For about a year I’ve been writing the Healthy Steps column. I did this as I took upon me a weight-loss journey with a goal of losing somewhere between 200-250 pounds.
It’s time for me to face up to how I’ve done over the past year and it’s not good.
Those that have been following my column may remember that I took upon myself this goal after having already lost 57 pounds in a previous weight-loss effort and then regaining 94 thereafter, bringing me up near 420 pounds at the start of this current weight-loss effort.
I knew I needed to do something, so I set out to do just that.
My failure at the previous effort was quite frustrating to me.
My current difficulties are just as frustrating, although fortunately I’m still under my highest weight, even if not by much.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been asking myself, “What is going on? Why am I having so much difficulty?” It just doesn’t seem fair.
I haven’t given up. Yes, I’ve screwed up from time to time, and yes, I’ve encountered some challenges of one sort or another, but I haven’t given up.
In the midst of seeking answers to the questions last week, I had a dream one night as I slept. In the dream I was praying. Three words came out of my mouth as I prayed with a surge of power I can hardly describe, and those three words were these: “Heal your heart.”
It’s a dream I doubt that I’ll ever forget because those three words I believe are very important to me right now — important to the success of my weight loss and important for my life in general.
The truth is, I have been praying. I’ve been praying about what has been going on in my life and asking God for help.
Whether or not this dream is an answer from God or simply a function of my subconscious, I will not argue the point with anyone. The point is this is a message that I needed. These words are important. It’s true. I need to heal my heart.
It’s been difficult for me to lose weight, so difficult that after losing about 32 pounds or so in my current weight-loss effort, I ended up regaining most of it in some yo-yo like pattern with a steady upward swing.
Something is wrong. Something is clearly wrong and I know what it is.
I wanted to write about it, at least for myself, to somehow deal with the feelings that I had. I did write about it at first not knowing if it was for my eyes only or not, and considered publishing it. I wasn’t sure if publishing what I wrote would be freeing or not. I wasn’t sure if it would be something that I would have rather hid away from public eyes, so I did not publish what I wrote.
So here I am, struggling again, day to day, struggling with the same things that I did before, and I whatever I do now, I need to be free from the struggles that have held me back. And so I will not write about what happened to me, but I will write about the effect, because the effects have had a profound impact upon my life.
A while back, years ago in fact, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
There’s a reason for that. I’m not going to say precisely what it is, but I have been through some things in my life that I would rather have not gone through. In fact, that’s a bit of an understatement.
I used to cry a lot about what I had been through. Once trauma set in, I couldn’t eat for a little while. Even water made me sick. I didn’t even know that drinking water could make a person sick until it happened, and it did. Water made me want to vomit.
Then I started to eat again. When I could finally hold down food, it was like food was this powerful thing that could make pain go away, even though it was only for a little while.
Flashbacks had me flinching and jumping like a scared rabbit. I used to jerk or shake my head when I would have a flashback, as if doing so would somehow magically make it all go away.
Food was my mood-altering drug.
For years I sought help because I knew I needed it in a very big way.
I talked to this person and that person and nothing seemed to help. In fact sometimes it seemed worse because I had to rehash things I didn’t want to think about.
I didn’t give up seeking help though, and for that I’m glad. Finally, I found someone who specialized in dealing with the stuff I was dealing with. Going through the proper therapy was like finding a magical cure. My flashbacks were gone. I felt so much better.
I was ready to make some changes in my life, or so I thought. When I started out on my previous journey to lose that 57 pounds that I would eventually regain and nearly double, I thought I was ready then to lose the weight.
And now, after restarting my journey a year ago, I’m only nine pounds or so under my highest weight.
After that dream I had a week or so ago with the message that I needed to heal my heart, I can’t seem to shake that there’s one more thing yet that I need to do. I believe that to heal my heart, I need to let go of the irrational fears that I’ve developed as a result of what’s happened to me. Those fears developed quite logically, but became irrational almost immediately. I need to face those fears and let myself feel them without trying to cover up the feelings that arise by eating food. I need to let my coping mechanism go, and I need to let those fears go along with it.
It’s been hard for me to lose weight because it’s hard to face the feelings that my weight is hiding.
The other day when I realized what was going on, I cried. I cried like I used to years ago, only this time when I cried, it was different. I wasn’t crying because of what I went through. I was crying because of the effects of what I had gone through had on me. I cried because living like this is hurting me. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not just.
My job isn’t so easy sometimes because of what I went through. Sometimes I have to put stories in the paper that remind me of my own story and that’s not easy to see.
I try to remember to say a silent prayer in those moments when those stories come up because I know the pain of the people who have experienced the same things that I have.
And their tears, which I’m sure there are plenty, I pray that God dries them.
For me, it’s time for me to be strong, to move forward, and to heal.
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to lose the weight, but I just didn’t know that it would be so hard.
While I’m in the process of healing, I think I will be more open about what I weigh and what I’m losing. It will help me to have a real, in-the-face reminder of how I’m really doing, weight-loss and otherwise.
It’s the only thing that I know definitely to do right now. The rest may take a bit more figuring out because healing one’s heart isn’t always so simple, and facing fear is not so easy because I’m still learning to let go.
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 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.
