If the Harness Fits...

Another edition of Memory Mondays...

A lot of times people who have lost a lot of weight have this moment where it all began. This is often some supremely embarrassing story where they were overweight, and they broke a chair when they sat in it or didn't fit in an airplane seat or had a child say something bluntly honest about their weight in front of strangers.  In stories of great weight loss, this is the origin, the turning point, where they decide to change their lives.

My supremely embarrassing incident actually came about three weeks into my weight loss journey, back in August 2009. Our annual back to school staff party was at the campus gym.  It had a  "fun and games" theme, so they had set up a lot of different games: air hockey, board games, Wii, etc.  They also had the two-story rock climbing wall open.

I had attempted the rock climbing wall once when I was in college, but that was way back when and in a different gym. At the party, I really wanted to give it a try. After all, I had already lost some weight and I was working out, so I couldn't be too horrible. 

Except that I didn't even fit in the harness. The student who was monitoring/working the wall showed me how to step into the harness and then stood there awkwardly as I tried to pull it up over my hips. I let the straps all the way out. I struggled. I tugged. But no matter how I tried, I could not get it on. I turned to her and hopefully said, "Do you have any larger harnesses?" She said no, and I said, "I guess I'm not climbing the wall today," and walked away. 

It made me feel absolutely horrible. There is no adequate way to describe the embarrassment I felt. The only good thing about it is that none of my coworkers had seen me approach the wall and none of them knew what had happened.   I had been talking about trying to climb all night and several people asked me later when I was going to try. I just told them I had changed my mind. They thought I was just scared, and I was okay with that. 

Ever since then, as I've shed the pounds, I have wanted to try again. But even as I lost 60, 70, 80+ pounds and became stronger, I was too scared to try again. I was scared that even with the significant weight loss I wouldn't fit in the harness again and I would be subject to further embarrassment.

Last Wednesday, I was walking out of our Red, Green and Bling Zumba/Hip Hop Dance Off when I saw the rock climbing wall was open. I knew that now was the the time to try again, so I asked my friend Kimberly to tackle it with me. 

I was extremely nervous as we talked to the workers, got our shoes and our harnesses.  I was nervous right up until that harness slid up over my hips with ease.  I really have changed!

We had to first learn how to belay each other as we climbed. (Belaying is the person who stands on the ground and holds the other end of the rope that the rock climber is attached to. That way if the rock climber falls off the wall, the belayer and the attached rope keeps the rock climber from falling.)

Kimberly volunteered to climb first, which meant I had the pressure of making sure I was belaying correctly. Luckily, Kimberly is an excellent climber who even once took a PE class in rock climbing. She went straight up to the top and then it was my turn.  

While I had spent a lot of time over the past few months thinking about the rock wall and its harness, I hadn't actually given much thought to whether I would be able to climb. On Wednesday I did better than I thought I would, really. I only made it, maybe a quarter of the way up the wall, but that was enough to make me happy with my first try.  I was really just ecstatic to fit in the harness.

Some pictures:

Excited to be in the harness!

Anchored in and ready to belay

Just getting started.

Conquering my personal mountains.