With Fear and Trepidation

It is November 1, 2007. It is an important day and even more important that I talk about why.
For months I have not been feeling well. I am overweight and have all the health and wellness issues that come from being sedentary, overweight, and stressed: gastric reflux, fatigue, obesity. And very few clothes feel good on me. It's time to get healthy and lose weight. 50 lbs, to be exact.

I have had plan after plan of how to drop this weight. Nothing has "stuck" and I am heavier than ever. Last month I spent a night in the ER because of chest pain. My health has become a matter of life and death. I MUST straighten up and get serious about staying alive and in good shape. Because if I've learned nothing else over the last few years, it's that at my age, I'm not going to have improved health and physical shape by accident.

Here is my plan: I will be eating no more than 1500 calories daily for the first 30 lbs of weight loss. I am not allowed bread or potatoes for the first six weeks. No sugar of any kind is allowed. Should I get tired of counting calories, I can eat all I want for one day--provided that no bread, fat, or sugar is involved, and that these "free days" occur no more often than one day per week.
In addition, I will be walking four days per week, for a minimum of 20 minutes each time.

I can do this. I've done it before. Now that it's written down and I'm acknowledging this, I must be accountable. Food has always been a comfort and coping device for me. Now it's time to change lifelong habits and grow into the person I was meant to be. I'll try not to discuss my eating and weight here because it can be really tedious and feel a bit intrusive having to read my inner process regarding food. But it will be an enormous struggle.
Please remember me in your prayers.

Newlywed Flu

Hot, prickly skin
Hair matted to his scalp;
Sweaty back, florid face.
Heave-ho, “Jason, hasten…”
All over the rug.

“What did you cook for him?”
“Is he allergic to peanuts?”
Anxiety crescendos from my parents;
Their voices strained with concern
Over my week-old marriage,

“I told him I love him.”
Pleased at my fawning over him,
As they leave to celebrate the
morning 52 years before
when their marriage was birthed.

“It happened to him, too”
and mother winks at daddy.

Written in April, 2003 after giving Sam rice cakes and peanut butter.
He will never eat rice cakes again, I am sure!