Adina’s Cute & Perky Blog!

This is from my horoscope:

They might tell you that its  lonely at the top, but the truth is that it’s not: it’s just more crowded at the  bottom.

I may have to Blog about that for tomorrow!

I was on the phone with my friend  Shane yesterday while I was at the store.

This man, who I do not know, saw me walk  in.

He comes right up to me while I’m  still talking and says, “You got a minute?”

Literally the phone was in one hand, while my other hand steered the  buggy.

“Huh? Do I know  you?”

“No.”

I ignore him and go back to talking.

Again he says, “You got a minute?”

“For what?”

And just like a  bad movie he slides his hands across his non-muscular, non-hot body and says yet  again, “You got a minute for this?”

Sadly, this was not a joke.

I  looked him over.

Top to  bottom.

I have no doubt that I rolled my  eyes when I said, “No thank you. I do not have a  minute.”

I’m southern. I know the  thank-you was not necessary where some of you are from, but it is in the  south.

Even bad manners do not dictate  bad manners in my neck of the woods!

I  went back to my conversation with Shane. He’s my classmate from California. I  don’t like it when people infringe on my time with him….or her. He cross  dresses. I’m not really sure!

But the  random, unfortunate stranger just stood there.

Why? I do not know.

He  counters my no thank-you with, “I can’t believe you don’t got a  minute.”

He doesn’t know that I used to  teach English, and I am circling his grammar mistakes with the red pen in my  head.

It began to sink in that he wasn’t  going to leave, and he was standing a little too close for my comfort. He  was….in my zone.

Then it occurred to me:  what good have I done if I cannot take the lessons of the gym and apply them to  my life?

Someone wants to take my gym  time? No, they can’t.

Someone wants me to  eat off plan? No.

Someone wants me to go  back to my old ways? I just don’t think so.

Because I learned that I don’t have to let anybody mess with my  healthy lifestyle.

So, it stands to  reason that nobody should mess with me.

The old Adina would have said, “OK. I’ll skip the gym this one time  for you.”

Or, “OK, we can go eat  out.”

But this Adina remembered and  applied yesterday…

Because…

I told my classmate,  “Hold on.”

And then I looked up and said,  “I’ve already told you three times I’m not interested in anything you have to  offer. I don’t have a minute to spare, and even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to  you.”

I left him standing there,  muttering something about minutes.

And  like with everything else, I didn’t look back to see what became of what I left  behind.

I just walked  on.

Because some things, like bad food,  bad habits, and even bad people, are better left in the  past!

And believe it or not, I saw him at  the gas station a few hours later.

I did  not have to say a word, because I had already taken my  stand.

And yeah, he was still muttering  about minutes.

Evidently, I have passed the point where everyone expected me to  keep the weight off.

I was at Jonah’s  Open House.

I used to work at this  school. It was back at my heaviest weight. In fact, the smallest they ever saw  me weigh was 240 pounds. (Yikes!!)

The  first year I came back for Open House, they were a little  shocked.

By the second and third year  they were just telling me I looked good.

Last night was the fourth time.

I wasn’t thinking about my weight or weight loss at all when I  walked through the doors.

It was a little  bit of a milestone for me. I didn’t fret or worry about what I wore. I just went  as I was. I didn’t rush home to put on my skinniest outfit. 

I was just a  mom.

There to see my son’s  teachers.

But…

No sooner had I walked in when someone shook her head and said, “You  still look good. Every time I see you, I’m just so proud of  you.”

I thanked her, blushed, and went  on.

Wasn’t expecting  that!

Two doors  down.

This time, “Wow. You still look  good.”

Through the main hall, “I can’t  believe you still have your weight off.”

Still.

I lost track of how many  times I heard that word.

I had a count at  first, but I lost it somewhere along eight or nine.

Jonah even had to ask, “Why do people keep saying  that?”

And, as a person rarely short for  words, it pained me to say, “I don’t know, son.”
Because I didn’t. And I still don’t.

I thought about it that evening, and I thought about it this morning  when I woke up.

It didn’t overtake me or  anything.

I still thought my usual, happy  morning thoughts this morning.

I  pictured the face that makes me smile.

I  got the boys up and ready.

I did my usual  things.

But every once in a while, I  would think…still.

Are they  expecting me to fail?

Or are they  genuinely surprised I have not gained?

Who knows?

It doesn’t really  matter.

What matters is that I made  it.

And I am not surprised that I am  still here!

Now, that doesn’t sound like something you should have to try to do, but for me it was.

It was a small, indoor one…

And it wasn’t meant for a woman my size.

One of my truly humiliating moments along the way.

My ex thought I wasn’t allowed to ride, because we didn’t pay extra for me to ride with Micah.

But I had heard the bell go off.

And I saw it in the operators face as he walked over to me.

I cut him off before he could say it or my ex could hear it.

“I can’t ride, can I? I need to get off, don’t I?”

He was a teenage boy trying to be kind. He had a look somewhere between compassion and laughter. He didn’t laugh at me then, but I know he did later when he told his friends.

And I could not blame him.

I was allowed to stand next to Micah as he rode, but I was not on one of the animals.

It was the longest ride of my life.

Longer than any drive I had ever taken.

I have driven from Nebraska to Texas in one day, but somehow, this seemed longer.

When the ride stopped, my ex was waiting to get Micah at the exit.

“That was rude. I can’t believe he didn’t let you ride.”

“It was because of my size, Marty.”

“No. It couldn’t have been. I think it was because we didn’t…”

I cut him off, not wanting to hear it. “I know the reason.”

And I walked on.

Past the sporting goods store where I could have gotten clothes to work out in.

Past the bookstore, with aisle after aisle of books, CD’s, DVD’s, and magazines to give me hope when there was none to be found right then.

And past the health food store with food to heal my body, my soul, and my broken spirit.

And like an alcoholic thinks he needs a drink, and an addict needs his next high, I stopped at The Great American Cookie Company.

I needed my fix.

And I didn’t just get any old cookie.

I got a Double Doozy.

Two giant chocolate chip cookies with icing in the middle.

Eaten quickly and washed down with a Large Dr. Pepper.

A quick snack that easily hit over a thousand calories.

And before I knew it, my stomach was too stuffed to feel anything but the feeling of fullness I just created.

I could not think of shame, humiliation, or embarrassment with a stomach that stuffed and that miserable.

And that walk would last several more years.

We all have defining moments. Moments that click in our head and make us say, “A-ha! I get it! I got it! I understand it!”

That could have been the one for me.

Could have been.

But it wasn’t.

I let an a-ha moment! simply remain a bad day.

Those moments are all around. They abound.

They scream at us through our ear muffs.

Some are disguised as bad days, horrible memories, or even pity parties.

But they are there, if we choose to accept them.

I have been known to say, “All diets work.” Because I believe they do.

From the craziest crash diet, to the most sophisticated calorie counting, they all work when followed correctly.

I should know, right?

But I did go on to read the study anyway.

The bottom line was that diets don’t work over time.

Over the long run.

And…well…hmmm???

I’ve been at goal for roughly three years now.

And didn’t I get here by…dieting?

I thought about that for a long time.

Then I remembered a conversation from long ago.

I’ve told you about it before.

From back in the day when my friend Kevin told me, “Woman! You can’t eat like that.”

Six months after reaching goal, I was still eating a dieter’s diet.

And that’s what wouldn’t work.

Because…

I was doing what I could not do forever.

Had I kept going, I would have crashed and burned.

And who wants to do that?

So, I guess the answer really is, “No. Diets don’t work.”

But…maintenance does.

It works all day long.

Reaching goal is only half the story. Because after that, you have to create a life you can maintain.

I wanted to dive head-first back into my cheeseburgers and fries.

I wanted to go back to KFC where they knew my order by heart.

But I also wanted to maintain what I lost more than I wanted any of that!

And just like learning to diet, you have to learn to maintain.

You have to find a way of eating and exercising that you can maintain for life.

For me personally, I had to let go of the idea that if I behaved long enough, I could go back to the way I used to eat.

That was the weakest link in my chain. The idea that I was fixing myself just long enough to go back.

And there is where bodybuilding entered the picture again.

I had read enough to know that bodybuilders don’t lift so that one day they may stop lifting.

They lift until they look the way they want to look, and then they too have to figure out how to maintain.

But, I have to disagree with that study.

Diets do work.

They work for losers.

And maintenance works for winners!

That makes me a winner and a loser any which way you look at it!

~A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

~Friends are like pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up and sometimes they lean on you.

~A friend is someone who is there for you when he’d rather be anywhere else.

~A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself.

~A friend in kindergarten is the one who sat next to you and let you have the pretty red crayon, when only the ugly black one was left.

We’re a small, country town. Population 6,664.

We don’t have much by way of shopping or eating.

For years it’s been rumored we were going to get a Burger King.

And every time ground is broken for a new building, you hear someone say, “I bet it’s a Burger King.”

Sadly, it never is. It’s usually a car wash or an oil change place. We even have one place that has both!

But our first moment of greatness was….getting….a….

WAL-MART!

We waited and hovered and circled for days waiting for that puppy to open!!!!

The anticipation was palpable.

And sadly, there was no mistake here. I didn’t mean to say Super Wal-Mart. I just mean plain ol’ Wal-Mart. Home of the dropped prices.

The place where we could get things and stuff we needed or just thought we had to have!

That first day, my whole town hit it. I do mean my entire town!!

I was in ninth grade, and I remember it like it was yesterday. And yeah, I know. That was a long damn time ago!

You can all just shut your pie holes about that!

But it was so crowded on that first day that we would have to go back numerous times to find a spot in the parking lot.

When we did find one, it was at the back!

And believe it or not, I can still remember the walk from our car to that door!

The only thing that even came close to this was when we finally got a McDonald’s a few months later.

Same scenario, smaller parking lot.

But we really were THAT excited.

And of course, through the years that excitement waned.

I grew up.

Out town got more stores.

Wal-Mart became a place for running errands and not a place for joy.

But last night….

I was craving, of all things, Caramel Rice Cakes.

And where did I go?

Yep.

Wal-Mart.

I can’t say that I was excited to go, but I can say I was glad they had what I needed.

Kind of like?

The gym.

Your initial excitement may die down, yet what you need still lies beyond that door.

And if you go in, you’ll come out have gotten what you needed.

Excited or not.

(But I do still get excited when they start getting out the Christmas stuff every year at Wal-Mart! That excitement will never die.)