I love my grandfather very much, but as an 88 year old man with a brain bleed, he doesn't have much of a censor any more. Sometimes, he just says things out loud that most people would keep to themselves. I know this is part of his charm, and everyone says "he is so cute", but sometimes you just want to smack your forehead in frustration or in humiliation.
He has loved that fact that I am losing weight and getting healthy. It makes him very proud and happy, and even when he was in the hospital right after he fell, he could be screaming in pain in one breath and in the next ask me how much weight I have lost. God bless the old man...
My mother has been a large part of my success because she has been on this journey with me. I think we are both struggling with the fact that I now don't live with her, and therefore we have lost our "eating partners." It's easier to eat correctly when you have someone watching exactly what you are eating, and you are eating the same things. But anyways, my mother has lost a good deal of weight as well, and once, when my grandfather asked her how much she had lost, she told him and do you know what his reply was?
"You can keep on going."
So...like I said, the censor doesn't always work in his head.
Even though I live in Huntington now, I travel up to Winfield on the weekends to stay with him. We were sitting in his living room on Easter Sunday night, and he looked at me and said, "Tracie, are you still losing weight or have you given up?"
Woah...wait a second there G-Pooh (We call him Grandpooh if you didn't know that). First of all, we were watching a news story on cattle. Second of all, we hadn't mentioned weight loss or anything all day!
Now, a week later I am thinking about that. When I first started my journey, I talked about nothing else. I was probably a little annoying to my fellow workers and my fellow Americans and my fellow family members (who are all American as well...at least as far as I know). But that was all I talked about. My weight loss journey. How much I had lost, how much I had exercised and how that was going. But I haven't done that in a while. I hadn't been talking about it. I had also not been eating great around him. He always has snack food at his house, and it's so hard to keep out of that. Also, when I'm taking care of him, there is not a lot of cooking so there is a lot of fast food eating. And I haven't been talking about it. I haven't been steadfast in my diet or in my exercise. And how do I feel? Not as good as I did in October. So have I given up?
NO.
I know things throw us off. Grandpa's falling really threw me off of my eating correctly. I haven't gotten back on the full-steam-ahead track. And moving threw me off of my exercise. And like my sister-in-law says..it's a slippery slope. Once you get off track, it is hard to get back on. I haven't gained weight, but I haven't lost either. So what to change?
Everything. I need to change everything. I printed out my diet and hung it up on my fridge this morning. I am making myself a store list so I can go and buy exactly what I need, how much of it I need and am writing down my meals this week and what I am going to be eating each and every day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. And no more sleeping in through my exercise. Get my lazy butt out of bed and do it!
On the flip side of grandpa's insightful statement, on Saturday I went to my mother's hospital to help her and her boss tear down from their program. I got out of my car and walked across the street to the hospital, and then I heard a voice behind me saying, "Tracie?" When I turned around, my mother's boss was walking toward me and he said, "you know...I thought that might be you, but to be honest, I was expecting someone bigger. You look wonderful!" Now if that don't make you feel good, I don't know what does!
So thank you grandpa for your wisdom...and Richard for your compliment. I have received a lot of compliments from you all for my Facebook profile photo, and I very much appreciate them! I have worked hard to get to this point and I need a swift kick in the butt every morning to continue to work harder to get to the next level! As Nike has taught us...JUST DO IT!
T
