What Does A Two Year Old Birthday Mean for Wellness?

Dr. Lisa Ann Homic, M.Ed. D.C. and son, Eirne, 20 months (Sept. '05)

What Does A Two Year Old Birthday Mean for Wellness?

Eirne turned two last week. It was a good time for me to reflect on what that means. It is fabulous having this little guy in my life. He is better entertainment than the TV. Watching his cute performances is quite interesting. Mike and I smile at each other and say,"Isn't he cute?" When I smile at Mike and he smiles back I think about how meaningful our marriage is to me as we share the journey of raising this small wonder. Love, sharing, and making our part of the world a beautiful place to live is wellness mind and spirit.

Celebrating his two year birthday also reminds me that I have spent almost three years being preoccupied with other people and ignoring what I need to take care of myself. My pregnancy was the most exhausting experience. When magazines and TV kept spouting how wonderful studies on exercise during pregnancy I told myself, "They're kidding, right?" I was lucky if I could walk through the grocery store for 15 minutes, in every trimester of my pregnancy. I managed to walk the dog and enjoy the fresh air while praying that it helped my pgregancy induced hypertension, which was only a physiological response to being pregnant (but that is another story). Besides the tiredness and high blood pressure, I had no other problems. After Eirne was born, I my energy was back to normal, even on little sleep. But, I was not exercising and I was not losing the weight despite all the press about breast feeding and getting your pre-pregancy body back.

I knew I needed this extra weight for now. There was a good bit of energy stored up in my fat cells just in case I needed it. Since I was living the life of a workaholic CEO: being a mom 24 hours a day, keeping up with everything else in the house and going back to treating patients part-time, my extra weight reminded me that I was a human trying to do too much.

As a busy adult, I often say to myself, "I'll get to that later." Translation: that means I am lying through my teeth and just trying to sound good. This is worse than procrastinating. Most procrastinators establish a time frame when to get things done. I was not doing anything.

I walked in nice weather for about six months. Then I was only walking once a week. Last fall I stopped completely. If I took the dog out, he was lucky if he got a quarter mile stroll. Just before Christmas I finally stopped the denial when I could not zip up my jeans. I hadn't only quit exercising, I was snacking once or twice a day on foods my parents wouldn't allow. The dialougue inside of me went something like this: "I don't care. I can worry about it later. It's only one sugary, high carb snack. Today I am really hungry and I want to get through the afternoon. I love the taste of soda! It's an easy to grab snack. I don't have time right now to get something healthier. I'm only one size bigger than normal. So what!"

I could go on and on and on with excuses. Finally the tight jeans stopped me. For a while I squeezed into them and when it was actually painful to force my stomach into my jeans I still didn't care. When I could not move the zipper at all, I changed my self talk and my behavior. To be continued...