The Moment I knew

The moment I knew I needed to de-stress was six years ago.

My marriage didn't start out horrible, after 3  years into the marriage did I start to see my partner become a different person and my weight increased to 100 lbs heavier. I was mentally abused every day and I saw no way out of the marriage. I believed everything he said about my weight, and who I had become was true, and had a stressful job that I hated going to, everyday. One day, I was in such excruciating pain, I could not go to work. I went to the doctor who told me, I had a shingles outbreak at 33 years old. Besides being obese, I was healthy.

One year later we moved to a new city. I was excited for a fresh start and a new job. However, my marriage continued to be very demanding and degrading to my self esteem. I struggled with losing weight. I walked everyday and attempted to eat right, but I could not lose weight. I gave up. I sat myself down and said "ok, I just have to be happy with myself as a fat girl". I went shopping and purchased new clothes and tried to accept "the new me". It was a relief not to have to worry about dieting and freedom to eat whatever I wanted because I was embracing the "new me".

One day I decided,today was the day,I was going to the doctor, because I had been bleeding heavily every day for the past three months.I knew I was not pregnant, because my husband told me, he would not have sex with me because I was so fat, and I had not cheated on him because of my low self esteem, so why was I bleeding? After several tests, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). Polycystic ovary syndrome is a condition in which a woman has an imbalance of a female sex hormones. This may lead to menstrual cycle changes, cysts in the ovaries, trouble getting pregnant, trouble losing weight, alopecia, and facial hair.

I didn't know where to turn, no support network in my area, little information on the internet. So I turned to my doctor and asked "what do I do?" My doctor discussed that I have a side effect of PCOS called insulin resistance. She went on to talk about insulin sensitivity in our bodies and how insulin being produced from my pancreas  was not being recognized by my cells, and being stored as fat. I learned that there was a medication I could take to increase insulin sensitivity and that would help me lose weight. I started exercising which decreased my stress, made goals for my life and started to lose weight.

I started my first day off losing weight by weighting myself and I was 300 lbs. I knew that I wanted to cut myself in half and weigh 150 lbs. I started setting goals small. So, at first I concentrated on my diet and lost 30 pounds. With that goal I said ok I need to start exercising and so I joined a gym and started attending classes 3 days a week.

With the weight loss journey I realized that the stress I faced in my life was things I was afraid of. So I started tacking fear. I was afraid of leaving my marriage, I was afraid of falling out of planes, I was afraid of flying, I was afraid of riding motorcycles, and the list went on. So I thought the only way to understand stress and the link to fear is to tackle each fear goal one by one. So I booked a trip to Australia, the longest plane ride I could find. It's amazing how life links you to people, because when I sat down for my ride from Indiana to Los Angelos, I was connected to an engineer who worked for Boeing aircraft who designed planes. He asked me about my fears and what stressed me out about flying? I said well " I am afraid that the bolts will come lose from the plane and we will just plummet to the ground", He asked "do you like to ride in helicopters? Which I thought was an odd question, but I said "yes", I really like to ride in helicopters they are smooth, and have no turbulence, and it's a wonderful gliding feeling. What I learned on that four hour journey, was that the helicopter ride I loved so much, was way more dangerous for bolts to come lose and plummet to the ground than the current plane I was in. I was educated on lift and design of planes and came away with a greater understanding of my irrational fear of flying and ended up enjoying the flight. When I returned and told my friends about the experience, they suggsted I go skydiving.

Now, I was not at first so eager to do this, in fact my first response was "oh I couldn't do that". It was 20 minutes later I told that friend, "yes, I am going skydiving". So I booked a tandem flight and stepped out of the plane at 10,000 feet with a man strapped to my back, and holding, with two hands on the struts of the plane. When the tandem instructor said  "let go", I knew at that moment I had two choices in life; I could let go and enjoy the ride or I could let go and be terrified the whole way down. So I let go of the plane, and started to fall at 150 miles per hour, and I decided to enjoy it.

With diet and exercise I started to see progress  in my weight loss and today I have lost 130 pounds. I still 20 pounds away from my ultimate goal. I divorced my husband and one year later he was killed in a motorcycle accident. I have a better understanding of stress today and how it affects my body and that living without fear in my life, I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.