Unnecessary Encouragement

Project LOLA: The Continuing Saga...

I didn't really want this sort of reminder of why I'm on this quest to reduce my waistline, but drama appears in your life when you least expect it.

They just carted one of my co-workers out of the building in the ambulance. No one's quite sure of the reason, but they're saying the symptoms were consistent with a stroke.

I really hope it's not life-threatening. "Vivian", as I'll call her, has had some ongoing health issues, but she's only 45, with a teenage son set to graduate high school next year.

Vivian would be considered morbidly obese, probably close to 300 lbs. She's got that odd body configuration that you hardly ever see in men, but every so often in obese women where the bulk of the weight is carried in the torso and gut, and the arms and legs are relatively normal. She's one of my lunch buddies, so I know she's been fighting high blood pressure and borderline diabetes like I am, but where I somehow found the gumption to put down the fried foods and sweets, Vivian stayed with her usual Cajun/Creole diet.

I'm really worried for her. She was one of the few people in the office I was sharing details about LOLA with, and I had hopes she was going to give it a try once her kid went to college and she didn't have to cook buckets of food to keep him fed.

I know there's a few folks out there who have said that what I'm doing with Project LOLA is inspiring. Let me share this with you, in case you're needing a shove to get you moving in the right direction...

There was a point last summer, right before I began dancing with LOLA, that I had serious doubts about whether or not there was much of a future left ahead for me. I had to make a decision about whether or not the quality of my life was good enough to try to turn things around. Did I have the gumption to fight the flab, or was I just going to roll over and keep slowly digging my grave with a spoon & fork? After all, why put yourself through months & years of deprivation and misery if you've gone past the Point Of No Return?

Just this morning I tested my blood sugar, and got a 93. When my doctor first flagged me with the possibility of diabetes, my blood was testing over 130, and has slowly been dropping. This was the first time I've tested under 100 since I started using the blood glucose monitor 3 years ago. (Normal for most folks is 70-100).

My sister & her kids bought me a nice shirt at Cabela's last week. It's a 5XL, and hangs off me like a tent. When I started Project LOLA last September, I was in a 6XL, and it was getting snug around the waist. My belts are at their tightest notch, and Dad commented over the weekend that my pants were so baggy in the back, I either needed to get smaller ones, or at least iron a nice crease in the new pleats on my backside!

To borrow a phrase from the Christian faith, you're never past the point of salvation. You can always turn it around. I may or may not reach my goal weight, but my quality of life is improving, and I feel better about myself knowing I haven't given up the fight.

And I sure as hell don't want a stroke in 3 years when I turn 45...