Jane Hale Lost Over 13 Pounds and 4 Inches Off Her Mommy Belly ~
“It felt so good….to finally trust myself to make
the right decisions for me”
“My 101-year-old Grandmother passed away on September 1st, during the fourth week of the challenge.
During her final hours, I spent six days and several nights by her side, holding her hand, stroking her hair and trying desperately to soak up every possible ounce of meaning and beauty in her richly-lived, century-long life. We talked when she was able, but mostly we were just present with each other. My parents and brother, my husband and children, and my cousins and aunts and uncles shared stories about Gram as we took turns at her bedside. And as she left us, we held her close, teary but so happy that her life had been such a shining example, and so worthwhile.
There are so many times that I look back and wonder if I could have spent more time with her. I had always loved her with my whole heart, but it always seemed that there was so much more I could have learned from her.
As I muddled my way through learning the ropes of parenting my three children, I had always wanted to interview her for the makings of a book that I had in my head. It would have been like a cook book, but with recipes on how to handle all the situations that always stump me when it comes to mothering, like how to sew a button on, or how talk a three-year-old out of a tree, or how to foster a love of learning in your children, or how to balance your life with the complex needs of your family, or how to take care of yourself in spite of the stress involved of raising three wonderfully spirited children.
She did all these things with grace. She was the expert. She lived life simply, skillfully and quietly. And she happily lived to be 101 years old. Yet I never asked her how she did it.
Gram’s passing just happened to correspond with my second FYM challenge, which, as it turned out has been so much more than just a race to lose as much baby weight as possible.
At the beginning, I struggled with shifting mental gears from the “I can do anything for 12 weeks” mentality that proved to me that I could change my lifestyle during the New Years Transformation Challenge.
I knew that this was no longer about proving to myself and the world that I could “do it.” I knew I could, it was whether or not I would that was daunting.
Holly had lined up all the tools, I had figured out how to use them optimally in my life and I had full trust in a healthy, proactive system that I knew could work wonders. This time, though, the stakes were much higher. The stakes were no longer about trusting in the system; this time my task was to learn to trust myself.
I set a lot of goals for myself, mostly surrounding accountability. After all, how could I trust myself if I didn’t have a clear picture of what I was doing?
In addition to the wonderful correspondences I had with all of my incredibly supportive accountability buddies, I journaled daily, dutifully logging in my full workouts and daily meals.
But in attempting to remain accountable, I unwittingly started paying way too much attention to other information that technology had made available to me: I tracked my heart rate, my calories burned, my total calorie intake, my fat, carb and protein ratios. With the belief that I needed these external indicators in order to stay honest and accountable, I inadvertently snubbed Holly’s warning against trying to do everything exactly right, and on a daily basis, I made sure that I was precise!
I even got more intense about planning my meals so that I would know exactly what I was supposed to eat and when. And I fretted about whether or not I was challenging myself enough in my workouts, trying desperately to make sure that I was routinely upping my weights, my reps, my speed…whatever it took to be able to show constant improvement. After all, this is what worked for me in my first challenge.
The problem the first time around, was that in trying to do everything just right, I had burned myself out. And despite all the effort I was putting in this time around, things seemed to be moving much more slowly than they had the during the first challenge.
After four weeks of hyper-monitoring myself so that I wouldn’t slip up, my grandmother started to decline, and I went to her bedside. It’s hard to plan your meals when you’re not near a kitchen. It’s hard to up your weights when you don’t have any. But at a time when I might have chosen to let it all go, to just give up because I was so sad about what was happening and so bollixed because all of my fantastic planning had to be thrown out the window, thanks to my FYM habits, I instinctively knew that in order to do my best job of taking care of my Gram and being present for my family, I needed to continue taking care of myself at the most basic level.
So every morning, after a night spent on the floor by Gram’s bedside, I’d throw on my workout clothes, wander out to the healing garden at the Hospice center and assemble a mix of equipment-less exercises so that I could do my supersets (and give the guy mowing the lawn quite a show!) And I’d make sure to get out for several walks per day, with at least one being a fantastic series of intervals on the hill out back! And for meals, I’d trek out to the grocery store and purchase protein and produce. Nothing fancy, just good, whole foods. In essence, I had to choose to go back to the core basics of FYM or do nothing at all. The latter was not a viable option.
My goal was to keep my focus and keep my sanity, and it worked! As sad and as removed from predictable behavior patterns as I was, I was able to keep my orientation, and keep my eyes and heart on the most important task at hand: being fully present in order to fully live in the time I had left with Gram.
And it was a good thing!
What she taught me in those last, very quiet moments was near earth-shattering for me. For her, the dying process was so much a part of the living process. The trust she had that her own body and spirit would guide her was moving beyond words. She lived with an assured trust in the process, and she died with that same grace. In witnessing her example, suddenly the critical idea of trusting myself, took on entirely new dimensions.
Because of the tools that I had developed during my FYM experiences, I also had an amazing parallel discovery.
When I got home, I wrote the following in my journal:
“On the FYM front.... A big thing happened to me as I helped Gram let go and trust the process.... I was able to follow her lead, and let go and trust my own process more! In the past, when I haven't been able to do my food journal, I have felt "compelled" to fall apart... I just haven’t trusted myself to be able to judge how much “enough” is for my body. THIS time, however, I realized from being with Gram, that our bodies truly DO know everything that we need, and if we just trust them and filter out all the "I can't" messages and the "I NEED that (chocolate thingy... baked good...ice cream, etc.)" messages, and REALLY listen, we have all the answers right there at our disposal!"
And so it was that in letting go and trusting myself, I jump-started my progress for the challenge!
It felt so good and so natural to finally trust myself to make the right decisions for me that I chose NOT to resume the micro-managing process once I was home. Instead, I continued through the challenge to combine Holly’s expert workouts and my FYM “rules of thumb” to respond to the messages my body was giving me.
I have the distinct feeling that this trust that I am developing in myself will be a life-long process. I still keep an insane schedule, and as an active mom of three young children, I’m still threatened with chaos on a regular basis.
But that's life! And it is in getting thrust out of our comfort zones that we make discoveries about ourselves that might never have seemed possible before. By stepping out of my comfort zone and finally allowing myself the opportunity to return to my good, healthy instincts, I’ve regained the trust in myself that I need to survive those inevitable and all-too-frequent chaotic times.
I realize that I have always known, deep down, what the right thing was for my body and my spirit.
Now I am certain that the very book I’d always hoped my wise Gram would help me write already exists inside me! I just need to tune in to access it! Combined with Holly’s great framework, and the support of my family and friends, I have access to all the tools I need to take good care of my body so that I can more fully live my life!
Here’s proof that trusting in the FYM system AND in yourself works!
Height: 6 ft.
Starting weight: 216.6 lbs. New weight: 203.4 lbs. Change: -13.2 lbs
Starting natural waist: 36 New natural waist: 33.75 Change: -2.25
Starting mommy belly: 41 New mommy belly: 36.75 Change: -4.25
Starting hips: 41 New hips: 39.25 Change: -1.75
Starting thigh: 23.5 New thigh: 22 Change: -1.5
Total pounds lost: 13.2
Total inches lost: 12.5
This was yet another incredible leg of the journey that is my life, and I send a BIG thank you out to Holly and my FYM friends. I absolutely love doing this TOGETHER!!!”
~ Jane Hale, Age 35, Stay at home mom to Helen-7; Newell-5; and Peter-4, Pomfret Center, CT
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