First a clarification: I love my husband, no end.
But sometimes he can be a royal pain in the posterior.
Case in point: The weight I am trying to get rid of now I accumulated after moving in with him, over an extremely short period of time.
While there may be some people out there who got obese slowly, thus growing the muscles required to move the fat, along with the fat, I gained some forty-plus pounds over a period of three months.
All of it fat.
Suddenly, my muscles and bones had to carry the weight equivalent of two big full water buckets wherever I went.
Suddenly, even a few steps left me completely breathless.
Suddenly, even a short walk caused my feet to hurt like hell.
It would have been incredibly easy, at that point, to literally settle for an existence in oversized sweatpants and Birkenstock sandals, sitting on the sofa and spending my time surfing on the computer and eating. It would have been incredibly easy to just stop leaving the house, to just stop walking, to resign myself to watching life from the sidelines, instead of taking part in it.
Whenever I see pictures on the web of another poor soul unable to leave their house any more because of their weight, I know that this could, very easily, have been me. I know how close I was to the point of losing my mobility.
I had given up, almost.
My husband, who had been watching his wife turn from a companion on his excursions into an immobile, whining blob, kept pestering me.
He insisted we go out, and he coaxed me on to accompany him on his walks and excursions. We both love sightseeing in historical places, and he picked out places that did not allow driving there all the way by car.
So, I had to walk.
It hurt.
On several occasions, I just plunked down by the wayside and started to cry because my feet hurt so badly I literally couldn´t take another step.
After that, I got myself a pair of trekking sticks. And a pair of even bigger sneakers with cushioned insoles.
And I dragged myself on.
It was humiliating. Seeing old ladies passing me, walking faster than I was, without crutches, and realizing that I, without using some kind of crutch or other walking aid, wasn´t able to walk any more at all.
More than once, I wanted to give up.
There are plenty of pictures (did I mention Hubs is also the family paparazzo?) of me, clad in tentlike apparel, on crutches, and with an unhappy countenance, trying to make my way up some flight of stairs to a castle. I was so frustrated sometimes I ended up cussing at my dear husband, calling him names whereof "insensitive oaf" or "slavedriver" were the least.
But my husband, bless his soul, kept pestering me to go out and move, and when we were outside, he encouraged me, cheering me on every labored step of the way.
And slowly, my muscles grew. I did not lose any weight yet, as I was still overeating, but I stopped gaining, and I found that I could move better. I still needed those sticks, as my feet just weren´t build for carrying that weight, but with them, I walked.
I stayed mobile.
Of course, I got my fair share of teasing and hurtful remarks from strangers. For some people it´s irresistible to poke fun at a fat person on crutches.
But I knew I had a choice of being a fat person on crutches, walking, or a fat person who soon wouldn´t have been walking at all any more. And that made those crutches seem half as bad.
Only much later did I read an article on the web on weight loss surgery, and the doctor who wrote it described the case of a patient of whom he said "at a weight of x the patient had become immobilized and it would have been impossible for him to lose any weight on his own". The number where I have put the x was just 20 pounds higher than my top weight, and I know it would have been very easy for me to gain another twenty had I stopped moving around the way I do.
And that is why it was so good for me that my DH can be such a pain in the posterior. By making me move my fat a**, he kept me from that fate.
He never allowed me to give up. And that is why I owe a big part of where I am today to him.
He´s the most wonderful cheerleader I could imagine, and he is supporting me every step of the way.
Did I mention I love him?
And yes, I owe it to him as well as to myself to hang in. Promised.
Julia
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