Free Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish by Betsy Schow

even close. Teach you to try and race me. You cheated and
still
lost.” I probably said a few other choice phrases, but I’m embarrassed enough for one chapter.
    When Jarom finally caught his breath, “Yep, you sure did. You ran the whole four miles. Didn’t have to walk once.”
    It hit me like a running shoe to the head: I had run four miles. I had done the impossible, and just like I had predicted, the fabric of reality unraveled… I actually gave myself credit. For once, I was in the moment of the achievement, not looking ahead at how much more I had to do. Or looking at how long it had taken me to do it. (Even though I was faster than Jarom, I was still pretty slow.) Nope, for once I was able to appreciate the simple fact that I had done something.
    Earlier animosity forgotten, I grabbed Jarom in huge bear hug. Then I started a new, better victory dance.
    “I ran four miles.
I ran four miles.
I am a goddess!” Hey, I didn’t say I was humble about it. Baby steps.
    ***
    My bedroom has a set of his and her IKEA wardrobes. On the doors of the wardrobes were three calendar pages, one for the current month and the following two months. Using a book (what else?), Jarom had come up with a training schedule that worked for us and put it on the calendars so we could easily track how far we were running on what days. It had been intended as a tool to help us plan ahead and arrange our schedule accordingly. My four-year-old, Lily, saw it differently.
    One day, she came into our room as I was checking off that morning’s run.
    “Hey, Mama, is that your sticker card?”
    “Huh? What’re you talking about, Lily?”
    Lily ran out of the room and brought back the reward chart that I had made for her earlier that week. We had recently been having a little trouble with naughty behavior in our household. Lily had been seeing an occupational therapist for the past six months for sensory processing issues. The therapist had suggested the reward chart as a way to not only encourage positive behavior but also recognize it. Every time Lily did a good job at following directions, shared with her sister, or didn’t flip out when she put on her shoes (long story), she got a sticker in one of the boxes. When she filled up a row with stickers, she got a prize. Looking at her paper, I understood why she made the connection. It too was gridded and blocked similarly to the weeks on my calendar.
    I looked at my schedule in an entirely new way. Instead of seeing how many more miles I had to go, I looked back at all the check marks showing the miles I’d run. Holy crap, that was a lot of miles. Cumulatively equaling 172 at this point.
    “Yes, Lily, this is Mommy’s sticker chart.”
    Lily once again ran out of the room. This time she returned with a page of metallic star stickers.
    “You forgot the stickers. Can I do it?”
    “Sure, Lily. Just make sure you don’t cover up the numbers so I can see how far I went, okay?”
    Hoisting Lily up so she could reach, we put little star stickers on each run I’d completed. I’m sure if I had let her have free reign, she would have filled up all the future boxes too. We stood back and admired our handiwork.
    “Wow, Mom, that’s a lot of stickers. So what’s your prize?”
    Haha… if only. I tried to figure out how to explain to my little girl that grown-ups didn’t get rewards. Then I started thinking, Why the heck shouldn’t I get a prize? I’ve earned it!
    “I don’t know, Lily. Why don’t you go ask Daddy?”
    I chuckled as Lily ran from the room, yelling for her Daddy the entire way. A few minutes later, she came panting back.
    “Daddy says it’s whatever.”
    I’m not sure if Jarom meant whatever I wanted or more likely had no clue what Lily was talking about and so responded with a “Whatever.” I decided to use my new powers of positive thinking and believe it was the former. The pants I had bought for my birthday a month ago had gotten a little roomy. Perhaps a little trip