“The Incredible Shrinking Woman”–that’s what my pastor started calling me several months ago when I began losing weight. It’s been a long road, but never a lonely one. I just thought I would put some of the journey down on e-paper, not to preach or instruct, but rather to share my experience, strength and hope, as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous.

How It All Began

18 months ago I weighed 289 pounds. Forget that figure, because I’d rather talk about what my life was like back then rather than focus on the number on a scale. I’m an occupational therapist working with special needs kids in a public high school so I spend my days walking from room to room throughout a big building, and I was starting to worry that I might be approaching a time when I could no longer do my job. Nearly 63 years old and carrying around an extra 120 pounds was making it painful and exhausting to walk the two miles or so I had to tread every single day at work. My back, my knees, my hips…every day just hurt.

I was diagnosed with type II diabetes at age 39, largely due to a combination of heredity and 20 years of unhealthy, out-of-control eating. I was taking a regimen of four diabetes medications, but my blood sugar was still too high and what they call “poorly controlled,” a polite medical euphemism for “raging, dangerously high.” Not to mention that I also had high blood pressure and high cholesterol, both of which required medications of their own.

About three years ago I started seeing a therapist to help me figure out what was underneath all this self-destructive overconsumption. I wish I could say it was the first time I’d tried working on my food issues, but I’d be lying. Over the past four decades I’ve tried dozens of diets, ranging from the sensible to the ridiculous and everything in between, but nothing seemed to stick. Therapy, workshops, books, counselors–if you’re reading this, you probably have a similar story of your own and know what I’m talking about. I wish I could tell you exactly what worked this time, but I honestly don’t have an easy answer for that. And as I said, my purpose in all this is simply to share my experience, strength and hope through my adventures–the adventures of this incredible shrinking woman.

A Girl Named Happy

Allow me to introduce my girl, Happy. It may be weird to name a bicycle, but she was the beginning of the Incredible Shrinking Woman and has played a very important in my life these last few years. Truthfully, I think the whole process began many years ago, but I’m a slow learner who fortunately serves a very patient God. More about that later.

Anyway, back to Happy. In early 2020 I started reading a lot about electric bikes and I remembered how much I used to love to ride. I was never a serious cyclist but I always enjoyed the wind in my hair and bugs in my teeth when I was younger, thinner and healthier, and a lot of what I read said that e-biking was something everybody could do, regardless of age or size. I researched all the models, sizes, and varieties and finally bought a Rad Power Bike. And right here I’m going to bust a myth for you–you actually can forget how to ride a bike. I picked it up from the store, took it out into the parking lot for a little test drive, and fell over before I’d even begun peddling. I had indeed forgotten how to ride a bike. The guy at the store gave me some tips and I went home to get some more practice around my neighborhood. I started to get the hang of it but the first three times I rode, I fell off each time. Lest you think I was just an old, clumsy fat woman, I should tell you that Happy is no skinny-minnie herself, tipping the scales at 72 pounds; that’s twice the weight of the average non-electric bike and a lot of machine to handle for someone that hadn’t been on a two-wheeler in 20 years. I survived every fall and got back on the horse, as they say, and Happy and I have been together ever since.

Yes, I really enjoyed riding Happy, but she was much more than just recreation and exercise. She was a beginning.

The Adventure Board

21 months ago I began seeing a doctor specializing in obesity medicine (a branch of medicine I didn’t even know existed) and a dietician at a local hospital-based weight loss clinic. I knew I didn’t want to have bariatric surgery but I also knew I had to get serious or face a bleak future of diabetic and cardiac complications, blah blah blah. I don’t blah blah blah this fact because I think it’s unimportant, but because these frightful truths had never been enough for me to truly commit to weight loss. It was something else all together that lit a fire under me: I wanted my life back.

By this time I’d been riding Happy for a year or so, and she reminded me how much I’ve always love being outdoors–the sights, the sounds, even the smells left me feeling invigorated, peaceful, and connected to God in a way only being immersed in His creation can. I began to think, If I can ride my bike for several miles and feel okay and relatively pain-free afterwards, what else could I do? Happy gave me hope, and this hope birthed the Adventure Boards.

In times past I’ve frequently started the new year with a vision board, a collection of images and words that I put together on a big poster board to give concrete definition to my goals for the year and keep me inspired to work toward them. When I started going to the weight loss clinic I decided to make a different kind of vision board…an adventure board.

It actually took two poster boards to hold my adventure dreams. The pictures I put on my board represented many of the things I longed to do but couldn’t because of my size. I’m a nature lover who lives in the Pacific Northwest and I wanted to go sea kayaking. I wanted to ride Happy through the forests and along the coast, go snorkeling in warm tropical waters, travel and hike and stroll through the streets of Europe without pain or fatigue. I wanted to be able to carry my fishing gear to remote locales and fit into a pair of waders. I wanted my life back–all of it.

The Incredible Lightness of Feeting

Walking…I used to hate it. HATE it. At 289 pounds, it was nothing but pain. Pain in my injured back, pain in my torn-up knee, and pain in my plantar fasciitis-ridden feet. As if that wasn’t enough, there was the fatigue. Imagine wearing a hundred and ten-pound backpack all day long, every day, for every single step you took. Between pain, discomfort, and shortness of breath, just moving through life was pushing me to my limits. Would I be able to keep my job? How long would it be before I needed a new knee, or surgery on my foot?

When I first began my weight loss journey, I thought maybe one small thing I could do when weather and our short Seattle days made riding Happy impossible was to try walking. I hated the idea, but I figured I could force myself to do it, since I had our school’s track at my disposal and a little time at lunch most days. I figured if I took it slow and didn’t push my myself too hard, there was the possibility that I might not, you know, die.

The first day I made it halfway around the track. I had to stop once to catch my breath and stretch my back before heading back inside. I wish I could say I enjoyed it, but it was miserable. I simply could not understand people’s enjoyment in walking. Who could enjoy this? If God meant us to walk, He wouldn’t have given us cars.

Flash forward a year or so. A half a lap turned into one, then two. Now I walk a fast mile and a half at lunch without breaking a sweat. I’d go further but that’s all I have time for in the middle of the work day. And now, 18 months later, my greatest bane has turned into one of my greatest blessings. After carrying around that extra 110 pounds for all those years, walking now feels almost like gliding. Sometimes when I’m racing around the high school hallways, I feel like my feet are hardly touching the ground.

One of my favorite things to do on a dry Seattle winter’s day is take a walk around nearby Deep Lake, the spot in the picture. It’s a mile and a half loop, so I do two go-rounds for three miles. I absolutely love being outdoors, whether walking the track at my school and saying hello to the ducks in the pond there, or trekking through the woods that surround Deep Lake. In addition to the profound connection with God I experience, these walks stir a lot of feelings in me–nature always does–but one of the emotions I feel most often is wonderment…wonderment and disbelief that I can actually do this thing and enjoy it so much. No pain. No labored breathing. Just joy, and the incredible lightness or feeting.

TFTD

I know they say at The They Institute that it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but that has not been my experience with the opposite sex. I’ve had many good guy friends over the years (mostly my women friends’ husbands) and a lot of men have told me how great I am–funny, smart, cute, and that worst of all compliments, “You’ve got a great personality.” That last one is bro code for “Nice woman, TFTD.” Too fat to date.

We all want to believe that we’re able to look past the cover and judge only the book, but few of us are truly able to do that. For decades I resented men for their TFTD judgment, but if I’m honest, I sing the same song…perhaps just a different verse. I may not be as preoccupied with looks as men are, but I still have my own critical, limiting acronyms–TSTD (too short to date), TPTD (too poor to date), TBTD (too bald to date), and yes, too fat to date.

Descartes wrote, “Cogito, ergo sum.” I think, therefore I am. So here is the real question I must ask myself: Was I really too fat to date, or did my belief that I was make me undatable? That deserves some serious thought.

But while I was thinking about it I decided to jump into the dating pool. After I’d lost over a hundred pounds, even though I wasn’t yet at my goal weight (yes, I was that big), I figured that maybe it was time to start d-d-d-dating. People told me I looked more or less normal–whatever that means–so I decided to join a couple of online dating sites.

Wow, shallow much?

The Blessing of Being Broken

I hated myself for being fat. Not just the way I looked, but I hated myself for letting myself get that way. Why couldn’t I stop eating? What was this beast inside me that always wanted more?

I’ve stopped asking myself those questions. I used to think that if I could figure out the reasons behind my food addiction and conquer it, I could finally be free of it and lose the weight. But during my years on recovery I’ve learned the simple yet unpleasant truth that a dog barks because it’s a dog, and a food addict overeats because they’re an addict. Although the desire to constantly overeat may lessen a bit over time, the addiction is still there, out on the lawn doing pushups just waiting for me to open the door. As AA reminds me, my addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful.

As a Christian, I had trouble accepting this. God should just deliver me from my addiction to food, right? One and done! Thankfully, the Christian 12-step program Celebrate Recovery taught me a deeper truth, the truth the apostle Paul discovered about his own weakness that he begged God to remove…not just once, but three times. It may not be the answer Paul wanted, but he got one: “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” Paul replied, “So now I am glad to boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”

I sounds weird, but I’m grateful that my addiction drives me to my knees every day as I rely on that grace one day at a time, one moment at a time, and one meal at a time.