Healthy You Challenge

Friday Blogger of the Week - Hanlie of Fertile Healthy

I’m such a fan of Hanlie’s blog and when I got several emails nominating her for blogger of the week I knew I wasn’t alone in admiring her writing. Her post titled “I Do”caught the eye of several of you and just in case you missed it, I’ve copied and pasted it below. Its one of those posts that is worth reading and rereading!! Thank you Hanlie for your beautiful analogy of life and dieting.

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A number of years ago I met a girl in a bar, who recognized me from 6th grade. She took my number and actually phoned me! Nobody does that! We became friends. We were both single and unlucky in love. Our prospects looked bleak.

Then she met the one! And went from seeing me 4-5 times a week to about 4-5 times a year. We spoke on the phone pretty regularly and I kept up to date with the goings on in her life. After about a year they got engaged. I became grateful for the infrequent visits, because this girl went into wedding overdrive! During the 10 months before the wedding, she became a professional bride! It was painful to see…

The wedding was a huge success and even I enjoyed it. A mere three months later I got a late night phone call, asking if she could come over. Trouble in paradise. They had spent so much time planning the wedding that they never thought about planning their marriage. They were on the brink of divorce. Fortunately they were mature enough to go for counselling and now, three years later, they’re fine and happy.

I was just thinking today that most obese people are professional dieters. Just like the professional bride with all her catalogues, bridal books, magazines and samples, we have shelves filled with every conceivable, book, plan, and recipe, all the “must-have” exercise equipment (from which we hang our clothes), diet “stuff” on the refrigerator door, expired diet milkshakes in dark corners of our kitchen, scales in the bathroom and on the kitchen counter. We know our stuff. We do graphs. We log our food. We read Shape magazine. We watch Oprah and The Biggest Loser. We blog and join challenges. We count calories and set goals.

There are people who do this year in and year out. Most of us have. I’ve been familiar with the plan I’m following for more than 7 years now. I’ve told people about it, I’ve written about it, but I haven’t actually permanently implemented it. I’ve spent a lot of time “getting ready to start”.

I’ve now started. Seven years down the line. But starting is just a very small part of this… Now comes the “marriage”. The ups and the downs. The adapting. The disappointments and the moments that take your breath away. The waning of passion and the growth in intimacy. The getting comfortable in your routine. The tears and the laughter.

And I say: “Bring it on!”

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” ~ George Elliot