My sister and I have come up with lots of great weight loss ideas together. We’ve tried lots of different things but the best idea to date was back in 2005 when we decided to give Weight Watchers a whirl. The program was easy to follow and we both enjoyed admirable results. We’ve both slipped a bit since then like almost every person that ever loses weight but I’ve been able to keep 110 pounds off for nearly ten years now. Although this makes me very happy I still have an ongoing desire to unleash the pounds that searched endlessly until they were able to find me once again. My knees and hips have had a very hard time understanding why losing a parent and going through a divorce and moving a couple of times in the past several years should have had anything to do with making myself so incredibly visible to those nasty pounds I hoped I had lost forever. I realize I will probably need to re-join the “accountability” team eventually but the exact date of that decision has not yet been determined. I will never forget some of the ideas for shedding unwanted pounds that have surfaced over the years and the first one, I remember, was created by the “sister and me” team.
We were both living in the same town at the time and we decided we would meet at the bank corner and go for a walk together, every morning. It was a sure fire way to get our bodies in fat burning mode for the entire day. It was going to be the perfect plan and we knew it. We could almost feel those unwanted pounds falling off our bodies on Day One as we snapped off our alarm clocks and hopped out of bed. I laid my walking clothes out the night before so it wasn’t long and I was heading down the road to meet my sister. Day One went great! This was such a wonderful plan. The only thing that bothered us is why we hadn’t thought of it sooner……..then Day Two arrived.
One would think Day Two would arrive with at least 50% of the adrenalin that Day One had produced but that didn’t seem to be the case. Becky and I were both a lot fonder of the evening hours part of a day than we were with the morning hours part of a day but she had a couple of small children so she had somewhat adapted. I, on the other hand, had not. I will most likely never forget how Day Two began. Apparently I had stayed up a little later than I should have at the end of Day One and I distinctly remember what woke me up and it wasn’t my alarm clock. Unfortunately it was my sister standing at the foot of my creaky old brass bed asking me if I had any immediate plans of GETTING OUT OF IT!!!! It’s safe to say, the getting up and meeting Becky part wasn’t going to be 100% reliable so I took about 13 years off before coming up with another weight loss and fitness plan.
Every day my husband would drive 9 miles to work. I decided that if I got up and rode with him and had him drop me off a few miles from town that my only choice would be to walk if I wanted to get back home. This plan was most likely going to be the one I would end up discussing with Oprah when my success story hit the airwaves. I envisioned Oprah paging through the brightly illustrated “Get Dropped Off and Drop The Weight” manual I would create and witness the moment when she said everyone in her audience would be going home with their very own copy of my brightly illustrated weight loss and fitness guide! I have these “Walter Mitty” type moments quite often and this was surely one of them.
The plan really did seem quite amazing. What I didn’t know is there would be a glitch. There was a farmer that lived on the outskirts of town that we passed every day before my “drop off” point and he had cattle. The place he lived on was a sight for sore eyes and rumor had it he did a fair share of his mechanic type tinkering while seated at the kitchen table. He wasn’t a bad guy but there were quality issues with nearly everything he touched. One of those issues included his ability to build a fence that actually kept cattle in. I’m not sure how much time you’ve ever spent around cattle but they’re curious creatures and when they notice something a bit different during their day, they will investigate. Unfortunately I was that “something different” when I started walking past their field of vision and they investigated. What I didn’t realize is that several of those cows had new calves and due to the fact that the fence was not meeting “keep the calves in” standards I had a calf following me down the road. There were cars meeting me and an uncomfortable number of the drivers were pointing and laughing as they strolled by. Initially this made me feel a bit more self conscious than usual but eventually the BALLER I heard from behind helped me to realize I had picked up a little friend that had a mother that was not one bit impressed with the fact that her baby fit through the hole in the fence but she didn’t!
It’s safe to say my plan for weight loss and fitness had flopped again. I don’t have a lot of fears but unfortunately being chased by a cow is one of them and I wasn’t willing to risk being joined by momma cow when the fence completely failed had I continued with my “Drop Off” plan.
Unfortunately I’m still carrying some extra weight that will eventually come off. I’ve learned that taking small steps each and every day help tremendously in the long run. I may be willing to revisit the “Drop Off” plan someday, after all, what are the chances of being chased by a cow again while out for a walk? I must say this experience fostered significant growth in my spiritually. In my mind I was being followed by a 2500 pound bull but in reality it was a very spunky, fun loving calf that wanted to play. It sort of puts a lot of things about life in perspective. We almost always tend think the worst first and often times use prayer as a last resort. Experiences like this have a way of shifting your thought process into one that knows the worst has definitely not happened yet but the possibility exists and saying a prayer is the first thing that will pop into your mind! Everything turned out fine and I can honestly say it helped me to be just a bit more trusting when it comes to who’s in charge!