Sep 9, 2013

When Fat is not Beautiful

People who say losing weight won't change your life have probably never been fat. Really fat. Like when your company sends out a flyer about a pig roast and someone puts a picture of your face on it...

Obesity was hereditary in my family long before it became our national epidemic. Many relatives have died prematurely of weight-related causes. Stroke. Diabetes. Heart disease.

Fat is not beautiful when it is an ugly, unforgiving killer...

...like when the doctors cut off my grandmother's legs to try to save her from the ravages of diabetes. Like when I found a cousin collapsed on the stairs and thought she'd died in a fall. "When you got this much weight to carry," she said, "you gotta rest." (there were only about 20 steps). Like when my favorite uncle got burned up in a grease fire cooking foods doctors had warned him to stop eating.

About two years ago I saw a family Christmas photo and didn't recognize myself in it. Who moves to Hollywood and GAINS 50 pounds?! At just over 5' tall, there's not much room to hide the fact that you've put on the weight of a baby hippo.

But, hey, society said I could blame an obesity gene. hormones. poor school lunches. McDonald's. So I did.

Until I couldn't anymore.

One evening I decided to jog (something I hadn't done in about a decade)...made it a block and a half before I had to stop - breathing heavy, pulse pounding, afraid I might die of a heart attack on the sidewalk.

What had I done to myself?

No mystery there. High-stress job. Chained to a desk all day. Crappy diet. Lack of exercise. That stubborn obesity gene.

I've always been curvy - probably lost and gained 500 pounds in my life - but I knew this time that if something didn't change radically, I'd be the one collapsing on the stairs. 

I was at a crisis of fat. And faith.

See, I believed in God, even believed He could do miracles. But help me overcome a fat gene? Or a tub of hot-buttered movie theater popcorn? He had bigger problems than jiggly thighs.

And yet, without divine intervention, I saw myself lying in that hospital bed - body wracked with obesity-related diseases, legs cut off, heart straining to pump blood through clogged arteries.

Night after night I'd go to the beach, look up into the heavens and wrestle with my relationship with God. And Panda Express Orange Chicken. 

Scientists say our genes seal our future - sexual orientation, addict, cancer, obesity - set at birth. The Bible says with God we can conquer anything.

Scientists say for women of a certain age hormones virtually guarantee weight gain. The Bible says God is the author of our lives.

One night a story came to me. A wicked storm at sea. A boat of terrified fishermen. A ghost walking on the waves. "Jesus?" Peter, the impulsive one, is at a crisis of faith. "If it's you," Peter says, "bid me come to you." If it's you, Jesus, help me do the impossible...

"Come," Jesus says. 

We know what Peter does next...

In my neighborhood there's a place called the California Incline. For six years I'd watched ridiculously fit people run up that quarter-mile hill. 

Then leaving the beach one night, I looked up the hill and heard Peter's words echo in my heart. "If it's you, Jesus, bid me come..."

...A year later I run up that incline all the time - AND I'm getting ready for my first half-marathon!

Yes, the weight's gone but it was never about a number or a size.  I'll be writing more about the changes I made for a health and fitness website and hope my story will inspire others to wrestle with their faith when it comes to obesity.

Because losing weight may not only change your life, it may save it.

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Seem radical to throw away your scale and quit dieting to lose weight?  How it worked for me in part 2 of "When Fat is Not Beautiful," click here.


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