The progress on the weight front has been slower than I anticipated. I'm sure that my poor sleeping habits, stress at work, and not eating breakfast or lunch and consuming most of my food after 5PM is not helping. When I'm stressed I don't sleep as well or pay attention to eating a great breakfast and lunch. I'm working on all of this.
What I am happy about is the fact that I'm not self-medicating with food right now. That I haven't done that for five months--at least not on the scale that I was once accustomed to doing. That makes me happy.
From a year ago, I'm down about 60 pounds. One year ago we were on a trip to Denmark--a fun, amazing, memory-making trip that I so wanted to enjoy more than I could because I was miserable. My body and my mind and my spirit hurt. I so wanted freedom of movement but that did not come on this trip. Each step hurt. Each adventure was exhausting. Each expenditure of energy was weighed and measured and contemplated. While it was a GREAT trip, I know that even at my current weight, I would have enjoyed and savored that trip so much more.
I want more great trips in my future with a stronger, healthier body. I have had this challenge of obesity since I was young. I've spent countless moments wishing, praying, hoping and screaming for this challenge to be taken away from me. I did not want it. It was not me. It did not represent who I am. It has been painful in every aspect of my life. It has informed and molded nearly every decision I have made since I was nine years old. It is a burden that I just did not want to carry. Ever.
After all this time, after all these years, I look at my life and wonder just how it would be different if I had not had to fight the battle of obesity. I'm not sure what it would like. I, of course, imagine that it would be better, but who can really say?
What I do know is that all of that longing, all of that wanting, all of that wishing pushed me to figure out how I could have the healthiest body and the healthiest life amid the genetic and environmental soup I was given. I think that has made me passionate about health. And that passion is something that I want to talk about and think about and share for a long, long time.
Maybe along the way, I can help some others in their journey on this path too. I think that might make all those prayers and hopes and wishes worth it.
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