My Name is Kris and I Blah-g

Will power. Stamina. Energy. Guts. Determination. All of these things are needed when you embark on the journey to lose weight. I have none of them save one that is not listed – desperation. I have never been a small girl. My parents dispute this because in their eyes I will always be 6 and that was the last time that I can remember ever fitting into clothes that were the appropriate size for my age. I have steadily gotten bigger as I have gotten older. I don’t think I have ever really LOST weight – ever. Unless, of course you count bouts with the flu as a weight loss method.My decision to attempt the impossible (at least to me it is) hasn’t come lightly or quickly. I, like so many people at this time of year look upon it as a challenge which usually crash and burns by the end of the first day of the year. I have decided that my new years for ever more will start on January 5th. I just don’t know if I could endure those depressing first 4 days of the year without chocolate. So I am going to go easy on myself – at least for now. I’m also realistic. How long can I last living on bananas? So far, 2 meals… I’m on my way.I don’t own a bathroom scale. I threw it out with a bunch of other garbage that I dumped last year. When Mike died there was an urgency to clean things out – remove the old… just start out with virtually nothing. I don’t know why. I am not sure why my instinct was to push it all away. But I kept very few things that were ours and used the excuse of moving out of my home and having no place to store my stuff. I kept the important things, of course. But the bathroom scale? It was outta there. Mike bought that scale when he had his weight loss surgery. It was a surgery that I was totally against him having but he was his own man. He made his own decisions and he was stubborn about this one. I didn’t see surgical methods as a good and natural way to lose weight. And after witnessing what it did to him, I know that I am right. There is a reason why our stomachs are the way they are. There is a reason why we don’t drink from thimble-sized cups and call it a meal. There is a reason why there is more to weight loss than forcibly making your stomach smaller. It’s mental and it’s physical. Both of which he was unprepared for. I grew to hate that bathroom scale of his as I saw him shrink away. Sure, size wise he ended up being what he wanted to be. But he never had the strength and stamina that he promised me the surgery would give him. He never had the willpower to resist sweets. Instead he’d continue to eat them until his small stomach couldn’t take it any more and he’d end up sick in the bathroom – sometimes requiring me to come home from the middle of the day at work to attend to his problem. I saw his struggle day in and day out and I vowed that I would never go to the lengths that he did to lose weight. I’d be fat but I’d be happy. He was no longer fat and he was certainly NOT happy. That scale was a reminder of all that so I threw it out with out a second thought. But now here I am. I know that, for myself I need to do this. I asked Mike once if he’d help me. I asked him if he’d be my work out and diet partner and help me keep on track. It would mean we’d have to limit our sweets in the house and that he’d have to be there to help keep me motivated. And I’ll never forget what he said. He told me that he didn’t know how he could help me. He said that this would be something I’d have to do by myself. He just didn’t have it in him. Words cannot express how disappointed and hurt I was. It was even more obvious then that his weight loss surgery was just a means to an end. He had the small body that he wanted but the person I had married was gone. His mind was someplace else.To remember these moments is hard. I have mourned his death so deeply. I miss him desperately. But the reality is that the decisions he made in the last couple years of his life hurt not only himself but his family too. It’s hard to get past the anger but I am working on it. To do that I have decided that I need to work on myself. I need to be comfortable in the skin that I am in, no matter what size it is. I don’t expect to be a size 2. Nor do I want to be. I’d be happy just feeling good again and if I can do that in a size 14, that’s A-OK by me. So wish me luck. And if you can spare a moment, cheer me on. I am not exactly sure how I will accomplish this but figured if I put it in writing and make it public, then there is no turning back. So here I am, World. Phat girl on the loose. Watch out.

I thought I’d look up what I posted last January and was disappointed to find that not only did I not post more than like 5 times last year, the only post that generated any type of conversation was the post about Poisonous Fish Testicles. Not that I do this to get people to talk to me because if I did, I am clearly failing in that department. Or as my 7 year old would say, it’s an “Epic Fail”. I blame her 20 year old cousin for teaching her that one! I hear it a lot! Thanks, I know! I just don’t need to have the reminders! So, this leads me to other epic failures of mine…resolutions. I don’t set them because I never seem to make any of them come to be. So this year I resolve to not resolve anything. I just plan to “be”. But, Kris! How are you supposed to grow and become a better person?? It’s called life, people… I don’t need resolutions to prove to myself that I can do anything or become anything because I simply just need to live it, do the best I can from it, learn from it if I can and at the end of the day, ask myself am I satisfied? Is that possible? I dunno. But it’s poetic. It sounds good. So I will give it a try.If I sound like a bumbling idiot, it’s probably because I have been awake since 5:30 on New Year’s Eve. Alone with my thoughts, which usually don’t make sense these days, I figured it was time I posted something since I hadn’t in a while. It’s been a busy month. It started out with my 38th birthday, a quick trip to Las Vegas to see Phantom of the Opera (which was excellent, btw), preparations for Christmas, Michaela’s holiday concert, shopping, entertaining the kid while she was on vacation, snow plowing, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, snow plowing, Matt’s birthday, New Years….did I mention plowing? Here is how lame I have become… I began this post this morning before 8. It’s now 10:22. In the middle of the 2nd sentence of this paragraph I heard someone outside moving snow and the first thought that came to my head was they weren’t going to leave enough snow for ME to move. So I leapt from my chair, pulled on my snow pants over my Tinkerbell jammies (yes, Tinkerbell), threw on my new snow cap over my bedhead, held it all down with my new goggles (which are so nice and such the fashion statement), put on my Chewbacca boots and gloves and ran down to the garage and jumped on the ATV before the neighbor could reach our portion of the sidewalk. I was out there for over an hour, pushing snow up the mountain past our house and two neighbor’s houses. Then I came back down the mountain to our house, cleared our two driveways and the sidewalks of 4 neighbors and driveways of two that live across the street. I am a glutton of punishment. My arms ache and most of my morning is gone. But I managed to chase the neighbor with the pansy riding lawnmower with a plow attachment back into his house while I ripped up and down the street on our new Yamaha Grizzly 400. If I was Tim Taylor, this is where I would grunt “Oh! OH! HO!”This is where you go, “Geez, Kris…WTF?!” (that’s “what the freak” people…this is a family blog!)So… yeah. This is how I end 2009 – Certifiably nuts and hell on wheels when behind a snow plow. As for the patches of grass that I ripped up this morning? Conveniently covered up with snow. Nobody will notice til Spring and even then I can blame it on someone else.You may ask what’s in the cards for 2010… And I can tell you that I have obsolutely no idea. I have no REAL goals as I mentioned before because I don’t do resolutions. To be honest, I don’t even want to start the new year until January 5. From now on every New Year’s is synonymous with Mike’s death. I can’t think of it without thinking what a terrible new year’s eve that was 2 years ago. And how 4 days later, he was gone. So, for me, the new year begins on Tuesday. Mom has told me that on Monday she is planning to distract me. This is good. I find that I get through these kinds of days better when I am doing something else.As for what comes next after January 4th, I don’t know what this year has in store. I hope that I can start to make sense out of life again. This 2 year fog is getting pretty old. I am ready to forge ahead, whatever that means. I look forward to watching Michaela finish the 2nd grade, celebrating my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary, celebrating Michaela’s 8th birthday and seeing her get baptized. I hope for continued success with my sister’s company so I can keep busy professionally. I would like to learn more about photography and take better pictures. I wouldn’t mind losing some weight. I don’t have a number in mind…but I’d like clothes to fit better and to not be disgusted with myself when I put on a bridesmaid dress for my best friend’s wedding later in 2010 or early 2011. I look forward to riding my new Schwinn that I got for Christmas and I hope to do a little bit more traveling this year. Other than that, my needs are simple…. just breathe!Happy New Year!