How great my tool has been

Feb 14, 2010

I have been somewhat introspective the last couple days thinking about my WLS and what it has meant to me. What an amazing journey. Sometimes I lose site of what my life was like carrying around 325+ lbs of bulk and how challenging that was on my back and legs. How tired I was all the time. How my cholesterol and blood pressure where starting to reflect the stress that my weight was putting on my body and my doctor was expressing his concerns as well. How it seemed I was sweating all the time over normal daily activities-- tying my shoes, washing the dogs and living life.

WLS enabled me to completely tranform my life. Not just losing weight but relearning how to eat (measuring portions and eating healthy foods) and also being able to start moving my body more. Incorporating more activity and exercise into my dialy life as the weight came off really paid off. It has helped me do more things on the weekends, have more energy, go more places on vacations and actually DO things on those vacations. Our last vacation was a cruise and I actually snorkeled for an hour off the coast of Cozumel with Jack and then we walked around for another hour or so before returning for the ship. That entire cruise, I was able to walk around, swim and be active where the old me would be sidelined after a very short time. That is true transormation!

When I had my motorcycle accident in March of 2009, it was pretty devastating. Reflecting back on it, the physical therapists came into the hospital room and told me "you are lucky that you have such great muscle tone! your recovery will be so much easier." Imagine how much more damage I would have done in the accident 100+ lbs heavier. Consider how hard it would be to move around with a broken leg and arm 100+ lbs heavier. I am truly grateful that I changed my life before the accident. My recovery would have been 10 times more difficult, if not impossible, if I were the old me.

Although I did gain weight during my recovery after the accident, I am back on the road to resolving that. Today, I am 6 lbs away from being at the weight I was at prior to the accident. What is more important, is that I was dealing with some weight regain issues before the accident. None of these issues were band related. They were attitude/mental. Getting back on a healthy eating plan and a regular exercise program are really making a difference. What is really terrific, is that my band has always been here helping me. It has been helping to limit the portions I'm eating and provide that nagging reminder during my recovery of the goals I had for having WLS. Now that I am feeling more myself, I am grateful that my band kept me from going completely crazy during that dark time.

I am a big believer in being completely honest with one's self. Trying to do as much introspection as possible to figure out why we do the things we do (what we're feeling, thinking, experiencing) and learn from those things. Just because we trip and fall on our journey toward our goals it doesn't mean we won't reach them. We just have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and keep on moving. Of course trying to figure out why we tripped (untied shoes, not paying attention, blurred vision, something in the road) so we can learn to anticipate those obstacles and plan ahead will help us in the future.

My life is mostly an open book. My successes, failures and challenges related to this journey are pretty well chronicled. I am going to try and get back to blogging and keeping track of my road to wellness.It seems to help when I get it out and write it.

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