Month: May 2011

In Recovery

On university campuses, May is a time of dinners, receptions, celebrations of many stripes. It is also the time when colleagues, holed up in offices all winter, emerge blinking in the sun, and greet one another with exclamations of “I haven’t seen you in so long!” At one such occasion the other night, I was happy to see the wife of one of our Deans, whom I hadn’t seen in, well, so long. She said, “You look fabulous! How have you done it?”

Normally, when people ask me that question, I assume they are interested in a short answer – diet and exercise OR bariatric surgery. So I generally respond, “The old-fashioned way.” For some reason, on this particular occasion, I launched into a longer and less clear explanation. I found myself telling her that I had refused for many years to take a real look at WHY I was fat. That, in fact, I preferred to believe that the only plausible reason was that I was engineered that way. I definitely wasn’t one of those people who was overweight for psychological or emotional reasons. I told her that I finally had to take a hard look at myself and evaluate my irrational thinking.

Last night, I attended a presentation being offered as part of our pre-finals “Stress Buster Week”, in which a panel of guests shared their personal stories of alcoholism and recovery. As I listened, for the first time it struck me just how much my relationship with food mirrored their relationships with alcohol. One panelist stated, “For most people, a few drinks quenches their desire or need for more. For an alcoholic, a few drinks just makes you more thirsty.” Substitute “food” for the word “drinks” in those sentences, and they will be true for me. In the same session, I heard the panelists say:

  • I knew I wasn’t normal. When I was drinking was the only time I felt normal.
  • Teachers and speakers told us alcohol was evil. But alcohol comforted me, so I wasn’t willing to do anything about it.
  • I drank in secret whenever I could get away with it. As long a no one saw me drink, I didn’t have a problem.
  • I was so ashamed.

Wow. These statements were all eerily familiar to me as well. I know there is a group called Overeaters’ Anonymous, patterned after A.A. I never considered joining, and when it was suggested to me periodically, I always said, “I’m just not a joiner.” Denial much?! And, if I am completely honest with myself, I wanted to distance myself from all those fat people. After all, I wasn’t one of them. I may have been fat, but that didn’t make me like those other people – I was smart and educated and never bought more than one value meal for myself at McDonalds. The fact that I looked upon others who struggled with the same issues as me with such repugnance is a testament to the irrationality of my thinking, and to the power of my addiction. I didn’t want to give it up, and if I admitted to having problems, I would be forced to face that food was just my drug of choice.

Another thing the panelists said last night that made me nod in agreement:  “The whole forever thing really tripped me up. To get better, I would have to stop drinking for the rest of my life. No way I was going to do that!” In order to truly face my addiction to food, I knew that the lifestyle changes I  needed to make would have to be lifelong. I read in one article that overweight women my age would need to work out 60-90 minutes a day, every day, for the rest of their lives to lose the weight and keep it off. Talk about a daunting prospect. Plus, I would need to maintain a change in my relationship to food – no more whole pizzas or whole bags of cheddar goldfish in a single sitting. In fact, I may have to forego some foods altogether if I couldn’t learn to control the portions. Yes, I definitely saw myself in the panelists’ struggle to come to terms with their addictions.

But here’s the really amazing thing: each member of the panel HAS faced his or her addiction, with incredibly positive and powerful results. Listening to their stories of living in recovery, and the positive changes that have taken place across all facets of their lives I started nodding along. I recognized myself in this part of the story as well. As I sat there, I was suffused with an overpowering sense of gratitude for each of our stories. I almost said, “for the happy endings to each of our stories”, but if I’ve learned anything (either in the last couple of years or from last night’s speakers), there is no happy ending to our stories. Our lives continue as stories being told one sentence at a time. One of the panelists summed it up, perfectly, “I take it one day at a time. Because I know that if I succeed today, tomorrow will be better.”

TMI Tuesday

At the request of friends, Triple-Word Tuesday has, for one week only, been supplanted by “Too Much Information” Tuesday. I’m not sure why I agreed to this, but I did, so here goes:

  • Other peoples’ laundry always smells better than mine. I don’t know what she uses, but when I enter my friend Wendy’s house while laundry is being done, it smells heavenly. Recently a friend who bought a new bed gave me a set of sheets that didn’t fit the new mattress. I put them on my bed the other night and they smelled so good, I finally had to ask what laundry detergent was used. Gain Original Fresh Scent, in case you were wondering!
  • The vast majority of adult Americans do or have peed in the shower. This is a fact which, when I first heard it reported as part of a national lifestyle survey, shocked me. After discussing it with several groups over the intervening time, I am no longer shocked that so many people do it – now I’m trying to recover from the surprise at how many people freely admit to it.
  • When we were kids, I had a crush on David Cassidy and my sister had a crush on Danny Bonaduce. I believe time has shown which of us displayed better judgement.
  • One day in eighth grade I had gym class and a terribly gassy stomach. The result: noisy calisthenics. So epic was the experience, that it made the school newspaper’s “Remember When…” column at the end of the year. Very embarrassing. Now, I know better than to let such things derail my workouts. Farts happen. Accept and move on.
  • Oprah is my celebrity hero. Speaking of accepting and moving on, the end of the Oprah Show is fast approaching. I know, for some it is a strange or silly phenomenon that people are actually mourning the loss of the show. But for many, Oprah’s show (and Oprah herself) has represented something greater than the average television show: the encouragement to attempt to live your best life, and a parade of people to hold up as examples and role models in this. Some have found the courage to make real change in their own lives as a result. This has become more profoundly clear to me as word has gotten out that I HAVE A TICKET TO THE OPRAH TRIBUTE SHOW next week! Women I hardly know have been sharing their stories with me, and my excitement about attending the taping next week has been tempered by their moving tributes to Oprah. I’m pretty sure I’ll get choked up during the taping of the show, which is intended to be a surprise “Thank You” to Oprah. I’m really happy I get to be there. Thanks to my sister Annie for getting me the hook-up!
Well, that concludes this special edition of TMI Tuesday. I am sure we will all breathe a sigh of relief when Triple Word Tuesday returns next week!

Funny Love

When I was in college, then graduate school, Marty was a big part of my life. With a group of our friends, we hung out, we partied, we laughed. Man, did we laugh. Here’s the thing: Marty was the funniest person I had ever met.

For a time, I believed that I loved Marty because he was so funny. And truly, I’ve always had a soft spot for people who make me laugh (doesn’t everyone?).

As life goes, Marty and I parted ways a couple of decades ago. Why is important to my life story, but not really to this post. Let’s just say that there came a day when the laughter had a hollow ring to it, and that made me too sad to keep in touch.

Fast forward, to March 2010. I was a Facebook newbie, and I noticed that Marty was listed as a friend to my friend Carol (one of those from the old crowd of hanging out and laughing). I sent him a friend request, with a message. The heading of the message was, “WTF?” Marty wrote back, telling me that wasn’t a very appropriate greeting after approximately 25 years. Thus began the renewal of our friendship.

One night early last summer, my phone rang. Caller ID displayed a number I didn’t recognize, but I answered anyway. The very second the caller spoke, I knew to whom I was speaking – Marty. Still funny, still able to tell a story.

Last weekend, I went to Chicago, and met up with Marty. And I discovered something about my friendship with him — I LOVE this man. And not because he is funny, though that is a genuine gift. Marty and I have a story, and that story includes all the plot elements that make for a good read: love, laughter, tears, betrayal, coming of age. It is a story that, now, we can look at in its entirety and see that it has a happy ending: true friends reunited.

To borrow Marty’s word for it, our relationship years ago was “tender”. Our friendship today is too, if the goofy smiles, somber gazes, and affectionate pats are any measure. Funny thing, love. Sometimes, it just sits around, waiting for our hearts to notice it!

(Marty will probably hate this photo – I love that I caught him in a rare

moment of seriousness…)

Flashback Friday

Hanson Family Portrait circa 1970

Front row: Anne, Jeff, Gwen, Jeni, Chris

Back row: Jackson, Matt, Shirley

One of the reasons that I love this photo is it illustrates what the following statement really means:  6 kids in 9 years. Chris was born in June 1960 and Matt in July 1969. My mother was alone with the six of us much of the time, and I can only say (with the benefit of hindsight) how grateful I am not only for everything she DID, but also for all the things she didn’t do — like lose her sanity (held on with her fingernails a few times!), take up child abuse, put us up for adoption when we got mouthy…

Happy Mother’s Day to the woman who taught my siblings, by example, how to be such great parents!

Its Always Something

One of our local television news channels has been running a human interest series on Tuesday nights, after “The Biggest Loser” airs. They have, creatively, called the series “Eastern Iowa’s Biggest Losers” (I guess they rely on the fact that most viewers get the relationship between their segment and the network show!).  Anyway, Tuesday night, I was watching the news and happened to catch the segment. I don’t know the name of the woman they profiled, and I didn’t see the piece in its entirety. However, she lost over a hundred pounds, like me, via diet and exercise. Like me, she was well into midlife when she decided to make this change, and worried about whether she could be successful. Also, like me, she discovered that exercise was something she really could do.

UNLIKE me, she is now a fitness class instructor. That, friends, is something I cannot imagine I will ever be! God bless Eastern Iowa’s Biggest Loser, but I won’t be following in her footsteps!

That said, I do want to sing the praises of exercise. Since I began engaging in regular exercise, I have changed in so many ways for the better. I can move quickly up and down stairs. I occasionally voluntarily sit on the floor. I can plan a 75 mile bike ride to celebrate my 50th birthday — and feel confident that I will successfully complete it. I’ve discovered that it is possible for me to choose to push my physical limits, and to dream of attempting feats I wouldn’t have thought about earlier in my life (zip lines, anyone?).

Tonight, I went to the gym for an evening workout. My bad knee hurt from pushing too hard in a new exercise class yesterday, and the first three minutes on the elliptical machine were difficult. I had set the machine for an hour, but from the throbbing in my knee I was certain I’d never make it. I told myself, “Three more minutes, and you’ve finished 1/4 of the workout. If it still hurts, you can quit”. But, I didn’t quit. Next, I promised that when I reached 350 calories burned, I could quit. But by then, I discovered that the knee felt loose and no longer throbbed. I knew it was there, for sure, but the Black-Eyed Peas were immediately followed by FloRida on my ipod — and the club just couldn’t handle me! Without really intending to, I ran the entire 60 minutes.

A short while later, limping through the produce section at the grocery store, a bottle of refrigerated low-fat salad dressing pressed against my knee, feeling cocky anyway, I remembered two moments from Tuesday night TV. The first was on the actual “Biggest Loser”, when one contestant was working out and the trainer shouted, “Who are you?” and he shouted back the answer, perhaps seeing himself this way for the first time in his life, “I’m an athlete!”  Later, on the news, Eastern Iowa’s Biggest Loser said she decided not to give up, in spite of pain. “The truth is, something always hurts. You just have to accept that and do it anyway.”

I’m not ready, yet, to declare myself an athlete. I have accepted, though, the idea that something always hurts – whether it is my knee, the oddly weak shoulder muscle on my left side, or aches, pains, maladies large and small. I’ve accepted it, and I keep moving. Because the benefits far outweigh the pain. The young man who now sees himself as an athlete, the “Loser” turned fitness instructor, and me – not one of us initially believed in our ability to change. As we gained confidence in our bodies, we’ve also gained confidence in ourselves. And that, friends, is worth more than gold!