This is the true story of when I finally knew my weight was out of control.
“I don’t remember how I came here,” I remember telling the doctor when I woke up. My husband was sitting in the corner of the hospital room looking worried, and a soap opera was playing muted on the TV.
What has happened to me? The last thing I remember was packing the kids’ lunches, and then … nothing. The bright lights in my room were starting to hurt my eyes. How long have I been out? I had to be out of it, because I didn’t even notice that the doctor was standing at the foot of my bed.
“You had a cardiac episode, and we had to put a stent in,” said the doctor, feeling my first question. “What … what?? “I stammered out.
The fact that I had narrowly avoided death struck me like a ton of bricks. I was scared that I would have had a heart attack all over again. During my last check-up, I could hear my doctor’s voice echoing back to me … “Your blood work is concerning. You should start to watch what you’re eating a little more closely.
“Oh yeah, sure,” I told him. “I’m going to start cutting down on junk food and eat more vegetables after the holidays.” Then the winter turned into the spring, which turned into summer, and, well … I was in a hospital bed with my frightened husband next to me, and a doctor calmly told me how lucky I am to be alive.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse.
The rest of the time at the hospital was a blur of blood tests and blood tests. They recommended I take blood thinners to help reduce the risk of another heart attack. Oh yeah, and I had two other arteries that were more than 85 percent blocked, so if I didn’t follow their instructions, I ‘d be right back in this hospital room. I was devastated, man. I almost left my husband with a single father, just because of my eating habits. I blinked back to the moment I found my own mother in the living room, barely able to move around with chest pain. She did it through that heart attack, but she was never the same thing.
Right then, I swore that I would never do this to my children and my husband. I was going to change my life and I was going to be healthy and good for them.
Spoiler Alert: My new determination lasted only two and a half weeks.
There are things they’re not telling you about weight-release after 40.
For the next two and a half weeks, I was a machine — choosing the right food to eat, drinking a lot of water, exercising every other day. I was feeling untoppable!
Until I stepped back to the doctor’s office on the scale. It was a follow-up appointment, and I was excited to hear from the doctor how well I was doing.
“Well, it looks like you’ve actually won a pound or two.”
“What?!” I replied in anger. “I’ve been doing everything right since I got discharged. What happened?
“Well …” he shrugged, barely looking at me across the charts in his hands.
“Sometimes that’s just what happens when the women of your age want to begin to lose weight.”
I screamed inwardly. My doctor called me old. At the time, I was only 42, not feeling great about that, and his comment wasn’t helpful.
“Diets and exercise can be quite effective for women in their 20s and 30s, but sometimes with women over 40s, we see the opposite effect,” he said.
Containing my frustration, I asked, “So what can I do to actually make progress in releasing this weight? Again, my doctor shrugged his head. “The only thing I recommend is to continue what you’ve been doing. You could run a few more miles every day. Let’s hope it works, and we’ll see results,” he said. MILES?! I could barely get the stairs up in my home without getting winded. How could I start running for a few miles a day?!
My entire world had come crashing down once more. I met my husband in the lobby, crying all the way home. If I wasn’t able to release this extra weight, I felt that another cardiac episode was inevitable … But if my body doesn’t cooperate with me, what else can I do?
The Call.
Return to junk food, and to laziness.
My husband was trying to support me, but I could tell him he had no idea how to console me. My girls couldn’t understand why mommy was so sad all the time and why she couldn’t play with them in the yard.
I got a phone call from Beth during that dark depression. It’s been more than 10 years since I’ve seen her name appear on my caller ID. Frankly, I thought she was going to lose my number when she moved to California with her new husband.
Why would she call me right now?
“Hey girl, I heard about what happened,” Beth said as I picked up the phone. We haven’t talked in 10 years, but we got right into it. She and I have always been close, even if we don’t talk on the phone very often.
“Yeah, things haven’t been so good lately. It feels like my body has been conspiring against me. It is awful, “I said back.
“Listen, I’m in town for a couple of days to come. Let’s go meet up. I’ve got something that I think will help you.”
The thought of going out to the world at that moment was almost too much. All those people at a restaurant staring at the “big whale” trying to maneuver between those tiny tables. I shut the thoughts out of there. Well, I needed to find the strength to keep going. Perhaps seeing an old friend and hearing about her life would help me get away from the funk I’ve been in.
“Well,” I said. “How about Angelo’s dinner at 7 pm tonight?”
“It’s a date then! “She said, and then hung up.
I asked my husband if he knew Beth had been back in town for a few days. I thought he might have seen her and asked her to call me to cheer me up. It seemed odd that she would call out of the blue, but sometimes the Lord works in a mysterious way, I said to myself.
The 7-Second Ritual That Changed It All.
When I got to the dining room, Beth wrote that she was inside.So, just as I walked in and scanned the tables for her. Where was she?
Then I saw her…what the heck?
Beth was sitting at a counter table, but it wasn’t the Beth I remembered from high school.
Beth and I have both struggled with our weight in high school. We ‘d try fad diets together, try jogging together and try to cook healthy things every once in a while. Nothing worked for us, but we were stuck together and supported each other in these tough years.
But the Beth I was looking at here … well … she’s transformed into a healthy, gorgeous woman. She must have been 40 or 50 pounds lighter, and she and I are the same age!
What’s going on here?
Beth saw me, and he asked me to come over. She gave me an enormous hug and told me how good it was to see me. Well, I’m going to be honest, it was great to see her. As the evening went on, we’ve caught up with life and what’s happened since we last saw each other. Eventually, I got to talk about my cardiac episode.
“It was the most frightening thing Beth ever happened to me,” I said. “And now the doctors say I have to release this extra weight, but my body has been fighting against me. Well, I’ve actually gained weight since I left the hospital, if you can believe that.”
“Honey, I have to believe that. That’s why I was going to meet with you. Not only to catch up, but to show you something that I think could help, “Beth said. “Help how about that? “I asked.
“Just wait until they get the bill, and I’ll show you.”
“That’s cryptic,” I said. “Is that what you want to show me part of how you’ve gotten into such a great shape?”
“It’s not just a part of it, it’s the only reason I’m still breathing,” Beth replied.
Turns out, Beth had her own mortality brush a couple of years earlier. It was the same kind of situation. She had been overweight, ignored doctor’s advice for years, and had an episode like mine. The diet and exercise worked a little better for her, but after a few weeks, she stalled to lose weight. That’s when she began to do something she kindly referred to as her “ritual.”
“Once I started doing a ritual after a meal, it was like something in my body,” she said. “Suddenly, I was losing weight and making progress toward my goal like crazy.”
We were almost done with our meals, so it would soon be time for her “ritual.”
“Can I watch you do it?” I asked Beth very nervously. It really seemed too good to be true, and I didn’t want to raise my hopes about it. “Of course,” she replied.
When the waiter came with the check, Beth asked for an extra glass of water, and it made no sense what she did with it. “I have asked Beth nervously.
“Tell you what,” she said. “Check out this video; I’m going to text it to you. It’s going to tell you all you need to know. Believe me, by the end of it, you ‘re going to wish that you’ve been doing this for the last 20 years.”
“All right,” I agreed. We paid for our meals and walked to our cars. “Thank you, Beth,” I said, hugging our goodbye. “I really needed to do this.”
“Thank me after you’ve watched the video. Serious, don’t forget it.” she said. “I will” I said, hugging our goodbye.
My husband had left a note on the counter that he hoped I would have had a good time, and that there would be leftovers in the refrigerator. I sat down on the couch to unwind a little with my phone before brushing my teeth. There was the text from Beth.
“Let’s see what that video is all about,” I thought.
It was an hour later, before I knew it, and my brain reeled from the knowledge shared in the video. Could a little ritual really make a big difference? My eyes were opened to new possibilities.
For the first time since the hospital, I was hopeful that I could have the body I’d always wanted.
To see that same video for yourself and learn the 7-Second ritual, click the button below:
