A few days ago, I woke up with a splitting backache. Not the kind where you need to go to the emergency room or anything, but the kind where one muscle decides to go renegade and generally hurts like the dickens. I guess I slept on it wrong, which is a strange expression if you think about it, but remarkably accurate in this case. I would love to believe that someone in my life might say "well it's no WONDER with the way you cooked last week, poor thing! Next year WE are cooking and you will just relax!" Sure. Right. My present station in life tends to lend itself to self-abuse before a hot stove to celebrate the holidays, for some reason.
Fresh out of Thanksgiving week, I decided to engaged in a frank conversation with Dennis (or a Dennis conversation with Frank) about "having my back" when I go through a slump with this new way of living. I told him that if I got discouraged, it was his job to back me up. If I got in a "what's the use?" mood, then he was to instantly start cooking broccoli in the hopes that I would snap back to my senses. The whole time I was telling him this, I was listening to the drone of my voice and thinking that this was futile, it is impossible for those types of words to be heard by male ears-- sort of like one of those dog whistles. You ladies know how men can be.
The post-Thanksgiving weekend went fine, and in spite of the post-pie-syndrome (PPS) which had my body craving carbs, I required no intervention. Then I woke up with a backache on Monday morning.
The backache really threw me for a some sort of strange and unexpected psycho-loop. I haven't suffered since I began this, no virus has invaded, no accident has left its mark on me, and no stomach virus has rendered me pitiful. Suffering often has an unpleasant side effect for me which is simply unexplainable. I know when I am really sick when I cry over cat food commercials. I can't explain the sentimentality that comes with infirmity, I just know that it happens. Being sick lowers my mental age, and causes me to seek comfort and excuses why I can let myself slide. It causes me to want my Momma, to be sweet to myself, and to hold a major pity-party when I still have to get up and go to work anyway.
As the week wore on, I found my initial challenge of being too busy to plan meals compounded with the fact that my back hurt too bad to shop for healthy food. I took a little time off, which meant my husband had to work longer and harder in our business. One day about mid-week, I was home taking muscle relaxers and staying off of my feet when the meal planning just seemed to pale in comparison. I mean, after all, I am in pain, Dennis is working late, and sometimes you just have to do what you can to get by. But then, last week was Thanksgiving, and two weeks before that was my birthday, and when all of these excuses keep lining up, I will never get anywhere, will I? I was frustrated, and felt guilty that I needed Dennis to take care of dinner after he got home after working a 12-hour day. The words of defeat actually crossed my lips, and I said "what's the use, Dennis, just go pick some fast-food up, this is impossible."
What happened shocked me. The man who I asked to "have my back", the man who had worked 12 hours and was finally on his way home at 8PM, the man I thought had stored my request in the same place he stores my requests to pick up his socks said to me "No. I am coming home and cooking us a healthy dinner, and then will clean up the kitchen. You aren't giving up tonight." He did exactly that.
My wonderful doctor told me early on not to let Dennis, or anyone else sabotage my efforts. I was prepared to deal with contraband waved under my nose. I was prepared for complaints about the menu. However, it never occurred to me that he was willing to have my back to this degree.
Since that tough-talking doctor in Houston warned me that 95% of obese people fail at weight loss, I have been thinking about the qualities of the 5% of the ones who SUCCEED. I think having someone to have your back is definitely on the list.
