Only 4 days to go

The good people over at WEtv and SYL asked me to write a couple of blogs about my experience on this interesting journey....


Entry 1: Give me a place to ‘run’ and I can move the world...

So it’s been a week since Charles and the cameras left. I feel like a completely different person… I talked to an old friend a couple of nights ago and he told me he also felt like he was talking to a different person because I told him more about myself in the three-hour conversation we had then in the last six years. It’s weird how freeing it is to actually be vulnerable with the ones you love. I’m not saying I feel capable of being this vulnerable when any Joe Blow on the street, but its cool to give the people you love ( and who love you) a little bit of insight as to why you’ve acted the way you’ve acted in the past. He told me it made him understand so many things about me. The most interesting thing was how he started to open up to me about his own battle with being overweight. The more open and genuine I was the more he opened up.

I feel like this show came at such a pivotal time in my life because I am ready to change my life and I feel like so many people around me will benefit from this experience. It wasn’t easy to get to this point and it wasn’t a coincidence either. I feel like everything that is happening to me right now was a long time coming and it was Oprah’s definition of luck: "Opportunity meeting Preparation." There was a point in my life where I hit rock bottom. I was depressed and even suicidal. I was about to lose my home (TWICE). I had alienated my closest friends. I wasn’t communicating with my family. I lost my beloved dog…and that’s when everything started to unfold. I realized that the world wasn’t at fault…I was! It took two-and-a-half years after I hit that bottom for me to crawl back up and be ready for this opportunity. It took a lot of self evaluation, a lot of tears and confronting so many fears I didn’t even know existed...but here I am.

I get up every morning so ready to GO! There are times when my old self tries to creep in and make me feel lazy… but I look at how far I have come and so much I have been able to heal, that it makes no sense for me not to give it all I have. The first 20 minutes of every workout are dreadful but once that 36-minute mark hits I feel like I can go another hour or so. Even when I do my workouts with the trainers, I leave feeling like I could go run a couple of miles. Whenever I feel like quitting I think about that triathlon and I remind myself that none of those people are quitters and if I want to join their ranks I need to “man” up, and I keep going. I think about the tri-athletes who compete (and finish) with a missing limb and it feels like a waste of a healthy body not to try. I feel so much stronger, tougher and agile then I did a week ago ( Inside and out! ) and it’s the most amazing feeling in the world… its like a door to this new dimension has opened up and the funny thing is it was right in front of me the whole time! Now there are new experiences at every turn and the possibilities are endless...

Peace,
Caro

Entry 2: Tough long road vs. the quicker fix (or so they think)…

I recently befriended a girl who was morbidly obese in her late teens. Her mother forced her to get a gastric bypass because she feared her daughter would die. It was so interesting to find a thin person who understood my battle with that urge to eat in order to feel comforted. I started telling her how since I started the show I have this unknown internal voice that screams at me every time I wanted to get out of control. It’s the only way I can stop myself from eating something I enjoy. It’s the only way I’ve been able to resist even looking at a pizza pie. You see…I know very well that the moment I bite into that first slice I’m going to want to eat the whole pie!!! I know better and I know I shouldn’t but I still don’t trust myself to stop after that first slice. Is this how junkies feel? Seriously… is it? It’s a horrible feeling, let me tell you!

Anyway, through this new friendship of mine I realized how important it is to be mentally ready to make a change, whether you are an over eater, an alcoholic or a drug-addict. If you are not mentally willing to stop, you will always have that nasty urge and you might never get over it, you will most likely relapse time and again. I went to a party with my new found friend and of course the temptation that is the food table instantly made me start that now familiar battle with myself. That’s where the new little voice came into play (maybe I should see a shrink) as I was scouting the table for what I wanted to eat and what I actually could eat, I started to eliminate the potatoes salads with all their mayo glory, the hummus with its crunchy pita chips, the chocolate dip that called out to me like one of those enchanted sirens who called out to Hercules (SIGH). I served myself some green salad and two turkey burgers (no bread) and when I was done I was satisfied, not only my hunger but also emotionally, I felt proud for having resisted the temptation. I must admit I did eat half a brownie. But my friend served herself everything that she could get her hands on. She had a look of desperation on her face… that’s when I realized… were she to have the surgery reversed she would gain the 160 lbs she previously lost, in a matter of months if not weeks. She obviously wasn’t able to eat the whole mountain of food she had on her plate, but she sure did try. She ended up with a horrible stomach ache. I wonder if she will ever deal with the reason why food is comforting for her or why she has the urge to keep eating even when she is in pain.

I know I’ve said this in the past and at the risk of sounding repetitive, this is why I am so grateful for this opportunity. I know exactly why I ate to comfort myself and when I see myself trying to hide behind those feelings or tendencies I pull myself out of it because now my life has a new purpose and I do not need to fall back. I have had times where I might have eaten one too many fudgesicles, but I have learned that I have to forgive myself for when I have a setback… because I am worth it! If I don’t care enough about myself to get over a small hurdle like that then who will?

P.S: I’m not knocking the gastric bypass or surgeries of that nature; I just think people should go through all the necessary mental counseling before they go through with it.

Love,
Caro

Entry 3: It takes a village to get me in a wetsuit (or it used to)…

When I set out to do a triathlon I never thought the whole process was going to be so intimidating. Apart from having to get my body up to par with the fitness a challenge like that requires I now have to start getting in mental shape. For instance, my eternal fear of making a fool of myself, I wouldn’t be able to explain this fear to you guys since I am the silliest person I know. Well, honestly I sometimes come off as super serious but once people get to know me they discover the silliness that is the real Caro…so anyway back to the swimming, biking and running all while wearing what seems to me like extremely unflattering/tight clothes. It’s funny that what intimidates me is the fact that I might not look as good as Dara Torres looks in a swimsuit and not the fact that I might fall off my bike at high speeds and shatter my teeth. Or maybe the possibility of twisting an ankle/knee while running. Not one of those things scare me…it’s the self consciousness of having to bare wobbly parts in public. These types of insecurities are what have stopped me from doing most of the things I have dreamed of doing in my life… BUT NO MORE, I say!

Do you know how much it took to get me in a swimsuit and a wetsuit for the show? It was an hour of struggling, not only with that wretched wet suit in the ghastly humidity of Miami, but also struggling with my urge to run away and hide under my bed. The thought of having to walk out in a suit that accentuates all my bumps and rolls was intimidating… mind you I wasn’t thinking about the thousands, nay, millions of people who watch WE tv (had I thought about it at the time I would’ve passed out) I was thinking about the 10 people from the crew who would be the audience to my exit from that dressing room (it was actually a stinky bathroom). They were the nicest people in the world so I really don’t know why I was stressing. I have to admit once it was over I felt a little silly for stressing over something so petty…or so I though! Three days later they asked to don a bathing suit! This time the little protection I felt from the miles and miles of material that covered my body when I wore the wet suit were gone. Now I had to bare even more in front of a national audience AND the crew. Wearing triathlete garb can’t be as bad as that, right?

Hoping for the best,

Caro