At The Corner of Inn and Sane: Allowing Ourselves The Journey

So often, we look at Before & After Shots of people who have lost magnitudes of weight as they smile from the cover of People Magazine while we're in the checkout line. "Without surgery....I lost 110 pounds in a year and a half!!"

That's AWESOME, but what we don't see is the journey. Snap on "The Biggest Loser", and you'll know what I'm talking about.

In the beginning, there's shame. There's addiction. There is using food to cope with feelings of insecurity or loss. There is heavy, labored breathing when we climb a flight of stairs, acid reflux, and poor sleep. There's heart palpations, a feeling of anxiety in the pit of our stomach when it's time to shop for clothes, and refusal to wear a swimsuit.

As difficult as the beginning is, the middle is harder.

The middle is LONG. We have emotional moments on the treadmill. All of the reasons why we should finish the workout go to war with all the desires about why we shouldn't. We can get lost, forgetting why we're making a commitment to our health. We can get sidestepped when we see doughnuts or get in a fight with someone and search out a brownie. The middle is where we go awry.

As you probably guessed, there is no end. There is never a day that we stop investing in health. If we do, we go right back to where we started. If we have emotional issues with food, we should consider seeing a counselor to address those underlying problems of our food addiction. We learn to make the gym part of our daily self-care regimen, like brushing our teeth. We learn to make different nutritional choices, educating ourselves properly. And, we don't stop. The key to health is consistency.

Our journey is never alone. We have fitness professionals who invest time, energy, and soul into us. They often understand us because they once stood in our shoes. Our journey is never easy, it is never cheap, it is never quick. Losing the weight properly often takes years, going for a quick fix never works because we didn't fix what was broken to begin with. Eating healthy is expensive. It requires reprogramming our relationship with food, and that takes time and confronting our demons. It requires that we change our environment, choosing no longer to belong to a food culture and instead to find a new healthy community, the same way that an addict has to change their previous environment when they get out of rehab.

Exercise is not easy. I was a collegiate scholarship swimmer and I've done some of the most difficult exercise programs known, yet I always get sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and a tingling sensation all over when I walk into the gym or jump into a swimming pool....fear combined with excitement. We know what we're about to do to ourselves, and it's normal to get a little scared. We're about to put stress on our bodies and push them to the point where they cannot be pushed any more.

I want to share with you my journey, and I encourage you to share yours. Know that although the middle is long, we're in it together. Allow yourself the journey. Know that some things really do get better with time.