The Proverbial Wagon

**DISCLAIMER: I have had a couple of drinks tonight and probably should NOT be writing, however, I have wanted to write about this for a while but have not. I have let other things stop me and in this moment I simply don’t care to let those things bother me, so write I will. I have not written about this because on the one hand I didn’t want Demond to know I was upset or struggling at all and because I don’t want to even appear to talk bad about someone I love dearly. But the truth is, blogging/writing helps me process. This blog started out for me as a place to process and I am not about to let the thought that he MIGHT read this interfere with what I do to process my life.

Short Story: Since just after Nashville, I am officially no longer training with Demond, although the reality is that the breakup probably occurred 2 weeks before Nashville 2011.

Long Story: I don’t even know how to write out this saga without getting really upset because the truth is, I am not completely sure what happened. I mean, I know the facts but none of it makes sense and I have spent the last few weeks sad and discouraged and trying to figure out what I did wrong and how I could fix it all. But the reality is, I don’t think I did anything wrong. I questioned my trainer and asked for clarification on some things. That is all. And somehow, that was the wrong thing to do.

I have gone from grieving the loss of not only another trainer, but someone I thought was a friend, someone who said we were family and that we work through things together. Someone who said they would be with me in my journey until the end…and now they are not…and I am no longer sad about this. I am pissed off.

I am angry that things happened the way they did. I am angry that he did not seem to want to try to work things out. I am angry that his last communication to me was to never speak to him again. I am angry that I put so much trust in one person. I am angry that I didn’t trust myself more along the way. But mostly I am angry that I have let this situation…derail me.

Picture the proverbial wagon. I am in the wagon, riding along…everything seems fine, then out of no where, I am told I am unfocused and that I am doing things that are counterproductive (running) to my goals.

In trying to understand what was meant by these statements all sorts of drama unfolded. I hung tight in my seat though on this wagon, through Nashville, because I WAS focused. I was focused on living a healthy lifestyle and LIVING an active life.

As I continued to ride though, I was forced to make a decision about whether I wanted to continue to train with Demond or not and I chose not to. I know it seems like a big jump to go from having questions to deciding to leave him but there is ALOT I am not saying…and the issue for me came down to trust. I no longer trusted him…and how can you work with someone on such an intimate struggle without that?

I still clung to that wagon, although I was now bouncing around in the back with no driver in the seat. I was in a runaway wagon that was no longer on a clear marked path…and I got bounced out. I went to my all time comfort of food to cope as I sat in the dust and licked my wounds and felt sorry for myself. I cried. I placed blame on myself and others. I ate. Uncontrollably. It has been YEARS since I have been this bad on this front.

And now, I am pissed off. While the choices I have made since getting bounced out of the wagon are absolutely mine to own, the stuff leading up to it, was not mine. I have carried it long enough.

It all ends here. I am standing up and chasing after that blasted wagon. I have an appointment scheduled with a potential new trainer next week. His words have brought hope to me as we have communicated by email so far.

And I am cautiously optimistic. There is a TON of questions to be answered before I sign on with any new trainer…but I am actively looking…and in the meantime…I start again on a good plan tomorrow morning of healthy eating and living. I know enough about exercise and nutrition to get started…again.

What is that up ahead in the distance? Is that MY wagon??

It’s On Me!

A few posts ago, when I couldn’t sleep and I was spiraling downward, I wrote a blog full of questions.  Questions I didn’t feel like I had anything close to answers to in that middleofthenightIamsoexhaustedIjustwannasleepbutcan’t moment.

Well, I spent last week coming out of my funk and being incredibly busy every night with everything but working out. Then I went “home”, home being where my heart is happiest, to GR for the weekend. I spent 2.25 days soaking up the love of friends.  I breathed deep and inhaled the knowledge that my heart and mind had forgotten or misplaced or something…

No matter my size, I am loved.  Deeply and dearly. I am loved enough to be pushed on an 8 mile run by Ben, who for 2 hours and 21 minutes become a pseudo Demond.  Questioning my heart rate and pushing me up hills and making me run when I wanted to walk and not letting me quit when it got painfully hard. I am also loved enough to have my identity challenged, or at least the number I seem to identify with challenged.  Loved enough to be encouraged to think of myself bigger than a number.

I am loved enough to have my perspective on my life challenged(by Coach) in that what I see and experience as all-consuming and awful and total failure, is not.  In fact, Coach is amazing at remembering (when I don’t) my accomplishments.  Regardless of the struggle, I have still kept off what I have lost already for longer than I ever have before.  I have faced some pretty big monsters in my closet and lived to tell about it and probably will have more to face, and I will live to tell about those too.   I have and continue to do more than most other 300 lb women.  I continue to get up when I fall down.

I am loved enough to be kicked out of GR when it is time for me to go but I don’t want to.

2.5 hours there and back with lots of time to think without distracting myself with other things.  Plus a great weekend with everyone left me space to think about my commitment.   I thought about the past few weeks of little to no working out, factored in the time of being sick and gave myself grace for that, and an answer to one of my questions from that crazy night blog post began to form in my mind.

Who AM I and what am I about? Where is my commitment?

It is easy to get sidetracked on this journey.  There are 1000 ways of doing this thing and not one is more right or more wrong than the other.  It is also easy to get distracted by other people’s stories and how “seemingly” easy it is for them, while I sit and whine about how hard I have to work.   I thought about mentioning a few particular bloggers I have read who seem to have it easy, but decided, I don’t know enough about their stories to claim it as easy.  Their struggles are simply different from mine.

It is easy to get lost on this road folks, even when you have a detailed map.  I know I joke about LIKING to get lost in the woods on runs, and I DO love that, but I really hate when I seem to wander off the path that has been so clearly laid out for me (by Demond).  I wander so far off course, that I question everything and then getting back on the right path seems hard.   It is like I lost the map, forgetting the course we laid out in the beginning that would get me to where I want to be.  You know, things like, how many calories do you want me burning a day?  What HR do you want me at?  How many calories am I eating a day?

And….apparently I get lost in my blog writing too, because I was supposed to be answering a question.

Who Am I, what am I about and where is my commitment?

I am Kim and I am a pretty amazing person who loves big and therefore hurts deep.  I am passionate about becoming fit and healthy and living a long life.  I love doing all sorts of active things and discover new ones all the time that I never knew I would like.  I love people and draw energy being around them.  I am a person who loves helping others and making them happy.  I don’t like to disappoint people or let them down.

FOr now, at this time in my life, I am about setting the stage for a healthy life. From now until I reach this goal, this is my focus. This is where my energy needs to be focused at and at the same time I need to have balance and enjoy friendships in my life that are life-giving.  I need to be open to creating here, what I have in GR, with new people, which will require being willing to trust new people more and more and to be willing to share with them like I do with the folks in GR…and to be willing to invest into their lives as well.  No more holding back.

Where is my commitment?  It is right here.  It had gotten off track a bit though. I think for a while my commitment shifted to a mentality of playing it safe.  Playing not to lose instead of going all out and playing to win. I was doing just enough to hold steady and to not raise suspicions. Doing a lot of chattering but not following it up with the actions. I think also, my commitment shifted from being to myself first and shifted to being to Demond or to Coach or Aaron. I became about not disappointing them.  On some level I fought to keep going because I know how much time and energy they have invested in me and how can I not keep going after all of that?  Well folks, in this journey, that kind of commitment doesn’t work.  All it does is create a space of dishonesty or half truths…and doing just enough.

What I am realizing though, is that this is NOT their journey. While they love me and are willing to walk with me and encourage me, they can’t do the work for me.  They cannot give me the want to.  This is ultimately my journey and it is on me to complete it in a manner that brings honor to their sacrifice of time and energy spent on me and with me. (mind you, they would not see what they have done as a sacrifice).

So my commitment has to be to me.  I have to stand in my commitment of health for me and me alone and while I am not standing alone, it is my stand. It is my Journey.  My results.  My Responsibility.  It’s on me.

It is on me to let Demond know what I need.  It is on me to workout whether he is around or not and to push myself beyond my comfort zone.  It is on me to get enough sleep each night and to plan all of my meals out so I hit the calorie goals.  It is on me to read my map and to snap right back on course when I go off.

This is not about perfection.  It is about getting it done.

So, Demond, I know I have been oh so not fully committed the last little bit as I figured some things out…but I am all in now, my friend.   Will you still walk with me?

Coach and Aaron, I know I don’t even need to ask…I know you are with me till the end even as you head to NYU or get married…thanks boys…love you so much I don’t have enough words to express it!

Life At 138

Yesterday I decided.  I am 138. I told Demond.  So of course it is all official, whatever the heck that means.  He said he is good with it, but I have to be committed to it too.

Sigh.

Today, I am realizing I have no freaking clue what it means to live like I am 138.And I am mildly freaking out.  Not crazy, just more wondering what this is all going to look like.

I don’t want to simply add-on a lengthy to do list that I will likely NEVER be able to do perfectly and will therefore end up stressed out as I strive ever so hard to live a 138 life.

Nor do I want this to just be a Jedi mind trick(although if it works I suppose who cares if it is a Jedi mind trick or not, right).

I know, I am a pretty self-aware person.  I know I have a tendency to over analyze and over “do” things instead of letting things just be and simply having fun with it, whatever “it” is.

I wonder how one lives as 138 while looking in a mirror and not seeing 138 and I have just given up all control of my numbers to Demond, at least for now, although he has said until the end of time.(wow, that was a long run-on sentence) How do I evaluate goals if I don’t know?  How do I measure success or the lack thereof? Have I just switched one number identity for another one?  Is that ok?  Why would I do that anyway? Oh yes, because 138 girl probably lives the kind of life I want to live…more so than 300+ girl…

Yes, I am slightly freaking out about this AND I am trying to let it go and let it be…I think if I just knew what it takes to live life at 138 I would be fine…

or not.

I know.  This post makes absolutely no sense.

So,  I have scheduled a session with Demond for before I go to GR(yes folks, I am going home for a much-needed retreat) for the weekend and I have asked for time to be left for a conversation.

I am compiling some questions and thoughts for him…mainly about expectations, a plan of action and what the heck does life at 138 look like??

Seriously folks, the last time I was 138 I was probably 10 years old. So how does that translate and look as a 5’7″ woman….

oye,

Demond, I am not stressing…ok maybe a little….which might explain that donut today….but…I promise, I am looking for the fun in this too….and you can’t blame me…I am a control freak giving up control to you….me..a girl who doesn’t trust easily…especially men….am placing my trust in you and really working to do so fully…sooo please give me some room for questioning, ok?

 

A Good Day!

While last Saturday ended on a less than pleasurable note, it started amazing…

I met with Demond at 6 AM for our weekly session where he let me do kickboxing for a WHOLE hour!  It is always a treat when we do this workout because I have so much fun with it and while it is hard work, it doesn’t feel like it.  Not to mention, we have NEVER done a full hour before.  Usually he starts me out on something else to warm up.  This session was extra special because he wore a vest so that I could hit him in the gut!  I know.  I am awful.  Apparently I like to hit people, but only when they won’t get hurt.

At the end of the session, Demond weighed me in.  No folks.  I am STILL not under 300.  But he SWEARS that it was a GREAT week.  I was having trouble believing him at this point so we had a conversation.  This is the net results.

• he only counts things as losses if it is .8 or above. (thank goodness because I thought he was counting .2 losses as losses.) We both agree, any loss less than .8 can just be a good ole bathroom break.
• I did not start with him at a different weight than I thought I did.  Fur a while I was thinking I must have started with him higher than I thought I did, which would have been devastating to find out.
• Finally, apparently my first weigh in after Christmas I had a 3 lb gain…which meant ground to make up.  But I didn’t know that.

It is amazing how understanding that last piece really helped bring some balance to my brain about the numbers because it wasn’t making sense to me how I could NOT have lost 10 lbs in the time I have been with him.  I had him text my numbers to Coach and Aaron.  I knew that they would NEVER reveal the actual numbers to me because that is our agreement, however, I was counting on their REACTION to the numbers to really know whether it was a good week or not.

For the record, it was a REALLY good week!

From there, I went off for a run with a girl I met through Demond.  We were supposed to run 7 miles, but the trail we headed on was treacherously icy.  We ended up getting off of it and meandering through some neighborhoods for a while.  7 miles turned 3 miles or so.

We finished that up and I headed back to Demond’s studio for a pretty intense sports massage.  All of this and it isn’t even 10:30 AM yet!

The massage was Demond’s suggestion since the prior week, he went to stretch me and my one hip wouldn’t budge at all.  I am used to tight hips when I run, but he said getting them loosened up then doing proper stretching to keep them loose will make my running that much more enjoyable. I listened and had him schedule me with his girl.

I tell you….that was the most painful massage I have ever had…but it worked.  It was also the most amusing.  Demon’s clients often tease him about his music selection for workouts.  It is not uncommon for us to have to endure Boy George during a workout.  So I am laying on the massage table, which is in a room right off of the workout studio and I suddenly here none other than…Johnny Cash come on….we just giggled away in there…

On Sunday, I woke up and between the beating your body takes when you hit somebody for an hour and being beaten up by a massage….I felt battered and bruised.

ANyway, after the massage…I headed to Flint for G.I.Jess’s baby shower!

Yes! You remember G.I Jess, right?  My first ever trainer?  Love her.  Miss her. So excited for her to be a momma!

 

I swear she has a little basketball in her shirt, cuz she has not gained ANYTHING but that baby!

 

All of this wonderful goodness happened..before I went to that club and had to stab a creeper with a drumstick!

It was a great day!  I think I met Demond’s latest bit of instruction for me…HAVE FUN!

Leches And Hearthache

Yesterday was quite the day. It started at 4:45 AM and ended at 3 AM for me.   99% of this day was amazing…I will write about the amazing later though.

I was going to write this post and call it “A Letter To A Lech”.  I was going to kind of poke fun at a situation I found myself in last night but the more I think about the situation, there really is nothing too funny about it at all.  It is rather heartbreaking and sad really.  (Some words in this post will be intentionally mis-spelled to prevent certain search terms from coming up when certain words are searched for.)

Let me explain.

Facebook has been a wonderful tool for re-connecting with people for the yester years.  Recently, I reconnected with an old friend from my diaper days. Our moms were good friends in the neighborhood I grew up in and  I wouldn’t be surprised if someone somewhere has pictures of us kids bathing together.  I have not seen this family for at least 17 years, so when the one guy, Doug, found me on FB and we started talking I was quite excited.

Last night was a party at a bar for one of the siblings wives, so really the whole family would be there which would be a great chance for me to see everyone all at once. Doug and I figured we would go, do some dancing, hang out, have a couple of drinks and re-connect.

Well, we got there to find this was not really that kind of bar for one.   This bar was a show bar.  The bartenders/wait staff’s job was to entertain you with their antics, get you loud and rowdy and as drunk as possible so you spend more money.   There wasn’t really a dance floor, people danced on their bar stools.

Backing up a bit, before we got there, I told Doug that I am not into the whole s3xual kind of dancing.  You know, where you get all up in each others business and should some random guy get up in my space and won’t take my cues to step off, then he may need to intervene.

So, we head in, I see all the siblings I used to hang with as children.  They introduce me to their friends and it all starts out well and good. I don’t often go to clubs like this and when I do I tend to sit back and people watch as I am fascinated with what people will do in such a place.   I was sitting next to my old friend Shannon and this guy was across the table.  He has 2 girls on either side of him standing on bar stools dancing and he was quite pleased to find himself eye level with these women’s butts and hoo hah’s.  He had no qualms about touching what was being shaken in front of him.  At one point Shannon leans over and informs me this is her fiancée.

Are you kidding me?  I wouldn’t have know they were together, that is how little attention he paid her…not to mention his behavior with these women.  I can’t help but wonder what this man does when he is NOT with his fiancée if this is how he behaves in front of her. I couldn’t believe she was ok with this.

At some point this guy reaches out and grabs my hands and tries to do some sort of weird hand dance…I pulled my hands away and began looking for Doug. This guy tried to tell me I looked angry and I should smile more or drink more.  At this point I have no respect for this guy and could care less what he thinks of me.  Nor am I about to smile or laugh with him and therefore further encourage his behavior.

At some point he comes around the table and steps up into my space and begins “dancing” on my leg.  Mind you, I am not dancing, have not indicated I wanted to dance and am clearly sitting down.  I told Shannon to take care of her guy and she simply laughed and said, yeah he is a h*rn dog.

Hmm well he is a dog…and he is acting like a dog in heat.

Doug was nowhere to be seen.   So I grabbed a drumstick that this bar gives out so we can make noise with them by banging on tables and chairs and I poked this guy in the stomach with it.  Not too hard, but hard enough so he would get the hint that I am not playing around.

He stepped back and told me I should be nice.

I looked him dead in the eye, and told him he needed to get out of my space now.   I was not vacating the space I was already in.  I fully believe had he not stepped back I might have hit him.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to find out what I would have to do next because he pouted and went back to his side of the table and the girls on the stools.

I signalled for my tab and waited for Doug to get back so we could leave.  I was done.

As I was leaving, this guy asked if he could have a hug. I said no and walked away.

On the one hand, I am pleased with my ability to stand up for myself.  I am grateful that I think more of myself than to put up with that kind of crappy behavior that is sooo disrespectful…and I am saddened that my old friend somehow believes that she has to put up with that.  I am angry that this is his way of “loving” her in the most disrespectful way possible and that she puts up with it.  I wonder what kind of men her brothers have grown up to be that they also allow their sister to be disrespected like this.

I can’t help but think that if I allowed this to happen that my brothers would be all up in my business and in his, letting us both know what is up.  If I showed up at a gathering of my friends and some of my male friends saw this behavior, I can tell you, that something would happen.  A conversation would be taking place. Coach and Aaron would have my hide if I ever let a guy treat me like that!

I am really grateful that I know some really great men who know how to treat women with dignity and respect and who know how to defend them when necessary.  I am glad that I won’t settle for less than that.

I am grateful for Demond’s self-defense classes.  While I did NOT execute a single move he taught me since he never taught me how to get out of a creeper dance situation….hmmm maybe we should review that one some day…I distinctly recall him telling me that after you avoid a hit from an attacker, you need to turn and face him head on with confidence.  He will recover his balance and turn to see what happened and if he turns and sees you standing there ready to take him, He will likely run, because he will realize you are not afraid.

I was not afraid.

I was not going to back down.

I had this lesson in mind when I looked him in the eye and told him to step back.

I am grateful for my ability to handle this situation and that I didn’t have to find out how far I would need to go to make my point clear.

I am saddened by my friends situation and that she is with the Lech, whom I cannot even call a man.