Sometimes when things are not going as planned during my weight loss journey I find myself looking for something, anything that will tell me that what I’m doing….the choices I’m making…. are still making progress. It’s been a rough couple of weeks filled with the ups and downs of life – there is so much weighing on my mind but I think I’ve managed to keep my cool despite it all.  The old Melissa would have binged about a hundred times by now and I’d have likely gained back 20 pounds in three weeks…and YES it is possible believe me it is.  Work has been relatively calm where my clients are concerned but the hours have been long and the shifts many so that has pulled my focus a little bit but I am not making excuses I am just reminding myself about why things have been all sorts of crazy. Despite the struggles…through these hard times I am grateful for the following things….

2 weeks ago I pulled out the pair of jeans I wore on my first day with the husband and oh my they fit! They were a little bit snug but definitely fit! I never imagined that I would ever fit back into those jeans…certainly not two children and a completely different body layout later.  I can’t wait until they fit well enough that I would be able to survive wearing them for an entire day….but WOOT they fit!  Totally fit – I mean no hangers or laying on beds was involved!  They just did right up….as if they were meant to do just that. 

Last weekend we took a trip to Ontario Place and we were set up by a friend of the family with fantastic free play all day passes which was great and all but I knew it was pretty much useless to me because I just dont’ do the rides.  Over the years I’ve made excuses about why I didn’t go on the rides “I don’t like heights” which is true but this doesn’t really come into play when I ride a roller coaster – “I get sick on rides”…..ok so this is also true although I don’t get sick on all rides just the spinning in twelve different direction kind of rides.  The honest truth of the matter is that I realized that I was likely too large to fit in any of the rides at many of the different theme parks around and even if I could fit…the anxiety that would come with trying to see if I could fit..only to be told in front of a line of people that I was too big….was just too much for the effort. 

I like rides….

Rides just don’t like my body.

There’s a ride at Ontario Place called the Wilderness Adventure Ride where you and several other people sit in a boat and swirl and whirl down along a watered creek pathway splashing and swooshing all the way up until the final drop from a high hill that results in a bunch of people getting wet – you know these kind of rides right?  I LOVE this ride and so as usually I tried to hide my anxiety and disappointment about not going on it while all the other people in our groups including my four year old son climbed on board and took the ride for a spin.  I was sitting with my mom and watching – pretending like it didn’t matter that I wasn’t on that ride – acting like it was no big deal…but it was a big deal – I wanted on there so badly.  At one point my mother said “Melissa you should go, look at those two people waiting in line they are bigger than you are”…..you know you kind of blink twice or maybe three times when someone says that “they are bigger than you are” because I’m just not use to people being bigger than I am…I am always the biggest, it’s just always felt that way for me.  I of course snapped back with a “no way are they bigger than me Mom….rolled my eyes and watched one of the ride boats barrel down beside us with those two big people inside.  My mom made comments about me seeing myself bigger than I am and then when the family got off the ride Danny my mother’s husband said the same thing….and before I knew it I was dragging myself into a line-up and my mind was just doing a whole lot of rapid anxiety thinking. 

Shit.

What am I doing here in this line with all these skinny people?

I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about getting out of that ride about 800 times in the fifteen minutes it took us to get on and board the boat…and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t imagine the boat sinking with the force of my weight when I sat into it….but my gosh didn’t I just fit right in there with extra room?!?!  I mean obviously you can tell because i’m sitting here writing this that the boat didn’t sink….and seriously all hell broke loose within me – I was smiling ear to ear when I got off and then proceeded to go back on it again….

I would have written that boat all day long if I could. 

It was such a victory for me in a lot more ways then I ever could have imagined.

It was a much needed refreshment during a time of ups and downs for me…and I’m so glad I took the plunge and tried it….

Almost as glad as I am that the boat didn’t sink.