By the title, I mean my own ghosts, not the ghosts that seem to appear every year in October. I have gotten into watching a show on the Style Network called Too Fat for Fifteen: Fighting Back. I feel fortunate to have received my wake up call when I did, and I bear no feelings of frustration or anger toward my parents for bringing me up in such an unhealthy lifestyle. But this show stirs up a lot of emotions for me.

I cannot really say that my weight loss journey is documented on this website, because I started blogging when I was near my goal weight. I also know that a large part of my success was dependent on the fact that I lived 1,200 miles away from all of the negative influences that caused my bad habits. The opening of the show is stark reality: For the first time ever, the current American generation will have a lower life expectancy than the previous generation. With all the medical breakthroughs and advances in technology, today's children are killing themselves with obesity…and it's because they don't know any better.

I am dually surprised and disgusted that some of the children on this show come home from a weight loss camp only to be surrounded with parents who eat poorly in front of them. No wonder serious weight loss (more than the vanity pounds) is rare without surgical intervention: the support in this country is seriously lacking. But losing the weight makes for really strong people, and I almost wish that everyone would have to go through it.

I now live with a man that has never had to think twice about his weight. He can eat garbage without the scale ever reflecting the difference—but he is a good man, and he supports me in bringing healthy food into our home; he is a willing participant if somebody helps him. I think people make the mistake of thinking that the outside appearance completely reflects internal health. You can be at a healthy weight yet be sorely out of shape, and vice versa.

My time away from home allowed me opportunity to fully adopt my new lifestyle before coming back to all the stressors and enablers from my past. I was very lucky, and I appreciate the progression of this experience. It is easy to say that I wish things had gone differently (that whole marrying a North Carolina boy thing), but I also realize that I am in a good place now, and it's because my experiences took me away, made me hurt, made me grow, and made me want to come home.

Nick has noticed the difference in our personalities, and actually references this quite a bit. I get frustrated because I have motivation thick enough to cut with a knife, but with my medical issues, the body isn't always willing. If I could physically do it without hurting myself, I would love to be able to work out three hours a day. Nick is in good health without chronic pain, but rarely has the drive to exercise unless I am doing it with him—the noteworthy exception being when he trained for his half marathon last summer while I was crippled once more with back pain.

If I had not gone through my own journey, I would have never learned drive, determination, or persistence. For the longest time, I felt embarrassed that losing weight just might be the crowing achievement of my life. I was thinking of it all wrong. Losing weight was a side effect of building myself up instead of the other way around. I have achieved many awesome things since, just by knowing that if I work hard enough, I am unstoppable.



I am sad, though. I am sad that the messages of image and health become intertwined, which makes talking about weight difficult. I never hear people point and laughing because someone has hardened arteries, but I guess it's funny when BMIs get into the 30s. I am sad that we as a country eat so much processed food, that the produce section is never as busy as the frozen dinner section.

Mostly though, I am sad that the next generation is suffering by the unacknowledged mistakes of the last. Easy is not always better. Working overtime may bring home a bigger paycheck, but if you don't need the extra money, just think of getting actual time and a half in your life by working out. We are becoming automate and losing the value of putting in the time on our biggest project: ourselves.

I think my ghosts have been haunting me lately because I have been thinking about my past. I graduated high school 10 years ago this year. 10 years ago from today, I was in my first semester at UW LaCrosse. They say that you can walk the entire campus in 10 minutes. I remember the struggle of getting from my French class to my Java class in 10 minutes. They were in two different buildings, both on the third floor, and not that far apart. Every day I staggered into that programming class beet-red, panting, and sweaty.

What if I had learned my lessons early in life? What if I had been brought up in an environment where I innately knew how to eat right and exercise? Life would have been very different for me, I can tell you that much. I did learn from the experience, but it would have been nice if a healthy lifestyle had been part of the toolkit I was given to conduct my life when I went out on my own.

Parents, teach your children by example…please.