Excuses – The Nails Used to Build a House of Failure

According to Don Wilder, “Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.” The box of nails, I was using to build my house of failure was filled to overflowing. I’m not saying the excuses I used weren’t good or even valid. For one thing, I have very poor genetics. I have a nonfunctioning thyroid and an autoimmune system disease that has become systemic and can somewhat be controlled, but not cured.
In addition, I was using food to cover up many emotional issues and pain. I almost skipped this part, but felt like it was extremely important for two reasons. One – we always seem to downplay or even doubt the importance of dealing with our emotions as it relates to long-term weight loss; and Two – I tend to avoid even discussing my emotional issues because I feel like it makes me look weak.

Everyone wants to feel loved and accepted. However, for most of my life that has been missing. As the oldest child in an alcoholic family, neither my parents nor my siblings accepted me. My mother always saw me as a rival and told me many times that she wished I had never been born. My father was also a rageaholic and I found myself trying to be more and more perfect to keep from making my father angry. It never worked. I found myself being a parent to my parents and to my siblings in order to keep the family going. My siblings resented this.

I met and married my husband when we were both 19. Both being very stubborn, strong-willed, and from very different backgrounds, we spent a good part of the first seven years of our marriage fighting – like cats and dogs. He decided, about 5 years into our marriage, to become a minister. And once again, I found myself trying to be perfect and fit into a mold made of everyone else’s ideas of what I should be rather than being myself. Once again, I spent a lot of time in a group without love or acceptance. And year after year, I become bigger and bigger and emptier and emptier inside.

At 298.5 lbs, I was miserable and starting to experience a multitude of health problems: I had high blood pressure, was diagnosed as prediabetic, and had unexplained water retention. I can gain 10 – 15 lbs easily overnight. My GP sent me to a heart specialist for a treadmill test to at least rule out heart problems as the cause of the water retention. As doctor’s who never have had a weight problem can be, he was ridiculously rude about my weight and suggested weight loss surgery as a solution, even though, ironically, my heart was actually fine. But for how long?

Not long after that, I was watching an episode of the Biggest Loser, snacking my little heart out (of course I was) and had an epiphany. I thought to myself, if they can do this, so can I. But I also knew that, like them, I couldn’t do it by myself. I have lost hundreds of pounds through the years and have always gained it back and then some. I wanted this to be my last journey down this path, so I sought help. I found a weight loss counselor for accountability and started down the path one more time, using diet and exercise as my method. Unfortunately, this particular program did not address the emotional issues that accompanied my weight problem. However, I received some counseling and discovered I was basically stuffing my emotions down with food.

In 15 months, I lost 120 pounds. I have learned that it is not so much what you achieve that matters, but what you overcome to achieve that counts. My journey has not been smooth. During my journey:
•I was not taking any medication for my thyroid nor my immune disease.
•I worked in an office that DAILY had junk food of every kind available and in plain sight.
•My husband was not participating with me in my eating plan.
•I was living in a small apartment and had to move furniture around and put it back every time I wanted to exercise.
•I became a grandmother for the first time. What? This is stressful!
•My husband of nearly 30 years died suddenly of a heart attack at age 49.
•I was forced to move twice after my husband’s death. I was living with a distant relative at their insistence. However, when the husband complimented my looks in front of his wife, I was invited to leave. Most of my family blamed me and now I am estranged from all of my family except from my youngest daughter.
•I had to quit my job because of ethical reasons.
•I moved from a city I liked back to my home in a small town I don’t care for (to a house that we could never sell because of the housing market).
•I was betrayed by friends who did tens of thousands of dollars of damage to my house yet managed to never pay any rent.
•I went through the holidays for the first time without my husband.
•I had an abnormal mammogram and a cancer scare.

In spite of it all, I am succeeding. I am slaying my emotional dragons. I realize that I am not the person these people have tried to say that I am. I know myself better than anyone and I am a loveable, worthy person. I have learned to not only accept myself, but love and appreciate myself for the wonderful, fantastic person that I am. (By the way, I have pretty much cried all the way through this.)

At a recent doctor’s visit, all of my blood work numbers were perfect – not just good, but perfect! My doctor said that it was hard to complain about my weight when all of my blood work showed that I was healthy. This just proves that a healthy lifestyle pays off on the inside even if it isn’t yet showing totally on the outside.

I have not lost any weight for more than 6 months, in spite of having 35 to 40 more lbs to lose, and exercising and eating healthy most of the time. And yet, I am not giving up – on myself, on others, and on life. No matter how long it takes me, I will continue on this journey until I reach my destination. I will do whatever it takes. After all, it’s not the destination that matters, but the journey.

I’ve also learned a lot of things so far on the journey:
•Losing weight will not automatically make me happy. I had to learn to love myself, no matter what, and fill my life with supportive loving people who appreciate me for who I am.
•Losing weight will not make everything in my life perfect, but it helps me to be better able to handle what life sends my way.
•Sometimes losing weight isn’t as simple as eating less and exercising more.
•Every day is a clean slate. I choose daily how I fill that slate.
•Focus on my goals and not my circumstances.

I want to end with this thought by Steven Grayhm, “Excuses are the tools with which persons with no purpose in view build themselves great monuments of nothing.” Don’t let anything stop you. Commit to do whatever it takes. You are worth it. You are a wonderful, loveable person. Don’t compare your journey to anyone else’s. It is uniquely yours. Enjoy the ride.