Adina’s Cute & Perky Blog!

I eat.  I sleep.  I breathe.  I exercise. 

I get asked a lot about how I make the time for exercise.  I was never quite sure how to answer this question, until it hit me last night.

I eat.  I sleep.  I breathe.  I exercise. 

I don’t look at exercise as something I have to make time for.  I look at the same way I do eating.  No matter how busy my day is, I don’t wonder if I’m going to have time to eat.  I make the time.  For instance, when I have to go straight from work to my son’s football game, I plan ahead.  I put a protein bar and a water bottle in the freezer.  I grab them as I leave work.  I am in Texas, so the bar would melt if I did not freeze the water.  The bar and the water are perfect by half time.

I eat.  I sleep.  I breathe.  I exercise. 

If I have not exercised by midnight, I will exercise at midnight.  Funny thing is, one midnight exercise session, and you will never exercise at that time again!  It’s miserable.  But….the next day you remind yourself, I’ve got to find the time so I don’t have to do THAT ever again!

Once I started looking at it this way, it’s amazing how finding the time seemed to get easier.  I began to find small chunks of available time that would have been wasted before.  A jog at lunch.  Abs while the kids do homework.  Running bleachers during football practice.  A quick shoulder workout before meeting a friend for dinner.  It can be done.  If you want it bad enough.

I eat.  I sleep.  I breathe.  I exercise. 

I saw her today.  The beautiful one from my younger days.  The one who looked better than me no matter what I wore or how I fixed.

Oh, she was not mean.  She was just beautiful.  She was perfect.

I saw here today for the first time in years. Almost a full decade.   I would have thought I would relish this moment.  You see, the weight I had lost over the years, she had clearly gained. 

I stood there, not sure of what to say.  I took no pleasure in the moment, as I recognized the look of pain in her eyes.  The look I used to carry with me everywhere I went.

It was still a moment of triumph.  It reminded me how freeing it is to lose the weight.  Leaving a burden behind you is always freeing.

But I was sad for my friend.  My best times are ahead.  Hers are behind.  And I would not trade places for anything with the one I actually wanted to be at one time.

I have been blessed.

Once a week I like to go to my favorite burger joint and grab a burger.  It’s not a cheat.  I don’t get a coke and I don’t get fries.  I get one burger with nothing on it.

So I walked in on a Thursday afternoon last week after lifting.  I was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of overweight people in the room.  It was like they had all congregated together.

I went to the counter to place my order.  The girl checking me out hands me a cup.  I say to her, “I did not need a drink.” 

She just stares blankly and hands me a cup.  I decided this would be one of those cases where it would just be easier to take the drink and pay for it.

When I go to the other counter to wait for my burger, I see they are giving me a giant-sized take out box.  I am thinking to myself, “Boy, what a waste.”

The fog finally clears when I go to get my burger.  I am grabbing it as the attendant is trying to stuff fries in my to-go box.  I say, “I’m sorry, but I did not order fries.”

He says, “They’re free.  You have to take them.”

I say, “No thank you, I would not care for any.”

To which he says, “Everyone takes free fries.”

Then I look up and notice that the Thursday Special is “free drink and fries with the purchase of a burger.”  Ugh.

I politely refuse the fries and even the offer of a baked potato and explain to them that I appreciate their offer, but I have lost far too much weight to blow it with some fries.

Then I took a look around the room.  Were those fries really free?  It looks like it cost the majority of victims in the room more than I am willing to pay.  It cost their waist lines.  It cost there willpower. 

There are a number of ways to calculate the cost of those free fries: high blood pressure medicine, self-esteem, the cost of going from a good example to a horrible warning.

No.  Those fries weren’t free.  It’s just sad that nobody in that room knew it.

If you lose a lot of weight, people assume you LOVE to workout.  That you never have days when you just don’t feel like going to the gym.  Most of the time, this is true for me.  I mean, it’s hard not to love something that helped you shed 121 extra pounds of pure fat.

However, I did not want to work out today.  Some days I just don’t.  I usually only have one or two days a month like this.  Days where I think about exercise for longer than it takes me to actually do it!

I decided to bite the bullet and go anyway.  I walked through the doors of the gym, and immediately my mood was transformed.

I passed the guys at the front desk who always offer me encouragement.

I passed the lady who needs to lose a good bit who looks at me for encouragement.

I passed the guys who are always there when I am, and would no doubt ask me where I had been, even if I only missed one workout.

Then I loaded the plates on the leg press, and I glanced to the side to look at the person who needed me there the most.  It was, of course, my own reflection.  I was the one who would benefit from this the most.

I made it through my workout.  In fact, I was able to beat my previous best at the standing hamstring curl. 

I was glad I went.  I needed to be there today.  Even when I don’t feel like going, I am always glad I did.

I have seen people posting questions about how they are treated after they lose weight or transform their body.  I have been asked this myself.   

“Are you treated differently now.  If so, how?”

My immediate answer is to always answer that yes, I have been treated differently.  I mean, when I weighed 256 pounds would a man run across a crowed parking lot like he was trying to score the winning touch down, only to reach me out of breath and proclaim, “I ran all the way just to open this door for you.”  No.  That didn’t happen a lot when I weighed 256 pounds!  Do things like that happen to me now?  Yes.  They do.

Of course, my friends treat me differently now too.  They don’t understand why I don’t want to go out and drink or eat greasy food the way I used to.  They don’t understand why I would rather jog during my lunch hour than meet them for lunch.

But yesterday, as I was leaving the gym, an older man smiled at me, and I turned my head and walked away. 

I questioned why I did this.  I mean, old Adina smiled at everyone.  No matter what.  She was friendly.  She was a people pleaser.  She certainly did not avoid a nice older man smiling at her.

So I left pondering, did everyone around me change, or was it me?  Maybe I carry myself differently now.  Maybe, after repeated episodes like that man running to the door for me, I question smiles from strangers.  I no longer see a smile as just a smile.

Then I reflected on my friends.  Maybe I need to find a way to spend time with them that doesn’t involve eating or drinking.  Maybe they miss Old Adina.  Maybe I need to dig in deep and find the parts of me that it’s OK to keep.  I don’t have to stop smiling at strangers.  I just can’t eat Twinkies!

Ever notice how it’s never the fit people telling you that one missed day of exercise won’t hurt you?  It’s never the people that look the way you want to look telling you, go ahead, eat that cookie.  The shredded man at the gym is not going to tell you one candy bar won’t kill you.  He’ll tell you to have a protein bar instead.  The lady with visible abs isn’t telling you one missed exercise session won’t kill you.  Do what’s important, that’s what she’ll tell you.I jog during my lunch hour almost every day.  (Paydays being the only exception.)  I got in from my jog yesterday afternoon and was rushing to get my salad together.  A ritual I have down to an EXACT science at this point.  Bag out.  Plate down.  Can open.  Mix together.  Find fork. Now…five minutes to eat!  WHEW!

When you lose a lot of weight, you get a lot of questions.  When someone asks me how I lost the weight, I am always happy to share my story with them.   I have gotten the same response from two people in the last few months who wanted to know about how I lost the weight. 

I have researched a good many diets, even ones I never used or never intend to use; simply because I get so many questions about whether or not I think this diet or that diet will work.  Well, twice in the last few months I got asked about diets I had not used.  I went over what I knew about these particular diets with two friends of mine.  Then, I tried to steer them toward my side of the fence.  Portion control.  Good, clean eating with protein powder and bars supplemented for some meals here and there.

Both ladies told me, “That can’t work for me, because no one is going to tell me what to eat.”  I mean it was almost word for word the same answer.  I could not believe it!

I wasn’t prepared for it the first time I heard it.  When I was overweight, I desperately wanted someone to tell me EXACTLY what to eat, and I knew I needed that.  I mean, if I knew how to eat, I would have been doing it all along!  I didn’t know that if I ate clean every three hours that I could lose weight and never feel hungry.  I needed someone to tell me.   When you are morbidly obese, you need guidance.  You need help.

The second time I heard it, I was prepared.  You know, hindsight being 20/20 and all!  I said to the second lady what I wish I could have said to the first lady: “If no one can tell you what to eat, you can never diet and be successful.  There is no point in you even trying.”

Yes, this hurt her, but it also drove my point home.  If no one can tell you what to eat, you are not ready to make the changes you need to make to live a healthy life.  Let someone tell you how to eat!

I have never posted on a blog before, so I am in uncharted territory!  My name is Adina.  If you have looked at my profile, you can see that I have lost a considerable amount of weight over the last two years.  Let me just go ahead and tell you: no, I did not have surgery!  I get that question A LOT!

I lost the old fashioned way.  Dedication and hard work.  It was hard, but it was worth it.  Now that the weight is gone, I am working on toning and building muscle.