Dealing With my Weight-220

Well, by now you all know my list of accomplishments, and my list of failures. Most of the failures I have dusted myself off, picked myself up and kept it moving. But now it's time to confront something I do not want to blog about. My weight. I am currently 220 on a 5' 3" frame. That makes me Obese- with a BMI of 39 (30 and over is obese). I read a statistic yesterday that 81.6% of Black women are overweight and 53.9% obese. Sure we look good but we are dying. I love that Tupac phrase from keep your head up "dying inside/but outside your looking fierce." That describes so many of us. I have to do something about my weight. Everytime I go to the Dr. I hold my breath while I get my blood pressure taken wondering if this will be the time it will go above 120/80. The last time I had my sugar read, I cried, thinking of the whole pack of butter cookies I ate while on a trip to NYC. I was relieved when once again I got a pass, but how long with the grace and mercy last? I'm ready to do something. All year I've been inconsistently working on my weight and growing frustrated that nothing has "worked." I look smaller but the scale insists that I'm the same weight as when I started being vegetarian, working out on the wii, eating one meal a day, cutting out fast food, cutting out soda (for a minute). But the frustration of not seeing the results pushed me back into the "regular" eating habits we enjoy as Americans: fast food, soda, snacks, late night dining, no exercise, etc.

How is today any different from any other day? I have you. And I believe that this will speak to some of you and motivate you to join me in doing something. I know Shuida, Drea, Lashunda have all been working hard and maybe we just need each other to motivate, to know that in the words of the late MJ: "You are not alone, I am here with you." (OK maybe that was corny) Anyway, let me know how you feel via FB or blog. I'm detoxing- and doing the 50 million pound challenge, and I read Dr. Ian's latest (and best) book: the 4 Day Diet. Anybody wanna join me in reversing the trend?

It's About Time to Write

Coming out of a fog is always difficult. You forget what things look like without seeing them through the thick patch in front of you. I'm still processing what my fog was, but it was real and it was transparent, and hard to catch...But real nevertheless. Now, here I am on the other side, seeing things fresh and new, wondering how I got here (again) but feeling comfortable in myability to keep it moving. My facebook status yesterday was "better to have loved and have lost than to never have loved at all." I'm not sure I subscribe to that philosophy overall but it's where I was yesterday. My most recent love took my heart to Israel and Auswitz and back to the hood. A love so simple, yet so complicated, mired with problems with language, culture, race, religion, economics, social strata- you name it. But we took a chance on love, we gambled and won in the short term but lost in the long term. For once, I have a man who's not the bad guy. It just wasn't meant to be in this lifetime. He was a young man without kids who wanted a big family, but couldn't really handle raising kids that weren't his. He didn't know it was a problem until we were this far into it and I'm glad we realized it before anyone (he) got hurt.

My kids are my life force, and as much as I loved being in love and being loved, it was empty at the end of the day if it wasn't the best thing for my kids. My partner wasn't sure he wanted to stay in America, anyway and is making plans to return to Israel post-divorce. Facebook has turned into such a large part of my life that it was an ordeal yesterday to delete his pictures from my page. It was almost ceremonial- erasing him from the place he occupied for such a brief but meaningful time. And now I'll throw myself into my kids, my work, my scholarship, my purpose, hoping that I'll get another stab at love.

This time I'll know and more importantly EXPECT so much more!