Skinny, Livin' The Dream: Journey to a Second Chance in Life

By M.E. Najar

Hector and Mary are a married couple, whose struggle with obesity and illness guided them to nutritional research, leading them to great health, slim vibrant energized bodies, and a renewed outlook on life.
Hector and Mary have been struggling with their weight most all of their lives trying fad diets and weird exercises to shed the pounds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9780989968003

Book preview

Hippocrates

Dreamin’ the Dream

I remember being a bit pudgy during adolescence. When I reached the 9th grade, I had a round face and was a little stocky. To a teen girl, pudgy wasn’t the body storing and stocking energy so that it will have enough nutrition to grow and stretch through the adolescent years and feed the changing body. Pudgy was, Oh no, I am fat and gross. I am ugly. All negative feelings about my body and myself. I would listen to thin girls, popular girls, and what they would do to lose weight.

I was in 9th grade when I started my journey through the dieting world. I started my own diet several times. I would eat two bars of candy and have a soda for lunch at the school snack bar, then not eat anything for the rest of the day. My weight loss issues continued and I struggled to keep my weight low. Ongoing nutrition classes, starting in grade school and up through graduation, would benefit the health and well-being of all of our children and generations to follow. It would start a new wave of healthy eating. Knowledge is power. The most fundamental thing we need to know is how to feed ourselves well.

I started a diet at 18 years of age that lasted for a week. I wanted to get into a beautiful discount wedding dress. There was only one left, and it was a Size 7. The diet was nothing but cheese, orange juice, diet soda, and a popular over-the-counter diet pill that housed a lot of caffeine. I dropped from 145 pounds to 125 pounds in one week. I fainted once and developed a type of thrush in my mouth due to the acid in my tummy that lasted for a week and gave me side effects for about a month. I still saw nothing wrong with this — I lost a lot of weight and got to wear the dress. I was sick for a while after that with what I thought was the flu. A couple of months later I gained back the 20 pounds plus another 10 on top of that.

I had three children by the time I was in my early 20s and worked with my life-long girlfriend, Cathy, as a claims clerk at an insurance company. We were always trying to lose weight, but it was constant yo-yo dieting. Starve, and then gorge and regret. A few of us girls were talking about dieting, instigating Cathy and I to make a bet. Whoever lost the most weight would win $5. Five dollars bought a nice, full, fast-food lunch at that moment in time. Cathy did the old binge-and-purge diet. I used the laxative approach. I lost five pounds. She lost four. The five dollars I won treated both of us to lunch at a fast-food chicken place. My order was a three-piece meal, mashed potatoes with gravy, and extra rolls with extra honey. What I didn’t eat then, I would stuff down my throat at the end of the day on my drive home. (I was a sneaky eater. I only lied to myself and was devious about hiding food.) I gained 20 pounds within a few months after that, still crazy dieting all the while. I would start a diet in the morning and not eat anything all day. When it was time to drive home, I’d stop at a fast food place and gorge, and then go by the carwash and toss out the trash. When I arrived home, I cooked dinner and ate another complete big dinner with my family. I still had no idea about nutrition. A healthy meal was always fried meat with veggies and a ton of butter, sweet tea, and bread. I weighed 180 lbs.

When Hector and I met, I had three children, one grandchild, and two grandbabies on the way. I weighed 200 lbs. I had just been diagnosed with high blood pressure, only taking medication when I could afford the doctor and his script pad. Hector and I were together for only a short time when I had to call him to come and pick me up from work. I was writhing in pain when he arrived. Our first trip to the emergency room at the local hospital was just a few days later. Our first trip…with many more to follow.

I was dehydrated and vomiting when I arrived, and I stayed in the hospital for three days. The test showed inflamed diverticula — infected —causing fever and vomiting. Diverticulitis was the diagnosis. Okay, the culprit was diverticulitis. I took antibiotics, and life went on. I cut all seeds, nuts, and several other things out of my diet to try to keep from having pain. Over the years, I was in and out of the hospital several times with severe pain and had a colonoscopy more times than was recommended. I had four in 10 years. The doctors never tested for anything else. All of the pain and suffering, as far as they were concerned, was from the diverticulosis flaring into diverticulitis.

I was a bartender in a local bar in Oklahoma City. Hector had just moved here from San Antonio. He was looking for work in Dallas to be closer to his children. When we met, we immediately knew we were destined to be together and inseparable. I tried my luck at the job market in Dallas and landed a job as an assistant manager at an extended-stay hotel. It seemed ideal at the time. Big pay, apartment suite, bills paid, insurance, etc. Fast food was always the meal, unless we cooked at home. It was all non-nutritional food, but our only concern was that it filled our