If you’ve ever gained weight or lost weight, you have stories. Some of mine involve silly and stupid diets, eating myself sick going from fast food place to fast food place, hiding to eat in the car, liquid fasts, and avoiding friends and family. Some of my stories are funny, quite a few are sad, hundreds are painful, and some are all of those rolled into one.

Taco Cabana entered my life in 1984 when my family drove into San Antonio to drop me at college. My brother and I (young, very naive, and certainly opinionated) looked at the sign out front and were horrified by the very idea of ‘breakfast tacos.’ As we made gagging noises, my parents swooned and pictured a breakfast they still eat 34 years later. Trinity University was about 2 miles away, close enough that Taco Cabana became my second home. It’s possible that my veins circulated nothing but cheese enchiladas my Freshman year. Those enchiladas (with extra sauce, of course) played a big role in my Freshman 50. Yes, that’s right, 50 pounds – but that’s another story.

Possibly 1,000 pounds – gained and lost and gained – later, I weighed around 300 pounds when my parents came to visit. They didn’t have Taco Cabana in Tulsa so it’s where we often went to lunch on their visits. A bright and cheerful place, every surface at every location an intersection of baby and hot pink; the inside, the outside, possibly even the furniture. What could possibly go wrong here?

At 5’4″ and 300 pounds, I was a big girl and knew it. But how big? It’s hard for most of us to understand how much space we actually occupy. I knew I didn’t need the airplane seatbelt extender – yet – but I definitely needed to turn sideways to walk down the aisle. Stepping into the bathroom stall it seemed – tight. Trying to turn around – tighter still – and painfully pink. Leaving – wasn’t going to happen – I was stuck. There was nowhere for me to go when panic hit: How am I going to get out of here? OMG I’m trapped! Anger followed: Why is this bathroom so small? WHY AM I SO FAT!?!?

My heart seemed to pop out of my chest, tears flowed onto my shirt, and what turned out to be 3 or 4 minutes felt like an eternity. Panic. Anger. Panic. Anger. Humiliation. Eventually I stepped on the toilet as my brain begged “please don’t fall, please don’t break the toilet.” Lifting my stomach up and pulling it in at the same time I was able to pull the door in and slowly slide it along my belly and pop my way out. At that moment the panic stopped. The rest of the lunch is fuzzy but I remember the panic leaving. The humiliation was still there but it changed nothing in that moment.

I look back on it now and wonder why such a traumatic event wasn’t some Oprah ‘Aha’ moment for me. Instead, once I got free I went right back out and ATE MY LUNCH. Five minutes earlier my brain was screaming about how fat I was and then I was eating enchiladas. Why didn’t I march back into that dining room with a renewed sense of “I MUST CHANGE MY LIFE!”?

Years later I know it’s because the time wasn’t right for me to make a change. I wasn’t ready.

My ‘Big Moment’ never did happen. That game changing event where lights flashed, banners dropped from the sky, and stars shot out of a brain that was screaming ‘AHA!’ For me it was just a random day when I woke up and knew I was ready. It was time to make little changes and make them as close to permanent as I could.

Are you waiting for that ‘Big Moment’ to make your changes, that magical moment when you – just know? What if it never comes? Does that mean you’re stuck forever? I say no.

Make little changes, tiny ones, or grand ones if that’s what suits you. Just don’t be stuck.