildly hilly to get to where I was living at the time — Agathenberg, Germany.

Eventually as I moved on to other parts of Germany (Mistorf, Niederhausen and Schafbrücke), I went back to riding the train and riding busses as my primary way of getting around, but to do that, I still had a significant amount of walking.

Walking perhaps up to 5-6 kilometers before the day was out, because I not only made my way to school and back, I was determined to explore every nook and cranny of Germany that I could, leaving me to walk quite a bit each day.

I didn’t even notice it so much at first. I was losing weight. I didn’t weigh myself. After all, kilograms made little sense to me and I didn’t need too many excuses to avoid weighing myself.

By the time I reached the following spring, my clothes started to get baggy. Then I was aware of my weight loss, but just how much, I wouldn’t quite know until I would come back home.

I tried stepping on a scale. I can’t remember what it said precisely, but I was somewhere between 75 and 78 kilograms that day. But I just got off that scale wishing that I had a scale from back home, a scale that I wouldn’t have to do math with to figure out where I stood. I didn’t know how many kilograms a person was supposed to weigh, how many I had been and what I should have been at the time.

Now I do the math, years later, and I weighed somewhere between 165 and 170 pounds. The food I ate often came out of the garden, at least the vegetables. I discovered a vegetable called kohlrabi, a vegetable I love to this day and fortunately can find quite easily.

I ate well while I was in Germany — healthy foods and healthy portions. I didn’t have to try to lose weight. It just melted off of my body like butter exposed to fire.

One of my host mothers took on the task of taking in my jeans. I didn’t ask her to, but I think it might have embarrassed her to see me walking around wearing clothes that were clearly getting ready to fall off my ever-shrinking body.

My jeans fit very well after they were altered, although she altered the early-90’s cuff out of them too. Each day I would very precisely cuff my jeans, which were too long for my short stature.

A lot of people did this back home around that time as a fashion statement and I was no exception to that rule. I think that probably made me stick out of the crowd in Germany as an American amongst Germans though. I don’t remember anyone else cuffing their jeans like I did.

I got over the loss of my jean cuffs though. My jeans no longer threatened to end up around my ankles, so I was good.
I bought a couple new shirts shortly before returning home that fit better than the shirts that I once wore.

I remember the day that I returned home, me in my altered jeans and wearing one of my new shirts. I was no longer a size 22/24 anymore. I was no longer in the 20s in fact.

I didn’t know what I was at first, but the shirt I was wearing was an XL. Not a 2XL or a 1XL. I was just an XL. That felt good.

My father, waiting at the airport for my arrival was the first person to lay eyes on me. Wow. What had happened to me? I apparently looked great. My father seemed to think so anyway. I felt smaller. I knew I was smaller too, and more athletic.

It’s hard to escape a lifestyle like that and a year’s worth of gym classes filled with only track and gymnastics without at least improving my fitness a little bit.

I could run. It was the only time in my life I could say that. By the time I came back, I could run and I could do a lot of things.

It’s not surprising though. When I finally stepped on the scale at home, I weighed 170 pounds. I had lost 50 pounds in a year without even trying to.

Everyone else that saw me after my arrival back home seemed to be impressed by my changes. I was a new person with a new lease on life.

However, somewhere along the way I have lost that, sad enough to say.

As I look back at that time, now that I weigh approximately 382 pounds, I long for the kind of freedom I attained back then. I want to be so light on my feet that I can run again. If I had only not taken for granted the blessing that year gave me in terms of better health and a smaller waistline, maybe I would have maintained it.

Now if I ever regain that lost waistline and regain my ability to run by losing the weight, I’m pretty sure that I’ll never take that ability for granted ever again. And I will run.

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If you want to follow my weight-loss journey, read about it occasionally in my column, “Healthy steps” or you can watch my weight-loss journey unfold and show your support by liking the page https://www.facebook.com/GretchenGetFit on Facebook or following me on Twitter @GretchenGetFit. Contact the writer at gbalshuweit@thedailyreview.com.

Healthy steps is written by Gretchen Balshuweit, news editor and now health and wellness page columnist for The Daily Review in Towanda, Pa. as she pursues her own journey to health and wellness in hopes of losing a total of 200-250 pounds of excess weight