My Journey With Weight Loss – Getting Rid of the Excuses

I want to start with some positive news, the scale moved! Yes, this week I lost 1.4lbs. that puts me at 89lbs lost and only 3lbs to go. This last 10lbs are going very slowly but really, I gave myself a year to get there and I am so close I can taste it.

But today I had what I think is a bit of a breakthrough. It was a training day today and that always starts with a 12 minute walk to warm up. As I was doing that walk I thought, I’m looking forward to training today. Wait, what? Normally it is, I can’t wait until this is over. I have no idea what happened but for some reason today I felt really good about being on that treadmill and seeing if my interval training was as easy as it had been Thursday and it was. Tuesday I go from 8 intervals of 2 minutes running to 10 intervals and I can’t wait to accomplish that increase. I’d love to be upping things even more but I listen to my coach who is adamant that we are going to take things slow. Since it seems to be working I will follow everything she tells me to the letter.

I have had a lot of excuses for many years as to why I couldn’t physically do a lot of things. Let’s start with the dreaded knee issues. Nearly 30 years ago I fell through a ceiling (long story) which resulted in numerous injuries including cracked ribs, damage to my spine, a broken thumb (didn’t learn about that one until a few years ago but hey, I spent a lot of time after the accident wasted on morphine) and a completely blown right knee. The knee took 4 surgeries to get it to the point where it was at least tolerable but after that many surgeries it meant early onset arthritis and I’ve been told by multiple specialists it will need to be replaced. That knee became an excuse for a lot of things and it was easy to use those excuses to stop me from having to put a lot of effort into my fitness.

The back was a whole other issue. I had back issues ever since the accident but they culminated in 2010 when I was in such debilitating pain that even walking to the bathroom in my little rancher was an exhausting effort. After 6 weeks of intensive physio and chiropractic treatment I was at least able to sleep but doing anything including walking more than a few hundred steps was painful. My doctor told me it was the weight and lack of activity so I worked to strengthen my core and build some support for my spine. 6 months later that doctor realized it was a little more complex than that so CT’s, MRI’s and a referral to a neuro specialist. Turns out I had severe spinal stenosis which often happens with age but I was only 44 years old at the time. The neuro specialist advised me that it was congenital and only exacerbated by my weight. Eventually I had a nerve block done on my spine which took the edge of the pain but it was still there every day especially if I stood or sat for too long.

Obviously neither of these major issues went away so how then did I have success in so much walking. I can’t really answer that in terms of how I was able to physically overcome them but I can tell you how I was able to do so mentally. When I first started walking it was to just get me out of that isolation jail also known as my house, I just wanted to try to slowly work up to 10,000 steps a day so that I wasn’t sitting around drinking wine and playing games on my iPad. But as I increased my steps and got up to huge numbers I started reflecting on how I had let those excuses keep me down. As more of the weight left me I started to realize that years of pain could have been mitigated but just moving. For decades those excuses were my crutch but now I have thrown that crutch away. Do I still have knee and back issues, of course. However, I now have amazing muscles in my leg and my back that support those damaged areas. Moreover, they are having to carry 89lbs less weight so they don’t work as hard. Toss those damn excuses, get your head in the right space and start moving the best you can! Build up slowly until you hopefully can get to where I am today, relatively pain free and feeling great.

As I have said all of this I want to reemphasize the importance of doing this journey with the support of your medical professionals. Other than that one repetitive strain injury I have done all of this without any problems. However, I have sought professional advice throughout this journey so that I could be successful and it seems to have worked. please do the same so that you can find your success on your journey.