Here We Go Again

My mother has been overweight for most of my life.  She was surprisingly unaffected by it.  She had good mobility, good blood work, lots of friends, my father adored her, she had the respect of her employer, she ran volunteer organizations, and it didn't seem to be something that affected her negatively.  She is 76 now and her weight has finally caught up with her.  She has lympadema in her legs, is on blood thinners, and no cartilage left in her knees. She is in pain most of the time and in a lot of pain when she has to walk. She injured her shoulder trying to take some weight off her knees by using a walker.  She's in a wheelchair now if she has to go any distance of more than about fifteen feet.  Even being in the wheelchair is painful because the lympadema and size of her legs keep her knees from bending properly. She desperately needs knee replacement surgery, but no one will operate on someone her size who is prone to blood clots. I hate seeing her in pain and not be able to fix it.

Which brings me to today.  My life has paralleled my mother's in many ways and been completely different in others. I've never been as heavy as she was/is, but I've seen over the years how easy it was for her to continue to gain gradually. Not everyone even has the ability to physically gain that much weight.  I am like her in this way, I have the same body type and metabolism as she does.  I don't want to end up in that kind of pain when I'm 76.  I just went back and reread my previous posts from ten years ago.  I could have written most of them today.  The difference is that today, I'm thirty-five pounds heavier than I was then.  I used to be really good at hiding my weight in a shapely, womanly figure.  I see more of my mother emerging as my shape is no longer just womanly.  It's crossed that line over into odd because the fat has run out of places to hide.  I have rolls that are in my way, I have to contort my body to buckle or tie my shoes, my knees hurt going up and down stairs and ladders, and I find myself shopping for clothing styles that hang differently--hide more. I wear sweaters when I'm hot so my arms won't show.  I used to hoard shoes because they didn't care if gained ten pounds.  Lately, I've been wearing lower heels because my weight just crushes down on my toes when I go high.

I know in a different way that losing weight for me is no longer about aesthetics with a nod to my health.  Now really is about my health and my future health. Yesterday, a Monday, was first day hell.  I didn't even plan to start yesterday.  I just decided to try and not sabotage myself, not continue bad habits that have resulted in the place I am now.  It was terrible.  The food was good, but sugar withdrawal is a bitch.  I went to the neighborhood pool and just walked in the water for thirty minutes.  I want to build up some baseline strength before subjecting my joints to exercise on land.  My legs felt like they weighed 5000 pounds when I exited the pool.  Within three hours I was sore.  As a former athlete and exercise instructor, I felt humiliated.  Still kinda do.  Last night hunger and pain woke me up.  All I wanted to do was go get a snack.  I got a drink of water and willed myself to go back to sleep.  It took over an hour.  Breakfast felt to me like a junkie getting a fix as my blood sugar level came back up.  I honestly don't know that it will get better, but I do know this is something I HAVE to do.

This is a current picture, taken at my son's wedding last September.  Thank goodness for spandex.  I left my daughter in the picture for comparison because she's just under the weight I "should" be.  She has my same build and is just about an inch taller (she'd already taken off her heels when this picture was taken.)  I'm grateful I don't have cankles, but nothing, including skinny jeans, is getting over those calves.