The Woman Walking

I have been a member of SparkPeople for two years now. I’ve lost 50 lbs and totally changed my lifestyle, even though the stress of finishing my undergraduate thesis put 10 lbs back on that I’m now working off. One of the main ways that I have kept fit is walking. Even in the highest heat (it can be about 114 degrees where I live) or the frostiest cold (about -15 degrees where I went to school) I made an effort to walk. Especially to make sure that even if I couldn’t get to the gym or was too exhausted from an all-nighter to run, I could get SOME exercise.

Recently in my neighborhood I’ve seen a few women all of whom fit a similar description: they are overweight, some about as heavy as I was, some a little heavier, some a little lighter, wearing exercise clothes and they are walking on the same path that I walk everyday. As I walk by in my tank top and my giant 1940s-style sunhat, they usually avoid my eyes and my friendly smile. One woman in particular I’ve seen on a number of different occasions. Every time I see her, I feel so wonderful. I want to say to her “I was once like you. I walked this path and used SparkPeople and I lost all this weight. And in a year or two years if you keep it up, you will get to a healthy, trim weight like me. In a year or two, you’re going to be the one smiling at another woman walking.”

Although I want to shout encouraging words to the woman walking, I know I shouldn’t. I would have been mortified if someone had noticed I was overweight enough to bother to talk to me. However, I just wanted to say that if, in any city or wherever you are and you are that woman walking, there is someone rooting for you! I remember that woman walking once used to be me.

By Darbouski on SparkPeople.com

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