Laura O.
Thursday, April 9th 8:55 pm. Just walked into the house from the gym. I still have to feed my daughter Kaity, the dogs and cats, a couple of horses and a parrot named Penny. This nightly routine is the reason that I usually work out during my lunch break at work. The above mentioned routine has been the same for the past 46 years (minus the daughter and bird). Since I was 12 years old I have loved and cared for animals that were part of my family. And for the first 20 years of my professional life I also earned a living by working with them.
Growing up I showed horses every weekend and by the time I finished high school I knew that I wanted to make them my life's work. Seeing the thoroughbred Secretariat win the Triple Crown in 1973 gave me the dream to ride and train racehorses for a living. And so as soon as I graduated high school I found myself at the local race track, galloping and ponying horses every day. My life was a dream come true. I knew from the moment I stepped onto the backstretch of the track that I had found the home I so desperately had searched for. The other race trackers became my family and I was certain that my life's journey had been mapped out for the remainder of my life.
Over the next 20 years I exercised, trained and owned racehorses. I worked as a racing official and worked my way up until I had a career that many could only dream about. I met and married and we bought a beautiful farm in Northern California where our racehorses played in the fields.
But dreams cannot sustain themselves forever. In 1993 another of my wishes was coming true. I was pregnant with my daughter Kaity. Having had several early miscarriages prior to this pregnancy I was worried, but was not willing to give up on becoming a mom. Four months into my pregnancy the doctor put me to bed and ordered me to stay there. And six months after that, on the Tuesday morning after Memorial Day she finally told me that I could get out of bed and get back to my life. I came home, tacked up my eventing mare Zoom and headed out on a trail ride with several friends. We came back a couple of hours later and as soon as my feet touched the ground my water broke and I headed for the hospital. By the next night, Kaity was born. And two days later I found myself with her at a major hospital sitting down while doctors explained to me that my daughter had several major heart problems plus numerous other birth defects and was most likely going to need special care the rest of her life.
For the next few months my life was spent almost exclusively in the hospital sitting in a chair next to Kaity. Day and night I was beside her. Nothing else in my life mattered. My marriage ended, the farm was lost due to medical expenses and I told the racing world that I was gone for good because my daughter needed me now and forever.
I moved home to Oregon and began training show horses. For several years I was still in a barn surrounded by the horses that I loved. During these years, Kaity endured two open heart surgeries, numerous hospitalizations and was diagnosed as mentally disabled. I held everything together until she was eight years old. During a hospital stay for pneumonia she suffered a stroke. For the next several weeks and months she had to learn to walk, talk and feed herself all over again. I had friends that were there for me, but for the most part it was Kaity and I working together as a team. Up until then I had managed to emotionally hold life together. Or so I thought. But around that time I began to stop taking care of myself the way that I should. I am not a person to use alcohol or any type of drugs for an escape. But food became a way to self medicate. So I ate. And ate and ate. I started gaining weight and just never stopped.
Then over the course of the next ten years I lost both of my parents, my younger brother, two of my dearest friends and my training partner to cancer. In each case I was devastated and torn apart just a little bit more. And in each case I gained just a few more pounds. Nobody wanted to say anything about my weight because with all of the losses that I was enduring they were just glad that I was still alive and apparently functioning. So they kept quiet, and just loved me for who I was.
I stopped riding horses when my weight went over two hundred pounds. And so to take the place of my love of competing with my horses I began showing and judging dogs. I competed in agility and freestyle with my own dogs and traveled to The Netherlands to judge the European Championships and to South Africa to judge their biggest show. I taught seminars, gave talks and traveled around the country judging. From the outside I still seemed to have it all together. But inside I was falling apart. I missed the people that I loved who had passed from this life more than I could have imagined. And being a single mom with a disabled child was scary. Really really scary. And I just kept eating.
I stopped competing with my dogs when my weight went over three hundred pounds. I went to work every day, took care of my daughter and my animals and I accepted the fact that life was just going to stay as it was forever.
After all, here I was at 57 years of age and weighing over 300 pounds. And I did not know if my continuing to gain weight was ever going to stop.
I had lived my life on the backs of flying racehorses and jumping horses and running courses with fast agility dogs and dancing in front of crowds. I had been a cheerleader and lifeguard. I had always been able to physically do whatever I wanted. Back then, in my wildest dreams I would never have imagined that someday I would be the person who was almost always the heaviest in any room.
Now I had my own seatbelt extender for the plane trips I took to judge dog shows so that I would not have to be embarrassed to ask the stewardess for one each time that I flew.
I saved for three years to take my daughter to Disneyland and instead of anticipating the trip with excitement I worried that I might be too big to fit into the rides.
I hated the fact that even if...even IF..... I worked out and ate right for a year and lost a hundred pounds, I would still weigh 230 pounds.
I hated buying clothes because anything I bought was just based on whether I could fit into them.
I was trying to accept that I would never sit on the back of a horse again or run a step with my dogs. I had resigned myself to this life.
Because really....how much do we dare to ask for? How many dreams are too many? In the midst of my emotional pain I had a job I loved, a roof over my head, a daughter whom I adored and animals that loved me.
I had so much more than so many, and I decided that I would be satisfied with the many gifts that I had been given. And I was ashamed and afraid to ask for any more.
And then one day at work I was looking through one of the many (many) candy bowls throughout our office hoping to find a Heath candy bar (just that sentence explains so much about my mental state at that time). Our HR rep walked by and casually asked "Are you sure you want that?" And in that moment as I stood there looking at that bowl and then at my life I realized that I most certainly did NOT want that. I went into her office and signed up for Golds Gym that day.
By Monday, January 5th my membership was processed and I went in for the first time. I was given a tour and an exercise plan and I was on my way. I was afraid to step up on the scale, and I admit to a bit of hoped for fantasy that I would weigh less than I was afraid that I might. It had been years since I had weighed myself.
And when I saw the number 330 I almost passed out. But I didn't. Instead I worked out. I started going to the gym five days a week. I decided I would work out exclusively in the pool to make things easier on my joints.
I had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and RA a few years before (years of horses bucking you off and falling on you will have that affect on your body in your later years) and I did not want to have any more physical pain than I was already dealing with.
The first day in the locker room I put on my swim suit and then just sat there looking at myself in one of those wall sized mirrors. I could not even wrap my head around the fact that the person sitting there was me.
As I leaned over to pull on my water shoes I could feel a burning pain in my back from the stretching move. I was seeing myself as I really was and it was horrifying.
I got in the pool and moved for an hour. And stayed far away from the scale. And began eating right. And the following week when I learned about the 12 Week Challenge I signed up.
When I stepped on the scale that very first day of the Challenge I saw the number 321. So I knew that at least I was heading the right direction.
During these 12 weeks I have continued to eat with my health in mind and have worked in the pool for an hour during my lunch hour each day. I go in to work early and make up any time that I need to in order to be able to keep training daily. Then at five pm each day I head for home.
I still have all of the same responsibilities at home, but now I have an hour each day that is just for me. And I can feel the changes happening inside of me. And as these weeks have gone by, my friends and coworkers have commented on the changes that are happening on the outside as well.
I still have so very far to go. After all- even when I get to a hundred pounds lost, I will still have almost that much to still lose. But now it does not seem to be as much of a despair to think about.
Because I am enjoying the journey.
Tomorrow I will get weighed and measured and while I am wearing a sports bra and bike shorts I will have my photo taken. It will be the end of a process that helped my beginning.
And so....
I am going to keep getting up, going to work and then going to the gym.
I am going to continue to eat while keeping my health in mind.
I am going to keep telling anyone who asks that if I can do this so can they.
And as I reach milestones I will shout my successes from the rooftops.
And someday......
I will once again sit on the back of a horse and feel alive.
I will once again run with my agility dogs.
I will continue to be a great Mom to my amazing daughter and my healthier lifestyle will allow our relationship to be even stronger.
I will throw away my seatbelt extender.
And most of all.......
I will find myself again.
