Yesterday was just so sad for me as I saw so many extended family members really struggling with their health. And I'm not just talking about my mom's cousins - I'm talking about their adult children and their grandchildren. For the most part, the family is obese and ALL of my mom's surviving cousins have Type 2 diabetes.
So what is it like sitting in a circle of obese, Type 2 diabetic family members? There was a lot of talking and laughing about things in general, a lot of catching up on different family members for sure. But there was also conversation about their diabetes and which medications they were taking. This particular conversation went on while most were munching on cookies and sweet breads . . . The conversation then switched to recipes and one cousin talked about a recipe she'd just made that included 10 pounds of potatoes and 5 pounds of bacon. And yes, everyone wanted the recipe. When the visitation was nearing an end, we were invited to join them for pizza at a local restaurant (we declined as we had a 2 hr. drive home).
There was such a painful disconnect between where they were with their health and what they were doing and focused on. All of them know that I lost over 100 pounds and they could see that I've been at a healthy weight for almost 5 years (a number of them commented on that and congratulated me). My mom, who lost 40 pounds thanks to Take Shape for Life and is now managing her own Type 2 diabetes largely through lifestyle change and a limited amount of insulin, took every opportunity to comment that I am no longer diabetic because of losing weight. They thought that was wonderful for me, but not one of the cousins was interested in doing anything themselves.
There was a lot of conversation about how the cousin who'd passed away suffered over the past several years, and there was agreement that dialysis was quite dreadful. Other cousins have passed away after undergoing years of dialysis and amputations due to complications of Type 2 diabetes, so the consequences of uncontrolled diabetes has been seen up close. Yet what I observed was either denial or a hopeless acceptance of inevitability in these family members, or perhaps a combination of both.
I know that no one will change until they're ready to change and all I can hope and pray is that some of them will finally get sick and tired of being sick and tired. It was sobering to realize that six years ago I was on my way to being exactly where they are as I tipped the scale at over 260 pounds and was watching my blood sugar rise due to Type 2 diabetes.
I could SO easily be another family statistic, but I praise God that I'm not - and I won't be! Take Shape for Life changed my life forever because I didn't just lose 126 pounds - I embraced a healthy lifestyle and also embraced the truth that I COULD be healthy. Once I made the decision to get healthy and began to focus on what I could create in my life, everything changed.
As I shared with one of my cousins last night, I still have a fully-developed set of "fat girl" taste buds and I am challenged every day to make choices that keep me moving in the direction of health. Seeing the alternative last night made making healthy choices a no-brainer for me. It's not always easy, but where I am now is infinitely better than where I could be had I not made the decision in June of 2007 to change.
And once that decision was made, for me and for you, all we have to do is make the daily decision to choose wisely :-)
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