This song to me has always been about me & my husband, he is always there no matter what.
Whenever anything goes a bit off kilter, he is always there and no matter how many people may come in and out of my life, he remains consistent.
There is a saying that I've seen on so many wedding programs, "today I marry my bestfriend" . It's always been a lovely little saying, but I just think when life really kicks in like children, loss in the family, finances, it always comes back to this, he's my best friend, and he is my everything. Without him I would not be a mother, and without him, I most diffinitely would not be so grounded !!!! To look at Michael , you could easily look past him, he is very quiet and reserved, sometimes a little socially awkward but he is a deep thinker and he is an amazing father but most of all the is my biggest supporter and he is my love.
There is another song by Bernard Fanning called "Watch over me", and this has already been noted, as my funeral song, there are just too many lines that I can relate to, and one of those is,"When the sun is beating down on my brow, you are my shade, you cool me down".
Never once has he commented on my spirialling weight. He has seen me start and give up many times, each time I ask can I join this weight loss program, he always supported me, when we were "juicing", he was juicing, if we were drinking shakes, he was drinking shakes too.
He has lived the torture I put myself through everytime we had a function and I would stare into the warddrobe, with a blank look because nothing fitted me, and if they did, I just felt so ugly in them anyway. There have been many times it was all too hard and he would just say,"It's all o-kay, I'll go by myself, if that's what makes you comfortable", and he would take the boys and I would stay home by myself because I just couldn't face the world.
In June this year we went down to Tassie , Tassie is always our destination every year because I am still very lucky to still have my aging grandparents. ( 88 &87)
My grandparents have always had an opinion about my weight, grandma is quite open with her thoughts, my grandfather is a little less, yet I can feel the untow everytime I am there, and each year, I am coming back heavier and heavier.
Tassie is a great place for my photography , so each day it was more about the next photo opportunity. Waterfall ...... thats what I love, waterfalls. I would carry all my equipment around with me up these mountains, it took me such a long time to get to the top and m equipment was oh so heavy. I would be stretched along the side of the mountain huffing and puffing and I could feel my heart racing, and the arthiritis in my knees would be screaming and swollen, but it was all so worth it, to get that one photo I knew I would love. As I would reach the top, with hardly any breath, I would feel so guilty that this is the body I am "trapped" in , this is the person I have become, and I felt like I had ripped him off.
For years I hid behind, "well being a mother is the most important thing and I'm carrying the baby weight", if the truth be known and if I was really honest the weight almost immediately came after I changed my maidden name nothing to do with babies.
Never once has he ever mentioned my weight gain, he has even stayed really consistent with my weight loss too. I don't think he has ever said to me, " Well done on your weightloss", what he has said though which I think is more important, " God Anth, you seems to be moving better and doing things easier, you must be feeling amazing"
I just don't think you can do this program without doing the pre-season tasks, and I mean, really doing them. I wanted to gloss through them because I started late, but I still watched those video clips many times, and I looked at my before photos weekly. When I had to list down what I wanted to achieve, all I had was a blank page, Ummmmm I don't want to see 120 plus anymore, and gosh can under 100 kilos ever be a reality? I wrote I wanted to loose 5-15 kilos, because I just had no idea if I could even trust my own ability. It was such an unknown.
When it came to the fitness test it took me over 2 weeks to submit it in full because I could already hear the internal thoughts in my head, I don't run, I've got to run 1km? Push ups? I can't even do one, my knees are too sore, does she not know I have arthiritis, I can't put any pressure on my knees, If I'm going to be exercising I will probably pull a muscle anyway way so why really bother?
When I finally got around to doing the 1 km run, I had my son home with me from school and I didn't want to miss my aqua class, I figured after my aqua class, I can head up to the gym to use the treadmill. I can walk 1 km on the treadmill and he can just sit on the floor of the gym, I wasn't going to be there for long, I had like 200 meters to go , when the young instructor came up to me and said, "You need to leave immediately, your son should not be in here", and she hit the stop button on me ..... I was devestated.
I knew I was pushing the boundaries of him not being there, but I just needed to do this last thing. The Anthea prior to the 12WBT sign up would have blamed that girl for making me fat, and I would have just driven straight through the McDonalds drive through and eaten a feast !!!!!! But that was I real grunt moment for me. This girl had no idea how important this was to me, Michelle Bridges was waiting for this bit of information. I felt awkward enough in the gym as it was, I had no idea how to use the lockers, and the scanner thingy, god I was already announcing, fat perrson who doesn't have a clue and shouldn't be here in the first place before I had even entered the gym,and now this girl has already confirmed it. I should not be here because I'm too big !!!!!! That was such a big day moment for me because instead of hearing everything I had just told myself mentally, I marched out not only angry at her but with a ..... I'll bloody show you attitude because this is sooooooo important to me, I'm searching for a NEW ME.
When I got home I drove 1km in the car around the block and had decided that's where I am going, and I'm doing it tonight !!!! It's not that I was fuelled by her, it was that something clicked in my head that said, "NO MORE POOR ME , NO MORE EXCUSES ....... I CAN"T DO IT BECAUSE I'M FAT, NO ONE UNDERSTANDS HOW HARD THIS IS , THE VICTIM IS HERE & NO ONE ACTUALLY CARES!!!! ".
When I wrote down my pre-season tasks, I had not written anything specific, in my head I thought hmmmm 1000 steps in the Dandenongs I wonder what that's like ? The thought of even doing one flight of stairs would frazzle my head.
When ever there were stairs, I looked for the elevator not because I didn't want too use the stairs, I physically could not do it because I was in too much pain.
Picking up the boys toys off the floor was just so challenging, and I keep hearing that voice in my head screaming, doesn't anybody know how hard this is for me ?
It was that girls fault at the gym, or it was Michael's fault or it was because I'm a mother and the boys needs are more important to me? Damn hard, and damn exhausting living in a 120 kilo body !!!!!
The only person who was to blame was me .
If there's one thing I really wished I had done, was to write down all the things, I wished I could do and couldn't do because I was limited by weight & the inner thoughts that filled my head
- Walk up stairs without pain
- not walk out of work in pain
-no knee brace
- not pick up something without groaning
- follow the boys around at the pool without feeling fearful I couldn't get them in time.
- not worry about sitting on a chair , in fear of breaking it.
- carry the groceries in without puffing
- tie my shoe laces up properly
-Go on the playground with my children
-Ride a bike
- wear shoes other than sneakers because my knees hurt.
- not have to have a nanna nap, to get through the day
-go to bed early
-not eat food when I come home from work at midnight
-be able to hang the washing out with huffing & puffing
-not have pins and needles in my arms, while I'm sleeping due to poor circulation
- not worry, that this time when I have the diabetes test, am I finally diabetic?
- worry about what clothes I'm going to wear?
- Is this the day my knee finally collapses and I need that surgery
- Wonder if my grandma can stop asking how my weight is going?
- Doing the head checks in the car, sooo difficult
- pulling myself out of the car, and my knees are grinding
- sit on a beach without me thinking people are looking at a whale?
- even do one push up on the fitness test
- forever looking for the easier option
-getting off the toilet, yes, even that was affecting me because my knees would be crunching and buckling.
- come summer can I wear anything else other than tracksuit pants.
- wonder what it's like not to have my legs rub together?
Now when I look at these, I have to really think of a list of things I found hard, but had I done it at the beginning I could have given you so much more. So if you are reading this now, and just started, go and do this because if you keep true to yourself, your needs and wants, you just might find like me , right know, you even forgot they were struggles and wishes and you are just now doing it !!!!! Because it so gets so much easier, everything gets easier if you are just consistent and remain true to yourself.
It really played on my mind the goal setting as we were coming to the end of our 12 weeks, I knew I was doing things easier, weight loss, measurements & fitness tests were telling me, I knew I was doing things easier but I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Should I really set myself up to do something before the 12 weeks is over, to milestone it? Michelle said YES it NEEDS to be done. Hmmmmmm so I literally slept on it every night for a week. I had decided I was going to do those 1000 steps.
What is The 1000 steps?
( 7 minute video on the 1000 steps)
I was excerising a fair bit with Nina, and she just took me up on the thought when I mentioned it too her, and she said, right I'm picking you up early on Sunday and I am driving you.
Nina had done this a few times, probably could run up them now a couple of times, I was not at all nervous, the conversation there was great, and I had already mentally prepared that this was something I HAD to do.
Boy it was soooo busy, and we went early, can't even imagine what it would be like during peak time.
Through this process I was always joking that I didn't think I could get my heart rate and higher than 160, I usually sit anywhere between 120-140. As we were only walking up to the base of the stairs, on an already steep incline, my heart rate monitor was racing already at 150, whether that was nerves and tension I had no idea, but it was tough going before we had even started.
It had me thinking about the stairs in my relation to my 12WBT journey.
That incline was the pre-season, it was hard, it was confronting, I had to own it and get real that I was the only one to blame. Didn't matter what other people said, it was actually what I was telling myself. I was telling myself that it didn't matter, that I was
o-kay. That really was the hardest part for me. The pre-season, the build up, do I really want to do this? Am I really going to commit to this? Please don't let me fail, what if I can't do anything? What if I stay over 100 kilos?
But here I was walking up this incline, JFDI I keep hearing in my head. A saying I had never heard, but by god it's on repeat now in my head !!!! This was my pre-season I was walking and the top was the last day of round 12 !!!!
Heart -rate 170- 180, "Nina are you sure I'm not picking up your heart rate monitor? You're the one who works this hard not me", " I'm pretty sure it's all you" she would reply. Steady and at my own pace was what I kept hearing, move over if you need to, whether it was from Nina or in my head. With every step , she took with me.
A few times I thought, god if I get to the top, I can't text Jenny, but that would soon bounce out of my head because for once this was all about ME. This was something I thought I could never, ever, ever do, I am fat, I am obese and I have pain, so much more than a sore knee ....... I've been carrying pain.
With my Reiki, I had worked through a lot of it, but if I could do this, if I could just make it to the top, well I've done it, Ive really done it, I've stayed true to myself, committed to myself, I've loved and I've lost through the process but I would know that no one else did it, I had support, but I was the one who made every choice to exercise, to say no to the once irrisitable , to make everything I put into my mouth count, I was going to do it.
The last few steps are sooooooooo steep. I am barely getting the oxygen in, I thought loosing 25 kilos, would make this easy ...... Nina says to me you are so close the end is just there I can see it, and it sure is, I grabed the hand rails and I was pulling myself up those steps, literally all four were working to get me up to that final step .... our 12 weeks were over in 2 days, m walk was over in 2 steps !!!!!
As I get to the top I smile and give her a hug, WOW , it's done, it's really done, and I did it, those same knees did it.
Then I sit down, and I can take in all the oxygen and I stop and all I can hear is my heartbeat. There are a lot of people around, they probably do this every week. Me this is my first time and I feel really "Usher" Numb.
I look up at the smiling Nina, she just knew how important this was to me, I don't think ANYBODY else could understand HOW UNBELIEVABLE THIS WAS FOR ME & life changing this was, and she pulls out her camera, and this is the photo she takes.
I'm trying to smile but my cheeks and lips say it all ...... I'm happy, I'm proud and I just want to cry.
I came down the steps on an absolute buzz, I could have high fived every god damn person, and I wanted to tell everyone what I had done.
When we were driving home I just went to another place. Without even knowing it, I had accepted someone really amazing into my world.
It's so bizarre this revolving door called life, I loose Jenny but I welcome Nina. With Jenny I had honesty, with Nina I have compassion, empathy, and honesty.
A day to remember for just about everything of this first 12 weeks. Nina this next song chorus is for you, and only you. I will forever remember the day I worked out everything I was holding on to, what I had lost and what I had gained.
And stepping home to my husband, I felt everything finally was o-kay in my world.
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