By Lynn Haraldson-Bering
I dreaded summer during those years – about 14 of the last 20 – when I weighed more than 200 pounds. I’d sweat and be physically miserable even on 75-degree days. On the most beautiful days, I’d stay inside in the air conditioning. When I was obese, I even planned my vacations around the temperature, preferring to go away in the late fall and winter so I didn’t have to deal with the heat.
Thankfully I’ve spent the last three summers worshipping the outdoors and remembering (and doing) what I loved about summer when I wasn’t obese, namely biking, bird-watching and gardening.
My husband bought me a bike after I hit my goal weight in February 2007. I hadn’t ridden a bike in years and I spent most of last year getting comfortable with the gears and navigating traffic. But this year, I’ve got the process down pat, like I did when I was a kid. Only now I hang on to the handlebars when going down a hill.
I love biking. It is singly the most Zen thing I do next to meditating. Sure it’s good exercise, but as you know, when you’re maintaining a reduced body, you need more than exercise to keep you motivated and focused. You have to have fun things you didn’t do before to look forward to, and biking is one of those things I crave to do every weekend. Here’s the blog I wrote last year about my new bike: Bicycle, Bicycle, Bicycle.
I’m writing to you now while sitting outside on my deck behind our green house. It’s a small deck – about 12 by 14 feet – and surrounded on two sides by raised-bed perennial gardens. I’ve always kept some type of garden, regardless of my weight, but the process of planting, weeding, adding mulch, and pruning is much easier with a reduced body.
I’m not a fancy gardener by any means, and I usually plant things in the wrong order of height, but my gardens are good friends to me. The Shasta daisies are in full bloom, as are the Asiatic lilies, chives, coreopsis, summer clematis, and a few other plants that are pretty and the bees like but I have no idea what they are. Soon the mums, coneflowers, phlox and sunflowers will bloom. The basil, cilantro and oregano are growing like crazy, the rosemary is doing what rosemary does (this is the first time I’ve planted it so I’m not sure what it’s “supposed” to do), and the sage and lavender seem to be getting along growing side by side.
I can get pretty uptight and nervous in maintenance, always wondering if I’m eating the right thing and exercising the right way. So gardening – everything from planning to creating to sitting back and enjoying the plants be plants – is one way I stay centered. Here’s a link to the blog I wrote last year when my gardens and deck were being built: The Garden Of Lynn.
Watching birds is another way I focus. I have four general bird feeders, a finch feeder and a sunflower seed feeder. When Barbara and I were talking on the phone last week, I was sitting on the deck and a bird I didn't recognize stopped at the sunflower feeder. I mentioned it to Barbara in passing, saying simply, “Hmmmm…I wonder what that bird is…” and she immediately asked me to describe it. She wrote to me later and confirmed that it was a juvenile Downey woodpecker.
I was so happy to learn we shared an interest in birds! Sometimes when you get to know someone based on one common interest, it’s easy to forget that you might have other things in common, too. As people maintaining weight loss, it’s easy for us to get lost in talking about the nuts and bolts of maintenance – food and exercise – but it’s important to remember we share more than that in common. We’re under the umbrella of being human, so my hope is that through this website and in meeting others in your life who are maintaining their weight, you find true friendship based on lots of commonalities and not just “diet secrets.”
I have watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe and blueberries in the refrigerator – summer at its finest. I brewed some iced tea and put some cucumber salad to soaking in brine. I love that I can take a walk outside most days and ride my bike and garden even on the warmest western PA days. While I don’t beat myself up for missing so many hot, beautiful summers in the past, I will remember these current summer days to help keep me focused on what’s best about maintaining my weight loss.