I just reread this blogpost and have to warn you it is truly a ramble!
A couple of days ago I was listening to one of my favorite Bible teachers, Alistair Begg, and he used a term that I am very familiar with but about which I hadn't really given much thought...secular Jews. I knew immediately what he meant by the term, someone who was born Jewish but doesn't really practice the Jewish faith. I assume that secular Jews observe the High Holy Days of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, maybe even attend a Passover Seder, but overall their life is not really influenced by the Jewish faith although it may be greatly influenced by the Jewish race. Dr. Begg stated in his sermon that they are a people, secular Jews that is, who make him feel particularly sad because in many ways they cling to an identity that they don't truly believe in. I completely understand his feelings in that regard but it got me to thinking about the idea of secular Christians. Can there BE secular Christians? Christianity isn't a race the way Judaism is. You aren't born a Christian and there are no DNA tests that can effectively label you a Christian as there are in Judaism. Christianity is a choice a person makes to follow Jesus Christ but we do often refer to being "born into a Christian home" as though it is something inherited.
*side note I was fascinated a few years ago by an article I read where researchers had found DNA markers among Jewish people with the last name Cohen that proved conclusively that they had a common ancestor no matter what part of the world they were from!
People who are truly Christian universally recognize their Christianity as a faith based on the belief in the atoning work of Jesus when He died on the cross and was raised to life. But did you notice that little word "truly". There are many, many people out there who believe they are Christians and yet at the same time believe that they will get into heaven based on the fact that they've been a "good person". They think of God as a benevolent guide who they can come to when they THINK they need Him and basically ignore Him the rest of the time. They have no real understanding of who God is, what Jesus did and how it actually relates to them. They observe the high holy days of Christmas and Easter (and even the occasional Good Friday) but on a daily basis Jesus has no place in their lives. I think they are secular Christians. Their lives are focused on this world (the secular) and they identify themselves as Christians. Are they saved? Are they truly Christians? I know that they are the hardest people in the world to witness to because they believe they already have the answer; and the truth is they do KNOW the answer, they just don't BELIEVE the answer. They want to add to what Jesus has done and think it depends on themselves rather than him. Are they saved? I don't know, I honestly don't. BUT...I'm afraid they may not be.
My son Stephen pointed out something interesting to me a few months ago and I've thought about it a lot. Jesus loved sinners...prostitutes, the possessed, tax collectors, liars, thieves and murderers. The people He opposed most were the religious leaders of His time because they didn't think they WERE sinners!!!! Many, many people in today's world want to believe that Jesus had a thing against religious leaders, that's not it! He had a thing against unrepentant sinners. The people who thought they were good enough, the ones who felt like they didn't need Him and that their sins weren't all that bad. Those were the people he was opposing. In the story of the prodigal sons He was talking to sinners AND Pharisees! Those who recognized themselves in the profligate younger son, who realized they were sinners and needed Him AND those who should have seen themselves in the self-righteous older son who, as far as we know, never recognized his own shortcomings or his need for redemption. I am so afraid that many, many people who believe themselves to be Christians are not.
In many ways it is like another thing I struggle with, people who identify themselves as Christian and yet live in a repeated and perpetual state of sin. How can you be repentant if you repeat your sin daily, revel in it or take "pride" in it? I'm not saying Christians are sinless, merely that they are aware of their sin and repent of it, that they struggle with conquering it and rely on God to help them deal with it. When you embrace your sin are you repenting of it? (Sorry that's a rabbit trail from today's thought but one that I often go down.)
How are we supposed to reach them? I think the first step is to return to talking about sin, defining it and recognizing that we are ALL sinners. I'm afraid that the current trend to avoid telling people they are sinners is resulting in a huge number of unsaved Christians, secular Christians and people who are not truly Christians. Without an understanding of God's perfect standard, our inability to meet it, and the fact that we are all sinners from birth we cannot understand the need for Jesus atoning life, death and resurrection.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Lessons from RADICALS
Something happened this week that brought back a lot of memories and a lesson I learned a long time ago. First I'll tell you about the old lesson and then go into how it relates to now.
In 1997 Rick and I joined Mark and Tammy Stein in creating R.A.D.I.C.A.L.S. at Northwest Bible Church (NBC). It was a new ministry for 4th and 5th grade students during the 11:00 service and the first year we taught it we used Josh McDowell's Right From Wrong curriculum. I still remember the curriculum and the lessons we learned from it that year, especially me! Right From Wrong was written in response to the tendency toward relativism and was specifically designed to help young people recognize what is the right thing to do by studying the attributes of God and comparing their choices to Him. I can still remember the four steps it taught
1. Consider the Choice
2. Compare it to God
3. Commit to God's Way
4. Count on God's Loving Protection
We talked a lot that year about the kinds of situations the students faced, especially making choices in school and with their peers when other's attitude is often "there's no right answer, just what is right for you". We talked about how sometimes when you do the right thing you don't get an immediate reward for it and it is often hard to do. We got a lot of good discussion with our students and it was a great curriculum, maybe the best I've ever used.
Then... at the end of the first year we, and especially me, got a first hand example of how well those simple steps worked when it came to recognizing the right vs wrong thing or reaction. At the end of the year the R.A.D.I.C.A.L.S. were having a pool party. We had rented the Cypresswood Clubhouse and Pool which included paying for a lifeguard. The morning of the party we arrived at the pool to find that it had been vandalized during the night. Pool furniture and supplies had been thrown into the pool, there were pizza boxes and pizza crusts in the water, along with beer cans and some other junk. Of course, being me, my first reaction was to get upset and mad but I can still remember mentally using the four steps we'd been using with the kids. I literally considered my choice of getting upset and mad about the pool not being ready for our event versus keeping my temper and recognizing that it wasn't the fault of the lifeguard we had met there that morning. I asked myself "what is God's way?" and committed to holding my tongue and being kind. In fact I told the man that we'd help and Rick and I jumped in the pool and started getting the trash out of it while the kids who had already arrived took what we handed them and put it all away, returned the chairs and tables to where they belonged, threw away the garbage and swept up around the pool. Within about 30 minutes we had it all cleaned up and our party just proceeded like nothing had happened. Everyone was having a really good time and I had kept my temper (a MAJOR accomplishment for me) when the manager arrived. He came over and asked me if I was the person in charge of our party and I told him yes. He handed me our deposit check for the rental of the facility and told us how much he appreciated our help and that he was giving us back our money. It was really a little epiphany for me and I called the kids over and talked to them about how I had deliberately used our Right from Wrong steps to decide on my actions that morning and how they had WORKED. Both in a personal way by giving me the peace I felt from holding my temper and doing the right thing but also in a "reward" kind of way by getting back some of the money we had spent on the party.
I've thought a lot about that experience this week as we prepared to put our house on the market. When we decided to move to the west side of Houston we put our house in Spring up for sale. It was a sellers market in Houston and everyone we knew was selling their houses so quickly, 7 days, 10 days that was all we were hearing. Meanwhile...a little back story. Northwest Bible Church had hired a new youth pastor the previous year. Their family had moved to Houston from out of state and were trying to sell their house back in their home state in a decidedly non-sellers market! Since they had moved to Houston they had been living with different church members, their family had been split up with one child living with one church member's family and another living with another. (these were older kids, high school age) Anyway, needless to say in following God it had been a pretty stressful year for them, meanwhile we had moved into our new house in west Houston and our house in Spring was NOT selling. Long, loooong story short we realized that God really wanted us to rent our house to this family and yet I'll be totally honest and tell you that it is NOT what we wanted to do! We really wanted to sell it, in fact our plan was to sell it and use the proceeds to put a pool in the yard of our new home and I'd been waiting a LONG time for a house with a swimming pool! In spite of that when Rick and I recognized the right thing for us to do we committed to doing what God wanted and offered our home to this family to rent. The story got ever more dramatic as they faced life changing stresses, the loss of both of their fathers, tough work situations and a lot of soul searching about God's will. Our house became a bit of a refuge for them, a place to call their own and retreat to and the wife and I especially became good friends (you have to realize we had left NBC long before they started renting our house) and I now count her as one of my very best friends. We told them that they could rent our house for as long as they needed to do so. Like we used to tell the kids in R.A.D.I.C.A.LS. the rewards aren't always obvious but the knowledge that you are doing the right thing is in itself very rewarding and the fact that I had gained a good friend was also in my opinion an example of God's loving protection after choosing to follow his will.
Fast forward to this September, the other family moved back to their home state and we got our house ready to go back onto the market over the past month. On Wednesday we put our house up for sale and on FRIDAY we had an offer above asking price from a pre-qualified buyer! We signed the offer on Saturday and both Rick and I were almost in tears because we have found over and over in our life that when you consider the choice, compare it to God, commit to God's way and count on God's loving protection it works. Big situation or little situation, big choice or little choice... it works!
In 1997 Rick and I joined Mark and Tammy Stein in creating R.A.D.I.C.A.L.S. at Northwest Bible Church (NBC). It was a new ministry for 4th and 5th grade students during the 11:00 service and the first year we taught it we used Josh McDowell's Right From Wrong curriculum. I still remember the curriculum and the lessons we learned from it that year, especially me! Right From Wrong was written in response to the tendency toward relativism and was specifically designed to help young people recognize what is the right thing to do by studying the attributes of God and comparing their choices to Him. I can still remember the four steps it taught
1. Consider the Choice
2. Compare it to God
3. Commit to God's Way
4. Count on God's Loving Protection
We talked a lot that year about the kinds of situations the students faced, especially making choices in school and with their peers when other's attitude is often "there's no right answer, just what is right for you". We talked about how sometimes when you do the right thing you don't get an immediate reward for it and it is often hard to do. We got a lot of good discussion with our students and it was a great curriculum, maybe the best I've ever used.
Then... at the end of the first year we, and especially me, got a first hand example of how well those simple steps worked when it came to recognizing the right vs wrong thing or reaction. At the end of the year the R.A.D.I.C.A.L.S. were having a pool party. We had rented the Cypresswood Clubhouse and Pool which included paying for a lifeguard. The morning of the party we arrived at the pool to find that it had been vandalized during the night. Pool furniture and supplies had been thrown into the pool, there were pizza boxes and pizza crusts in the water, along with beer cans and some other junk. Of course, being me, my first reaction was to get upset and mad but I can still remember mentally using the four steps we'd been using with the kids. I literally considered my choice of getting upset and mad about the pool not being ready for our event versus keeping my temper and recognizing that it wasn't the fault of the lifeguard we had met there that morning. I asked myself "what is God's way?" and committed to holding my tongue and being kind. In fact I told the man that we'd help and Rick and I jumped in the pool and started getting the trash out of it while the kids who had already arrived took what we handed them and put it all away, returned the chairs and tables to where they belonged, threw away the garbage and swept up around the pool. Within about 30 minutes we had it all cleaned up and our party just proceeded like nothing had happened. Everyone was having a really good time and I had kept my temper (a MAJOR accomplishment for me) when the manager arrived. He came over and asked me if I was the person in charge of our party and I told him yes. He handed me our deposit check for the rental of the facility and told us how much he appreciated our help and that he was giving us back our money. It was really a little epiphany for me and I called the kids over and talked to them about how I had deliberately used our Right from Wrong steps to decide on my actions that morning and how they had WORKED. Both in a personal way by giving me the peace I felt from holding my temper and doing the right thing but also in a "reward" kind of way by getting back some of the money we had spent on the party.
I've thought a lot about that experience this week as we prepared to put our house on the market. When we decided to move to the west side of Houston we put our house in Spring up for sale. It was a sellers market in Houston and everyone we knew was selling their houses so quickly, 7 days, 10 days that was all we were hearing. Meanwhile...a little back story. Northwest Bible Church had hired a new youth pastor the previous year. Their family had moved to Houston from out of state and were trying to sell their house back in their home state in a decidedly non-sellers market! Since they had moved to Houston they had been living with different church members, their family had been split up with one child living with one church member's family and another living with another. (these were older kids, high school age) Anyway, needless to say in following God it had been a pretty stressful year for them, meanwhile we had moved into our new house in west Houston and our house in Spring was NOT selling. Long, loooong story short we realized that God really wanted us to rent our house to this family and yet I'll be totally honest and tell you that it is NOT what we wanted to do! We really wanted to sell it, in fact our plan was to sell it and use the proceeds to put a pool in the yard of our new home and I'd been waiting a LONG time for a house with a swimming pool! In spite of that when Rick and I recognized the right thing for us to do we committed to doing what God wanted and offered our home to this family to rent. The story got ever more dramatic as they faced life changing stresses, the loss of both of their fathers, tough work situations and a lot of soul searching about God's will. Our house became a bit of a refuge for them, a place to call their own and retreat to and the wife and I especially became good friends (you have to realize we had left NBC long before they started renting our house) and I now count her as one of my very best friends. We told them that they could rent our house for as long as they needed to do so. Like we used to tell the kids in R.A.D.I.C.A.LS. the rewards aren't always obvious but the knowledge that you are doing the right thing is in itself very rewarding and the fact that I had gained a good friend was also in my opinion an example of God's loving protection after choosing to follow his will.
Fast forward to this September, the other family moved back to their home state and we got our house ready to go back onto the market over the past month. On Wednesday we put our house up for sale and on FRIDAY we had an offer above asking price from a pre-qualified buyer! We signed the offer on Saturday and both Rick and I were almost in tears because we have found over and over in our life that when you consider the choice, compare it to God, commit to God's way and count on God's loving protection it works. Big situation or little situation, big choice or little choice... it works!
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
UNFRIENDING MYSELF
Two days ago, on December 30th to be exact, I decided to completely disconnect from Facebook. I sent Facebook an archive request because I was afraid of losing all of those photos I've posted on Facebook over the years and Facebook sent me a compressed file of my entire Facebook history which I now have stored in my computer. Once I knew my photos were safe I deleted my Facebook account. I honestly don't know how many people realize I have taken this step (since I can't post on Facebook to share that information with the world) but I imagine that if someone notices that my stuff is no longer showing up in their feed they might wonder where I've gone and why.
To be honest I haven't gone anywhere, I'm still here! But what I have found happening repeatedly on Facebook is that we're all busy 'sharing' recipes, articles, opinions and photos and have stopped actually sharing ourselves. I also found that miscommunication is rampant and in my opinion it is because there is no ability to hear or use vocal inflection to convey meaning. There was an incident that precipitated my taking what feels to me like a huge step but it was really just the catalyst that forced me to put into action things I've been thinking and feeling for a while.
I made what was meant to be a funny remark on a photo that my cousin's son had posted and evidently it was not read the way I intended it. The reaction of my second-cousin and his wife was quick, furious and to be perfectly honest very hurtful in the way they both "spoke" to me. Well, obviously I apologized for making the comment in the first place but I was struck by my reaction to their words (and obviously their reactions to mine) and how nothing in the situation was positive. The truth is I barely know this guy, have never met his wife or his children and would have been better off not commenting at all. I had been fooled by Facebook into thinking we were "friends" when the truth is we are strangers in spite of being related. Why was I letting the misunderstanding and hurtful remarks of strangers bother me so much?
When I first started using Facebook it really was only friends I was in contact with. My thoughts and comments weren't available to a myriad of people I didn't know, but then Facebook made changes. (Isn't Facebook ALWAYS making changes?) They introduced the "feed" and I was suddenly getting "notified" of all kinds of things, if I had casually "liked" a photo I was now being told every time anyone else in the world "liked" or commented on the same photo. I was getting links to ads, pages, and events that I had no interest in because at some pinpoint in time I had said something about a related subject. I realized I was looking at Facebook 7-8 times a day, and I was not the only one. I could tell from my news feed who else was on it ALL THE TIME! I started to think of all the things I could have been doing with that time. Studying my Bible, working out at the gym, cleaning my house, writing on my blog, playing with my son, helping my daughter...the list is endless. The most convicting one was Bible study...how many times had I "not had time" to do my Bible study but apparently had unlimited time to peek into the lives of strangers on Facebook? And I use that word peek very deliberately, Facebook is a bit like voyeurism. We read what other people post, check out our news feed, look at everyone's photos and read the links and articles they put on their walls. We "like" this one or that one (which usually means it espouses an opinion we agree with) and wish we could "dislike" another one. I can't count how many times I have posted my opinion without bothering to read anyone else's, or if I did read it to give it any kind of real consideration, and I know that I'm not the only one who does that. I'm not that special. So....the end result is I am no longer on Facebook. I can be reached by phone or e-mail. If you really are a friend you will have that information or know how to get it.
To be honest I haven't gone anywhere, I'm still here! But what I have found happening repeatedly on Facebook is that we're all busy 'sharing' recipes, articles, opinions and photos and have stopped actually sharing ourselves. I also found that miscommunication is rampant and in my opinion it is because there is no ability to hear or use vocal inflection to convey meaning. There was an incident that precipitated my taking what feels to me like a huge step but it was really just the catalyst that forced me to put into action things I've been thinking and feeling for a while.
I made what was meant to be a funny remark on a photo that my cousin's son had posted and evidently it was not read the way I intended it. The reaction of my second-cousin and his wife was quick, furious and to be perfectly honest very hurtful in the way they both "spoke" to me. Well, obviously I apologized for making the comment in the first place but I was struck by my reaction to their words (and obviously their reactions to mine) and how nothing in the situation was positive. The truth is I barely know this guy, have never met his wife or his children and would have been better off not commenting at all. I had been fooled by Facebook into thinking we were "friends" when the truth is we are strangers in spite of being related. Why was I letting the misunderstanding and hurtful remarks of strangers bother me so much?
When I first started using Facebook it really was only friends I was in contact with. My thoughts and comments weren't available to a myriad of people I didn't know, but then Facebook made changes. (Isn't Facebook ALWAYS making changes?) They introduced the "feed" and I was suddenly getting "notified" of all kinds of things, if I had casually "liked" a photo I was now being told every time anyone else in the world "liked" or commented on the same photo. I was getting links to ads, pages, and events that I had no interest in because at some pinpoint in time I had said something about a related subject. I realized I was looking at Facebook 7-8 times a day, and I was not the only one. I could tell from my news feed who else was on it ALL THE TIME! I started to think of all the things I could have been doing with that time. Studying my Bible, working out at the gym, cleaning my house, writing on my blog, playing with my son, helping my daughter...the list is endless. The most convicting one was Bible study...how many times had I "not had time" to do my Bible study but apparently had unlimited time to peek into the lives of strangers on Facebook? And I use that word peek very deliberately, Facebook is a bit like voyeurism. We read what other people post, check out our news feed, look at everyone's photos and read the links and articles they put on their walls. We "like" this one or that one (which usually means it espouses an opinion we agree with) and wish we could "dislike" another one. I can't count how many times I have posted my opinion without bothering to read anyone else's, or if I did read it to give it any kind of real consideration, and I know that I'm not the only one who does that. I'm not that special. So....the end result is I am no longer on Facebook. I can be reached by phone or e-mail. If you really are a friend you will have that information or know how to get it.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
MOTIVATION
Keeping myself motivated...
I received the amazing compliment this month of being told I inspire someone else. That is definitely a two-edged sword because the picture of myself that I allow other people to see is not the same picture I see myself. I am aware of every single one of my flaws and shortcomings so I hesitate to see myself as "inspirational" to someone else. I could spend the next hour or more writing all of my faults, because believe me there are THAT many, but instead I am going to do my best to share the things that help me to stay motivated in my fitness journey. It's an interesting thing that I wrote that line because my first inclination was to write "weight loss journey" and I realize that my focus has changed from losing weight to being fit. I am going to share the things that inspire me and that keep me going and I suspect that I am going to realize some changes that have occurred in myself (like my change of focus) that I haven't recognized until now.Changing my focus...
I make a conscious effort to focus on things that support my fitness goals rather than detract from them. When I was fat I subscribed to a lot of magazines that talked about food and homemaking, Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living, Ladies Home Journal, Food and Wine, Cooking Light (not that I actually did!) and Cuisine at Home were the ones I looked at the most. Now I'm not knocking food and homemaking but they really aren't what interested me, I chose to look at those magazines because the things they covered seemed attainable to me. Who wants to look at Glamour and Vogue when the words "I could never wear that" are constantly recurring in your mind. I let almost all of those magazine subscriptions lapse and the only ones I still get are BH&G and Cuisine at Home! Now I subscribe to In Style, Style Watch, and Fitness and I purchase Shape, Oxygen and Prevention when I see articles that interest me. I find the stories in those magazines inspiring and I love looking at fashions and seeing things I might actually be able to wear!
Speaking of fashion...
I try on clothes (A LOT!) One of my best post weight-loss days was a day when I decided I would like a white dress so I went to Dillards to look at them. I spent an hour trying on dresses and being really excited that my old size 18 was now a 12 and then when a 10 (and even an 8 in one particular brand) fit me I was pretty much ecstatic. It left me feeling so happy and motivated. Much happier than eating has ever made me feel! I will often just run over to Ross for a few minutes and try on things, I like the feeling I get just knowing that I can find clothes that are cute and stylish. One of the most depressing things about being fat was shopping, feeling so frustrated, unhappy and depressed when nothing seemed to fit. And if it did fit it was so dowdy I really didn't want to wear it. Making clothes for myself was almost as depressing an experience as shopping for clothes because I had to come to terms with the fact that the problem was not the clothes, the problem was ME!
Address the real problem...
As most of my friends know I had weight loss surgery so sometimes I feel like I cheated and I really admire those people who lose weight "the hard way" but then I recognize that what I had to do was figure out what was stopping ME from getting in shape and then to address MY problems. I'm not going to go into that whole process here but I did talk about it in an earlier entry. To sum it up I needed the jump start that surgery gave me, I needed that initial weight loss to get and keep myself motivated and I needed something irreversible. I couldn't backtrack or change my mind I had no choice but to "keep moving forward".
Exercise is the key to fitness...
When I had my surgery I had a complication, an internal hemorrhage, which really set me back at first. I ended up needing a transfusion and extra time in the hospital and was pretty miserable for a while. About a month after my surgery I realized that I was losing weight super fast but was also losing a lot of muscle, in other words my weight loss wasn't "fat-loss" and I needed to fix that as fast as I could. So....I joined the gym. Now I had joined the gym more times than I could count but 24 hour Fitness had a deal where you paid $29 a month and had to pay first and last months in advance, no other commitment. I decided to join with the understanding that if I didn't use it I would cancel and just be out sixty bucks! When I first started working out I could barely walk 10 minutes on the treadmill but I kept it up. When I was able to do 30 minutes on the treadmill using the incline I was doing pretty well but my knees were really killing me so on the advice of a friend who is a fitness enthusiast and an overall fantastic person I switched to the elliptical trainer. I now do at least 30 minutes on the elliptical 3-4 times a week (although I am shooting for 5 now) at incline level 20 (the highest) and resistance 11 (out of 20). I generally burn about 500 calories with each elliptical session and the elliptical works for me, but people have to figure out what works for them. I like the rhythm of the elliptical and the fact that it works my booty without screwing up my knees. About 3 months ago I started adding some weight training and now I spend as much time lifting weights as I do on the elliptical (usually between 30-45 minutes). I ALWAYS do squats and abs and tend to concentrate on arms the most because I feel like my elliptical work addresses my quads and glutes quite a bit. Now that probably sounds like a long workout to most people but the thing that makes it work for me is music!
Music is the key to exercise...
It took me a few weeks to realize that the key to a good workout for me is the music I listen to. When I was growing up you purchased music on albums and sometimes you had to purchase an entire album to get the one song you liked (occasionally you could find the song you wanted on a 45 for seventy-nine cents at TG&Y)! To get a collection of songs you really liked you had to buy a whole lot of albums and make a mixed tape! So...for those of you who are really young (or at least younger than me) here are the translations from my times to yours...
Album=CD
Single (or 45)=song download
Mixed Tape= playlist
TG&Y=Walmart
Man, I love i-tunes!!!! I now purchase the songs I want and put together playlists to work out to. Right now there are 16 workout playlists on my i-phone. These are the names of the ones I've put together Classic Rock Workout, 70's Workout, 80's Pop Workout, Country Workout 1-4 (there are four of these), New Country Workout, Mexico, Lorri's Faves, Kisses, Run, Disney, Summertime and Worship Workout 1 & 2. I choose which one to use based on my mood when I start and I sometimes switch in the middle. I have made some for special occasions (the Mexico workout was one I put together when we were planning our trip to Mexico) and when I find myself getting bored I get on i-tunes and put together a new list. My Kisses and Run lists are all songs with those two words in the title or the chorus and Summertime is all about...you guessed it Summertime! I am a person who craves change in most areas of my life (Rick and church being the two big exceptions) so it's important for me to mix things up and have a lot of change in my routine.
Speaking of mixing it up...
Since I started concentrating on Fitness versus Weight loss I have done a LOT of reading, one of the things that is universally agreed on in everything I've read is the need to keep changing. Your body is amazingly adaptable (why do you think people who are grossly overweight can still have some pretty normal blood chemistry?) so when you get into a rut your body adapts and tries very hard to MAINTAIN!!!!! It tries to maintain the weight and gives up those extra pounds very grudgingly so you have to constantly stay on top of it and change up your routine to keep your progress going. This was brought home to me just yesterday on the elliptical, I had done 50 minutes at level 11 and incline 20 and yet had only burned 504 calories according to the machine. When I was 40 pounds heavier and worked out at that level the very same machine told me I had burned almost 800 calories. I understand WHY this is so but that doesn't make it any less depressing. I wish I was still burning off the pounds like I did at first but my body is adaptable and now I have to work harder at burning those calories. That is just the way it is, I can whine about it or I can get off my ass and deal with it. I choose the latter.
Deal with it...
I think it is super important to accept reality and just deal. I have a number of these areas in my life and several in the areas of fitness.
I used to spend a ridiculous amount of time wishing I looked like someone I have no possible ability to look like. I have at various times in my life compared myself unfavorably to Keira Knightly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron and a multitude of other women with whom I have absolutely nothing in common physically. I am not exceptionally tall (although at 5'6" I am on the tallish side of normal) nor am I petite. I am definitely not small-boned or flat chested. What has helped me is to honestly evaluate MY figure's features (notice I do not use the word flaws!) and tendencies and then find people who I can emulate that are realistic goals for me. I am broad-shouldered and slim-hipped (now that my hips are coming out from under their thick layer of fat lol), average height and average bust size but with a very large ribcage. In many ways my shape is an inverted triangle so I look for role models who share my shape, in other words I stopped wishing I looked like Keira Knightly and work harder to look like Demi Moore (also an inverted triangle!)
I have a bad knee, I tore it up when I was 18 and it was replaced when I was 40 so I don't do ANYTHING that could screw up my knee. It would be stupid and self-defeating! When I do squats I do wide-stance plie squats, I find that they are much less stressful to my knee. The treadmill hurts my knee and the elliptical doesn't so I use the elliptical and ignore the treadmill. In other words I deal with it!
I came to a realization this year and it is another area where I just have to deal with it. My weight is always going to be an issue! I am always going to have to think about it, I am always going to have to work at it and the reality is so does everyone else. When I was fat I would look at thin people and think "Oh, they've got it so easy! They don't even have to try and they are thin." Well, guess what? I was wrong! There are a few exceptions but the vast majority of people who are in good shape work at it. They don't take second helpings, they exercise, they think about it address it, they deal with it! That is probably the biggest lie that overweight people tell themselves, that they can just not think about it and it will all be fine. It is simply not true and being healthy takes work, it takes effort and it takes time.
It's worth it!
Monday, August 13, 2012
Sharp Contrasts
This was written a few weeks ago during church. I've hesitated to post it here but a conversation around the dinner table last night made me me decide to go ahead and put it up. I'll expand on what was said after I've transcribed what I wrote in church. Remember that the next paragraph was written in the "heat of the moment" when you read it.
I am sitting in church and am struck by how very much it resembles a theatre. The glaring blue lights, the dramatic white against black, the white fabric draped to resemble shafts of light, very similar to the rotating lights of movie premieres. High contrast black and white, not a single window in the room; and I am struck by the contrast between my church (which I do love) and the churches of my childhood. Classic, small buildings with a center aisle and wooden pews, stained glass windows down both sides and a beautiful baptismal at the front. One of those churches was, and is, particularly special to me. It was built by my Grandfather and when I step into it (and it's been a VERY long time since I did so) it feels sweet and familiar. I think I value natural lighting. I think what is bothering me right now is the theatrical artificiality I see in the atmosphere of my own church. It is at a sharp contrast with the truth of the words Rob is speaking. When I sing during worship I am often distracted by the "lights, camera, action!" atmosphere of my church. When did our focus become theatrics????
Yesterday at church I felt the same way, but interspersed with that feeling were moments when the "theatrics" truly did enhance worship instead of contrast with it. We were singing Amazing Grace (the original!) and when we got to the verse that says "when we've been there, ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun" I realized that the lights in the sanctuary had increased gradually and were now much brighter. It was a subtle bit of theatrics that actually enhanced the worship. For the most part the theatrics aren't that subtle, they're usually just distracting. And I find them distracting from both sides of the "stage". When I am on the worship team singing the bright lights in my eyes make it impossible to look out and focus on the faces of the congregation, they make it hard to make eye contact and connect to the people I am (hopefully) leading in worship. When I'm out in the congregation I find the stage lights distracting and have to say that I sometimes hide in the relative darkness of the "audience" so my lack of involvement isn't as readily apparent.
Last night while talking about our worship service the word 'show' was thrown very casually into the conversation. We were talking about things like smoke machines, haze and lighting and shows where those things were used well and added to the experience. That word 'show' really bugged me. Our worship is not a 'show'. It's not supposed to be a show and it's purpose is not to entertain. Worship within your own church is a corporate experience aimed at God, not at a stage and an audience. I struggle with being too critical and I hesitated several weeks before writing this but I have to say I'm having a real problem finding the balance between worship and theatrics.
I am sitting in church and am struck by how very much it resembles a theatre. The glaring blue lights, the dramatic white against black, the white fabric draped to resemble shafts of light, very similar to the rotating lights of movie premieres. High contrast black and white, not a single window in the room; and I am struck by the contrast between my church (which I do love) and the churches of my childhood. Classic, small buildings with a center aisle and wooden pews, stained glass windows down both sides and a beautiful baptismal at the front. One of those churches was, and is, particularly special to me. It was built by my Grandfather and when I step into it (and it's been a VERY long time since I did so) it feels sweet and familiar. I think I value natural lighting. I think what is bothering me right now is the theatrical artificiality I see in the atmosphere of my own church. It is at a sharp contrast with the truth of the words Rob is speaking. When I sing during worship I am often distracted by the "lights, camera, action!" atmosphere of my church. When did our focus become theatrics????
Yesterday at church I felt the same way, but interspersed with that feeling were moments when the "theatrics" truly did enhance worship instead of contrast with it. We were singing Amazing Grace (the original!) and when we got to the verse that says "when we've been there, ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun" I realized that the lights in the sanctuary had increased gradually and were now much brighter. It was a subtle bit of theatrics that actually enhanced the worship. For the most part the theatrics aren't that subtle, they're usually just distracting. And I find them distracting from both sides of the "stage". When I am on the worship team singing the bright lights in my eyes make it impossible to look out and focus on the faces of the congregation, they make it hard to make eye contact and connect to the people I am (hopefully) leading in worship. When I'm out in the congregation I find the stage lights distracting and have to say that I sometimes hide in the relative darkness of the "audience" so my lack of involvement isn't as readily apparent.
Last night while talking about our worship service the word 'show' was thrown very casually into the conversation. We were talking about things like smoke machines, haze and lighting and shows where those things were used well and added to the experience. That word 'show' really bugged me. Our worship is not a 'show'. It's not supposed to be a show and it's purpose is not to entertain. Worship within your own church is a corporate experience aimed at God, not at a stage and an audience. I struggle with being too critical and I hesitated several weeks before writing this but I have to say I'm having a real problem finding the balance between worship and theatrics.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Porn is Porn! Right?
I know, interesting title. This is why I am thinking about porn right now. As most of you know I am a nurse and I work in a hospital. I am a supplemental staff nurse for the peri-operative services department at a branch of a world-renowned teaching hospital. Right now several of the nurses I work with are discussing a best selling book called Fifty Shades of Grey. It's kind of hard to be at work and avoid the conversations about this particular book and yesterday was no exception. Two of the nurses I work with were discussing it and someone asked me if I had read it. Well, in typical Lorri fashion I didn't exactly keep my opinion to myself. My response was (and this is pretty much a quote) "Porn is porn, and I hate porn! Being porn aimed at women doesn't make it any different and the fact that there aren't pictures doesn't stop it from being porn." Well, you could kind of tell I had put my foot in it and they were a little startled by my reaction. They really didn't think of the book as pornography. Why is that? Do people really think that unless there's a photograph attached something isn't pornographic? There's a tendency to re-label something as though that makes it into something different so Fifty Shades of Grey gets the more innocuous label of "erotica" and that makes it socially acceptable. But it's still porn. It is created specifically to trigger one's sexual response and there is no emotional or spiritual response being sought.
I once heard a pastor argue that romance novels are a type of porn and while I dismissed him out of hand at the time I've come to believe he really had a point. One of the things porn does is create unrealistic expectations in men, one of the primary feminist arguments against porn is "pornography presents a severely distorted image of sexual relations and reinforces sex myths, that it always shows women as readily available and desiring to engage in sex at any time, with any man, and on men's terms, always responding positively to any advances men make." I normally don't agree much with feminists but I think they've hit the nail on the head there. That IS a big part of what is wrong with porn. Now, if you paraphrase that wouldn't it describe most romance novels? i.e. "romance novels present a severely distorted image of male/female relations and reinforce relationship myths" While I think the comparison falls apart eventually there's still quite a bit to think about. Romance novels do create unrealistic expectations in women, read enough of them and you start seeing romantic interest in every man who disagrees with you (because he's really just fighting the love he feels inside) and you begin to believe that the right man will solve all your problems with nothing more than his great love for you (that he keeps hidden because he fears you don't love him back) and you'll live happily ever after (once he's dominated you and swept you off your feet). As you can probably tell I have issues with romance novels also, and I read a TON of them between the ages of 16 and 25!
My husband told me a story last night about Abraham Lincoln (and I'm paraphrasing here as I've only heard this second-hand). Apparently Lincoln once asked an audience "how many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg?" When the audience responded "five" he told them that the answer was still four. Why? Because the fact that you called a tail a leg did not change the fact that the tail was still a tail and not a leg. You can call something "adult" or "erotica" but the truth is it is porn.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
WEIGHT LOSS: HOPES, DREAMS AND FEARS!
Weight Loss: It's funny, I really thought that all my friends knew I had had weight loss surgery but I continue to get requests from people who want to know "how have you done it?" So...I decided to post this little weight history. It's probably more detail than any of you want but it is definitely a complete story about what led me into the 'surgery' decision. This was something I wrote for my doctor, Jason Balette, in answer to his question "What do you hope to gain from weight loss surgery, what are your hopes, dreams and fears?" I'll give everyone a chance to get more into my head than they ever wanted to and later I'll write more about what's happened since February. So...here it is:
I can type faster than I can write (and almost keep up with the thoughts in my head) so I decided to put this on a separate sheet of paper. You asked me to tell you what my hopes, fears and dreams are for this surgery. I’ll start by explaining why I’ve decided to do this and go from there. I’m sure it’s a very familiar story to you.
I’ve struggled with my weight issues for close to thirty years. I was never a skinny kid, always had a rounded tummy and face and for some reason always thought I was fat. I look back at photos and realize I was NOT a fat child but I was convinced from a very early age that I was never thin enough. I had an experience at age 16 that seemed to seal that into my mind. When I was in high school I wanted more than anything else to be on the drill team. My high school drill team had a weight requirement and in order to try out a girl who was 5’6” had to weigh 116 lbs or less. I worked so hard to reach my goal of 116 but the day of tryouts when we had our weigh-in I was 118 lbs and wasn’t allowed to try out. The leaders asked me to go through the motions of the audition so it wouldn’t mess up the other girls in the line but they took my number and told the judges I wasn’t up for consideration. I remember so clearly being determined to be a 'good sport' and going through the dance but afterwards when one of the judges came up to me and told me I was a good dancer and that I would definitely have made the team if I had made the weight I was just crushed. In my mind if I didn’t weigh 116 lbs I was fat!
I steadily gained weight over the next couple of years and by the time I was a sophomore in college I weighed about 165 lbs. I was still a very active person physically and realize when I look back at photos that I didn’t look particularly fat, but in my mind I was huge! Morbidly obese!!! My junior year in college I sustained a very serious knee injury doing karate. I tore my ACL and MCL and both meniscus in my left knee (doing a flying side kick that ended with a crash landing) the doctor who saw me initially thought I had just strained my knee and told me to get back on it. My knee was pretty unstable and I honestly thought I was imagining things but saw a sports medicine doc at UTMB in Galveston who did an arthrogram and finally recognized the extent of my injury. At that point I underwent knee surgery but there was quite a bit of arthritis in the knee by then. Laparscopic surgery was out and instead I had two LONG incisions on my left leg and another three months on crutches. Being inactive was oddly bad and good for my weight. I lost muscle mass and increased in flabbiness but my actual weight didn’t change very much. I decided to start counting calories and restricted myself to 1000 calories a day. It wasn’t too hard to do because I was doing no physical activity that didn’t involve crutches. I lost down to about 135 lbs and was fairly happy with the way I looked. Once I became more active my weight gradually increased into the 150 range but that was more due to muscle gain than anything else and my size didn’t significantly increase.
What you need to understand is that I still felt like I looked fat. Since I still didn’t have a flat tummy and my face was still round I really was never particularly happy with the way I looked. I met my husband Rick during that time and we got married 18 months later in 1987. My daughter Chelsea was born in January 1990 and while I gained weight with my pregnancy I did lose most of what I’d gained. My body never really bounced back though and I wasn’t as able to be physically active so a lot of my weight loss was lean muscle mass. Stephen was born in December of 1991 and I repeated the same pattern of losing some of my baby weight but not all of it. I also need to point out that I didn’t really gain an abnormally large amount of weight with either pregnancy and both pregnancies were essentially uncomplicated. But this is where the mind (or at least MY mind) plays tricks. I was never really honest with myself regarding how I looked. It was like I had a mental picture of myself at 150 and that’s how I thought I still looked, I didn’t recognize the extra 30 pounds I was carrying at that point. I find it incongruous that at 118 I thought I was fat and at 180 I thought I was thin. The mind is a ridiculously powerful thing!
I should also point out that at this point I had developed some tachycardia which we originally thought were just palpitations. I had seen a cardiologist and worn a holter monitor but we could never catch the rhythm on a monitor as it was pretty infrequent. Our family moved to Utah for a couple of years and it wasn’t a particularly happy time. My weight fluctuated in the 180’s and when we returned to Texas I decided to try out this new medication called phen-fen. I lost a quick 25 lbs with phen-fen but the incidences of my palpitations increased too. I have to admit I wasn’t too concerned about my heart. I assumed I was just the typical slightly hysterical female who had palpitations and that they probably weren’t too much to be worried about. At the time I was working in CVICU at St. Luke’s in the Texas Medical Center and one day while on my break my heart started doing it’s funky rhythm. It seemed to be racing for more than 30 minutes and when my break was over I asked my charge nurse if I could sit for a few more minutes until my heart stopped racing. She first felt my pulse and told me that my pulse seemed fine and when I replied that it really felt like it was going fast she put her stethoscope on my chest. Her next words were “OMG, it’s too fast for me to count.” Before I knew it my co-workers had slapped me on a monitor and what we thought were simple palpitations turned out to be V-Tach. I started to see a cardiologist and had a cardiac catheterization and EP Study that showed an idiopathic ventricular tachycardia. Dr. Massumi told me that the origin of my VT was very high in the ventricle and he didn’t recommend an ablation at that time, instead I was started on a beta-blocker and taken off all caffeine and stimulants (and obviously phen-fen). The incidences of V-tach lessened and I was able to come off the beta-blockers and just avoid caffeine. Except for the idiopathic rhythm my heart was in great shape (as Dr. Massumi pointed out anyone who can sustain rates of 270 for an hour without dropping their BP has a pretty good heart).
In 1999 I was pregnant with my youngest child Paul. During my pregnancy we discovered that Paul had Down syndrome and a congenital heart defect. That pregnancy was very stressful for me and I had several incidences of going into VT that did NOT resolve spontaneously. However, my rhythm responds extremely well to Adenosine and twice I was converted chemically after sustaining rhythms greater than 250 for up to four hours. On the day Paul was born in January 2000 I weighed 206 lbs. Not only did I never lose my “baby weight” I packed on more. Life over the next couple of years included Paul’s open heart surgery and a total knee replacement for me as the arthritis in my left knee had reached the point where I could barely walk for 30 minutes without needing to put my knee in ice. I had a GREAT knee surgery, it made a big difference in my activity level but somehow not in my weight, in fact I found that with increased activity I just ate more and instead of losing weight I stayed about the same.
In 2004 we moved to Singapore. Life overseas carries a different set of stressers and my response to stress has often been to eat. I was lonely, isolated from friends and country (although my own family is pretty terrific) and exposed to the amazing food of Singapore. I continued to steadily gain and now I was finding that I couldn’t seem to stick to a diet at all. Now I seemed to always feel hungry and I couldn’t find any of the will power I’d relied on in the past. But still I didn’t truly recognize how fat I had become. Singaporeans however are nothing if not honest. When you look for clothes they tell you “we have nothing for you, you too fat”, it’s a very humbling place to be. But I was in denial and would find myself thinking “I’m not fat, I’m just not Asian” We were both right; I was too fat, and I’m not Asian!
I explored the idea of a lap band while I was in Singapore, I worked with a nutritionist who told me what I should eat and basically scolded me when I didn’t do it right. I seriously considered a lap band but our insurance does not pay for any weight loss surgery. I tabled the idea and kept trying on my own. When we got back to the United States I tried Weight Watchers (for what had to be the eighth time) and even went to Overeaters Anonymous but nothing seemed to work for me. I saw an M.D. with Physician’s Weight Loss and made him FULLY aware of my heart condition, hoping that some of the newer weight loss drugs would be safe. He told me they were safe but I started having chest pain and was not feeling well at all (in spite of an ablation in 2005) and when I called my cardiologist he told me to stop all the medications I was on. I went in to see Dr. Massumi and he did a new echo and my once almost perfectly healthy heart now is showing some mild signs of having to work too hard. So while I have no true co-morbidities to accompany my BMI of 36 it’s like they are all sitting on the sideline waiting for me to just get fat enough for them to jump into the game!
On February 4, 2012 my husband said he wanted to talk to me. He told me we had money set aside and if I wanted to pursue weight loss surgery he wanted me to do it. His exact words were, “of course I would like it if you were thinner but if you don’t do something you are going to end up with diabetes or high blood pressure. We need to prevent those things from happening”. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard that was to hear, but I really needed to hear it. I had felt like having the weight loss surgery would be selfish, it would be just for me and so I didn’t want to go there. Rick made me realize it is actually for him and for our kids, especially our youngest who is going to need us for a long time.
So….finally I can actually answer your question about my hopes, dreams and fears. I hope that losing this weight will improve my health, that I’ll be able to have enough stamina that I won’t feel like I’ve been beaten after working a 12 hour shift, that I’ll be able to run up the stairs without huffing and puffing and be able to get up and moving instead of wanting to just vegetate in front of the TV when I have free time. I hope that I can arrest my heart disease and prevent any new heart problems from developing. I hope that I can NEVER develop Type 2 Diabetes or high blood pressure. My grandmother died in 2007 at the age of 96 and she needed NO prescription medications. I hope I can match her in the prescription way (but I actually have NO desire to live to 96!). In fact my hopes are really my expectations! I expect those kind of improvements.
I dream of going to the beach and not being embarrassed to wear a bathing suit, of raiding through my 22 year old daughter’s closet and wearing some of the cool clothes we got for her in Singapore that she never uses (and that I always envied when we were there) and of dancing at my son’s wedding in 4 inch heels!!!! I dream of taking a ballroom dance class and a second honeymoon somewhere with a gorgeous beach. I dream of a new wardrobe and of seeing something in Dillards out of the corner of my eye and actually fitting into it!! I dream of showing up at a family or class reunion 100 pounds lighter. Those are dreams.
My fears are more complex. I’m afraid that I’ll be a failure at this as I’ve been a failure with weight loss before. I know enough about surgery and it’s complications that I have a healthy fear of anesthesia, infection, and bleeding but my past surgical history has taught me that being determined and following the doctor’s instructions makes all the difference in the world. I fear that I will look older after surgery and I told my husband that losing weight won’t make me 25 again (he just laughed). But I do fear that I won’t meet whatever expectations he has of this surgery.
Rick sees the surgery as similar to diet pills, something to help me lose weight that I can’t lose on my own. I see it as a drastic decision that I can’t take back, it won’t just help me lose weight, it will force me to lose weight. That’s a big part of why I am so excited about it. For me it’s a lot like my knee replacement or my ablation…they both made a huge difference and improved my life dramatically but neither of them turned back the clock. My knee will never be “normal” again and neither will my heart. This will do the same thing for my stomach but the changes will be positive ones and much, much better than if I’d done nothing at all.
There you have it! Probably my longest post to date. Next time I'll put in some pictures.
I can type faster than I can write (and almost keep up with the thoughts in my head) so I decided to put this on a separate sheet of paper. You asked me to tell you what my hopes, fears and dreams are for this surgery. I’ll start by explaining why I’ve decided to do this and go from there. I’m sure it’s a very familiar story to you.
I’ve struggled with my weight issues for close to thirty years. I was never a skinny kid, always had a rounded tummy and face and for some reason always thought I was fat. I look back at photos and realize I was NOT a fat child but I was convinced from a very early age that I was never thin enough. I had an experience at age 16 that seemed to seal that into my mind. When I was in high school I wanted more than anything else to be on the drill team. My high school drill team had a weight requirement and in order to try out a girl who was 5’6” had to weigh 116 lbs or less. I worked so hard to reach my goal of 116 but the day of tryouts when we had our weigh-in I was 118 lbs and wasn’t allowed to try out. The leaders asked me to go through the motions of the audition so it wouldn’t mess up the other girls in the line but they took my number and told the judges I wasn’t up for consideration. I remember so clearly being determined to be a 'good sport' and going through the dance but afterwards when one of the judges came up to me and told me I was a good dancer and that I would definitely have made the team if I had made the weight I was just crushed. In my mind if I didn’t weigh 116 lbs I was fat!
I steadily gained weight over the next couple of years and by the time I was a sophomore in college I weighed about 165 lbs. I was still a very active person physically and realize when I look back at photos that I didn’t look particularly fat, but in my mind I was huge! Morbidly obese!!! My junior year in college I sustained a very serious knee injury doing karate. I tore my ACL and MCL and both meniscus in my left knee (doing a flying side kick that ended with a crash landing) the doctor who saw me initially thought I had just strained my knee and told me to get back on it. My knee was pretty unstable and I honestly thought I was imagining things but saw a sports medicine doc at UTMB in Galveston who did an arthrogram and finally recognized the extent of my injury. At that point I underwent knee surgery but there was quite a bit of arthritis in the knee by then. Laparscopic surgery was out and instead I had two LONG incisions on my left leg and another three months on crutches. Being inactive was oddly bad and good for my weight. I lost muscle mass and increased in flabbiness but my actual weight didn’t change very much. I decided to start counting calories and restricted myself to 1000 calories a day. It wasn’t too hard to do because I was doing no physical activity that didn’t involve crutches. I lost down to about 135 lbs and was fairly happy with the way I looked. Once I became more active my weight gradually increased into the 150 range but that was more due to muscle gain than anything else and my size didn’t significantly increase.
What you need to understand is that I still felt like I looked fat. Since I still didn’t have a flat tummy and my face was still round I really was never particularly happy with the way I looked. I met my husband Rick during that time and we got married 18 months later in 1987. My daughter Chelsea was born in January 1990 and while I gained weight with my pregnancy I did lose most of what I’d gained. My body never really bounced back though and I wasn’t as able to be physically active so a lot of my weight loss was lean muscle mass. Stephen was born in December of 1991 and I repeated the same pattern of losing some of my baby weight but not all of it. I also need to point out that I didn’t really gain an abnormally large amount of weight with either pregnancy and both pregnancies were essentially uncomplicated. But this is where the mind (or at least MY mind) plays tricks. I was never really honest with myself regarding how I looked. It was like I had a mental picture of myself at 150 and that’s how I thought I still looked, I didn’t recognize the extra 30 pounds I was carrying at that point. I find it incongruous that at 118 I thought I was fat and at 180 I thought I was thin. The mind is a ridiculously powerful thing!
I should also point out that at this point I had developed some tachycardia which we originally thought were just palpitations. I had seen a cardiologist and worn a holter monitor but we could never catch the rhythm on a monitor as it was pretty infrequent. Our family moved to Utah for a couple of years and it wasn’t a particularly happy time. My weight fluctuated in the 180’s and when we returned to Texas I decided to try out this new medication called phen-fen. I lost a quick 25 lbs with phen-fen but the incidences of my palpitations increased too. I have to admit I wasn’t too concerned about my heart. I assumed I was just the typical slightly hysterical female who had palpitations and that they probably weren’t too much to be worried about. At the time I was working in CVICU at St. Luke’s in the Texas Medical Center and one day while on my break my heart started doing it’s funky rhythm. It seemed to be racing for more than 30 minutes and when my break was over I asked my charge nurse if I could sit for a few more minutes until my heart stopped racing. She first felt my pulse and told me that my pulse seemed fine and when I replied that it really felt like it was going fast she put her stethoscope on my chest. Her next words were “OMG, it’s too fast for me to count.” Before I knew it my co-workers had slapped me on a monitor and what we thought were simple palpitations turned out to be V-Tach. I started to see a cardiologist and had a cardiac catheterization and EP Study that showed an idiopathic ventricular tachycardia. Dr. Massumi told me that the origin of my VT was very high in the ventricle and he didn’t recommend an ablation at that time, instead I was started on a beta-blocker and taken off all caffeine and stimulants (and obviously phen-fen). The incidences of V-tach lessened and I was able to come off the beta-blockers and just avoid caffeine. Except for the idiopathic rhythm my heart was in great shape (as Dr. Massumi pointed out anyone who can sustain rates of 270 for an hour without dropping their BP has a pretty good heart).
In 1999 I was pregnant with my youngest child Paul. During my pregnancy we discovered that Paul had Down syndrome and a congenital heart defect. That pregnancy was very stressful for me and I had several incidences of going into VT that did NOT resolve spontaneously. However, my rhythm responds extremely well to Adenosine and twice I was converted chemically after sustaining rhythms greater than 250 for up to four hours. On the day Paul was born in January 2000 I weighed 206 lbs. Not only did I never lose my “baby weight” I packed on more. Life over the next couple of years included Paul’s open heart surgery and a total knee replacement for me as the arthritis in my left knee had reached the point where I could barely walk for 30 minutes without needing to put my knee in ice. I had a GREAT knee surgery, it made a big difference in my activity level but somehow not in my weight, in fact I found that with increased activity I just ate more and instead of losing weight I stayed about the same.
In 2004 we moved to Singapore. Life overseas carries a different set of stressers and my response to stress has often been to eat. I was lonely, isolated from friends and country (although my own family is pretty terrific) and exposed to the amazing food of Singapore. I continued to steadily gain and now I was finding that I couldn’t seem to stick to a diet at all. Now I seemed to always feel hungry and I couldn’t find any of the will power I’d relied on in the past. But still I didn’t truly recognize how fat I had become. Singaporeans however are nothing if not honest. When you look for clothes they tell you “we have nothing for you, you too fat”, it’s a very humbling place to be. But I was in denial and would find myself thinking “I’m not fat, I’m just not Asian” We were both right; I was too fat, and I’m not Asian!
I explored the idea of a lap band while I was in Singapore, I worked with a nutritionist who told me what I should eat and basically scolded me when I didn’t do it right. I seriously considered a lap band but our insurance does not pay for any weight loss surgery. I tabled the idea and kept trying on my own. When we got back to the United States I tried Weight Watchers (for what had to be the eighth time) and even went to Overeaters Anonymous but nothing seemed to work for me. I saw an M.D. with Physician’s Weight Loss and made him FULLY aware of my heart condition, hoping that some of the newer weight loss drugs would be safe. He told me they were safe but I started having chest pain and was not feeling well at all (in spite of an ablation in 2005) and when I called my cardiologist he told me to stop all the medications I was on. I went in to see Dr. Massumi and he did a new echo and my once almost perfectly healthy heart now is showing some mild signs of having to work too hard. So while I have no true co-morbidities to accompany my BMI of 36 it’s like they are all sitting on the sideline waiting for me to just get fat enough for them to jump into the game!
On February 4, 2012 my husband said he wanted to talk to me. He told me we had money set aside and if I wanted to pursue weight loss surgery he wanted me to do it. His exact words were, “of course I would like it if you were thinner but if you don’t do something you are going to end up with diabetes or high blood pressure. We need to prevent those things from happening”. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard that was to hear, but I really needed to hear it. I had felt like having the weight loss surgery would be selfish, it would be just for me and so I didn’t want to go there. Rick made me realize it is actually for him and for our kids, especially our youngest who is going to need us for a long time.
So….finally I can actually answer your question about my hopes, dreams and fears. I hope that losing this weight will improve my health, that I’ll be able to have enough stamina that I won’t feel like I’ve been beaten after working a 12 hour shift, that I’ll be able to run up the stairs without huffing and puffing and be able to get up and moving instead of wanting to just vegetate in front of the TV when I have free time. I hope that I can arrest my heart disease and prevent any new heart problems from developing. I hope that I can NEVER develop Type 2 Diabetes or high blood pressure. My grandmother died in 2007 at the age of 96 and she needed NO prescription medications. I hope I can match her in the prescription way (but I actually have NO desire to live to 96!). In fact my hopes are really my expectations! I expect those kind of improvements.
I dream of going to the beach and not being embarrassed to wear a bathing suit, of raiding through my 22 year old daughter’s closet and wearing some of the cool clothes we got for her in Singapore that she never uses (and that I always envied when we were there) and of dancing at my son’s wedding in 4 inch heels!!!! I dream of taking a ballroom dance class and a second honeymoon somewhere with a gorgeous beach. I dream of a new wardrobe and of seeing something in Dillards out of the corner of my eye and actually fitting into it!! I dream of showing up at a family or class reunion 100 pounds lighter. Those are dreams.
My fears are more complex. I’m afraid that I’ll be a failure at this as I’ve been a failure with weight loss before. I know enough about surgery and it’s complications that I have a healthy fear of anesthesia, infection, and bleeding but my past surgical history has taught me that being determined and following the doctor’s instructions makes all the difference in the world. I fear that I will look older after surgery and I told my husband that losing weight won’t make me 25 again (he just laughed). But I do fear that I won’t meet whatever expectations he has of this surgery.
Rick sees the surgery as similar to diet pills, something to help me lose weight that I can’t lose on my own. I see it as a drastic decision that I can’t take back, it won’t just help me lose weight, it will force me to lose weight. That’s a big part of why I am so excited about it. For me it’s a lot like my knee replacement or my ablation…they both made a huge difference and improved my life dramatically but neither of them turned back the clock. My knee will never be “normal” again and neither will my heart. This will do the same thing for my stomach but the changes will be positive ones and much, much better than if I’d done nothing at all.
There you have it! Probably my longest post to date. Next time I'll put in some pictures.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)