3
With three active toddlers to care for and teaching aerobic classes six days a week, I received a call from the chairman of the Geography/Geology Department at the University of North Texas. “Would you be interested in teaching freshman geography classes and coordinating the respective laboratories?” Dr. Williams asked. Well, of course! I was thrilled. Joining a four-year university was a great opportunity. I gladly accepted the offer and faced an added ninety-mile commute to my already hectic schedule.
I had received my master’s degree in environmental science when I was pregnant with Sean. And then, in January 1989, when Brian was nearly two years old, I was returning to work as an adjunct professor. “Maybe going back to work will keep my mind off these pesky headaches. Maybe they’ll even go away,” I rationalized at the time.
I tried to blend my new full-time work schedule with motherhood. I arranged my classes around limited day care and still spent plenty of quality time with the boys every day. I maintained a regular exercise routine to keep in shape. This was when my problems first began to escalate beyond the headaches. Because of my busy schedule I developed habits I never had before. I ate on the run. There was no time to take care of myself. At home with the kids, my diet was fairly simple. After I started working, my diet got sloppy. I gained a few more unwanted pounds. I was busy! So busy, I unknowingly destroyed thirty-five years of perfect health.
Then I made the worst mistake. I started drinking more diet sodas. I had started drinking them just after Brian’s birth, but only sporadically. I knew better than to use artificial sweeteners. As an environmental scientist, I am aware that synthetic chemicals are not meant to be eaten. But after Brian was born, I wanted to lose the weight as quickly as possible and then with my new job, I was always in a hurry. Whenever I left campus, I treated myself to a cold diet drink for my long commute home. I cast aside all my previous training. Even as a child, I instinctively knew what was good and bad, natural and unnatural. But I wanted to lose weight and certainly not gain anymore. I would pay dearly for this mistake.
The headaches didn’t stop. And more bizarre symptoms began to appear.
Not only did I continue putting on extra pounds, but I began to retain water weight, which made me look swollen and puffy all the time. My aerobic buddies started teasing me about “gaining weight.” In the fitness industry, weight gain is seen as a sign of laziness. “You’re not working out enough,” they would say. So, on the days I didn’t teach aerobics, I began jogging.
I also tried eating less and less. What I did eat was mostly diet stuff. Logical, right? Exercise more, eat less, and eat low-fat or non-fat and sugar-free.
I filled my kitchen cabinets with boxes of food sated with preservatives, vacuum packages of low-fat, sugar-free snacks, and liters of artificially flavored, sugar-free drinks. The refrigerator was stocked with fat-free, sugar-free yogurt, low-fat processed cheese, the lowest fat-free margarine on the market, and more liters of diet soda. The freezer was lined with boxes and bags of low-fat, sugar-free weight-watchful entrees, frozen veggies, and fat-free, sugar-free ice cream.
I was watching my weight by eating fat-free, sugar-free junk, or so I rationalized. In truth I had fallen prey to creative and deceptive advertising. Of course, at that point I didn’t know it.
In fact I achieved none of my goals. Not only wasn’t I thinner, but I became more nervous and irritable. “What’s with you these days?” my husband asked. “You are really hard to live with lately. Why don’t you go see somebody?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I’d reply. “I’m just overtired with the kids and all. I’ll be okay. Just give me a bit more help with the boys, and I’ll be all right.”
I have a lot of responsibilities on my shoulders, I justified to myself. I didn’t want to fight with Chuck, so I didn’t say out loud the resentments I felt: I can’t be expected to handle all of life’s demands in my usual optimistic manner, can I? So what if I’m a bit grumpier than normal. After all, I am gaining weight and I feel lousy, and I don’t know why. That’s enough to put anybody in a bad mood.
But my mood swings intensified. I was out of sorts all the time now. And I was becoming severely depressed. Boy, this weight gain is really getting to me, I thought.
My sleeping problems persisted into nightly insomnia. Before that first headache, I had always gone to bed early, slept like a log, and popped out of bed in the morning with a smile on my face. I was one of those “damned morning people.” Now, I continuously had trouble sleeping. I couldn’t fall asleep and, when I finally did, I’d wake up repeatedly throughout the night. I was having awful nightmares for the first time since I was a small child, too. I was not getting enough rest. I blamed it on the boys, on my workaholic husband, and my busy schedule. And the cycle continued.
When I had an idle moment, which wasn’t often, I assumed that my work schedule, exercising more and eating less were catching up with me, because I was always tired and feeling weak. How could that be? I lifted weights and did sit-ups every day. Working out regularly should have made my body stronger, not weaker. But I was weaker, without a doubt.
And my weight gain didn’t slow down. Even to myself I had to acknowledge my husband was right. I was hard to live with. I was living my worst nightmare!
I know humans shed hair seasonally just like any other mammal, especially in the spring and autumn, but I was soon pulling massive chunks of hair from my head every day.
Next, my fingernails started to split and tear. I’d always enjoyed long, hard, beautiful fingernails. Okay, I asked myself, what was going on: headaches, weight gain, hair loss, and now my nails? I was falling apart. It took a few more months before I realized these changes were simply not going to go away. All of them crept up on me one by one, so I didn’t see them as parts of one problem.
The symptoms were irritating as hell, but I continued to shrug them off as by-products of the life I’d chosen. You name it, I blamed it. Excuses worked for a while, until one day my heart began to beat out of control.
For the first time in more than a decade of aerobic training, my resting heart rate uncharacteristically elevated. Not to mention that it skyrocketed during aerobic workouts. It actually hurt as my heart forced the blood through my veins. My irregular pulse made me feel dizzy and overheated. My aerobic workouts were becoming a strain, but I couldn’t let my fitness students know this. In addition, I had an extremely difficult time maintaining my balance, and one day while teaching a low-impact class, I stumbled and fell. There I was leading a side-to-side grapevine with a packed class imitating my every move and boom—flat on my ass. I looked around but there appeared to be no uneven flooring or other reason. How embarrassing! I didn’t know what to say so I laughed it off. But something happened to me then that had never happened in over a decade of aerobic training.
I perspired now more than I ever had. I literally had sweat streaming down me when I worked out—my leotard stuck to my wet body like plastic wrap. My students came to me after class and asked with sincere concern, “Are you all right?” “Oh, yeah,” I replied as I try to think of some clever excuse for my awkward appearance. “I’m just going for it tonight.”
My breathing wasn’t normal anymore, either. I developed allergies for the first time in my life. I started using an asthma inhaler for what the doctor diagnosed as “exercise-induced asthma.” I could no longer complete
