A Liberating Epiphany
Hello everyone.
I’m sitting at my desk in my medical office after having seen my last patient of the day. I observed she had perfect hair, nails and teeth. Her make-up, jewelry and shoes were perfect. And then there was the area in between all of this finery. She was 48 years old, 5’5” and had no idea what her weight was. As we did the measurements of her body composition, she faintly smiled when the total body weight clocked in at 223 pounds with a body fat of 48.6% (normal is about 25%) and a girth of 44 inches (normal is considered less than 35).
“I guess I’m a bit overweight. But otherwise I feel fine”.
Nope, obese is the word. And “fine” as Fergie, Duchess of York once said, really means “Frantic Insecure Neurotic Emotional”. She should know, having battling the “I’m fine when I’m not syndrome for years”. When I asked my patient what size she was, she said “elastic”.
When I asked her what her cholesterol and blood pressure usually ran, she couldn’t recall, but she immediately chimed in that her hubby’s cholesterol was 205 and his blood pressure was terrific now that he’d been walking every day. But, what about her? This wonderful woman represented a pattern I see so often in women.
First, the appearance issue. Their “protein parts” are well attended to---the hair and nails. The accessories and skin were spot on. But the oasis in between was merely shrouded in loose fitting clothes and plenty of elastic. I am not a fan of elastic. Women never know if they’re putting on more weight since the elastic grows right along with them. They float. It fosters what this woman represents--- mind and body dissociation. That means she is not cueing into the fact that she’s carrying around so much excess fat. And that this fat is increasing her risk for breast cancer, and lack of girth control is ramping up her chances for getting diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Yikes. Time for a come to heaven session. We got down to the bottom of it. She’s just a fabulous care giver who never learned how to set boundaries to allow herself the time for her walk and her careful eating plan. She had a minor meltdown when she finally acknowledged her dissociation. Once she really saw what she was doing to herself, it was a painful yet liberating epiphany. When she left, she vowed to toss her elastic and start wearing fitted clothes that hug her and keep her mind tracking with her body. She committed to her daily walks and was excited about the thought of actually feeling her body move through space, stretching muscles, getting stronger, removing fat, and freeing herself to live the life she deserved.
As she left me today, she smiled and said, “My goal is to read a fashion magazine and not just buy accessories. I deserve to wear the clothes, too!” Yep, that she does.
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