This Is Me

 

Another year nearly gone. Where does the time go?

This year has taught me much about my body, my abilities, my mental processes. As my fourth complete year on a trek toward better health draws to a close, these highlights come to mind:

I said goodbye to using a cane — for good. Not only that, but it’s the year I seriously started walking, again. I started last February or March… I forget, now. I walked around my backyard. Getting 1,000 steps in a day was a major accomplishment.

While I’m not exactly running marathons, I easily reach 5K steps in a day, now. I do need to recommit myself to walking in a more structured manner, so this is a reminder to me that every step matters. Just a few days ago, my FitBit program told me I’d walked 500 miles. Imagine that! It all truly starts with one step.

I decide who I am. No one else.

I dealt with a longterm plateau. And I still am, but things are looking up. I’m retraining my eating habits and while I am still lingering just a couple of pounds above my low, I’ve lost weight I regained. Even here after Christmas, with a few indulgences under my belt, I’m not lamenting snug clothes or feeling bloated.

I am close to breaking this plateau; I was within one pound just last week, before the advent of company and traveling. I know it’s within my power, now, and I feel firmly back in control. Expect me to break this plateau soon! I am ending the year weighing less than I did when I started it, and that is always a success.

I recovered from bad news. When I had to fight for a surgery date, I struggled mentally with what I saw as an injustice. It still is, to a point; BMI is complete hooey and was never meant to be used as a medical requirement. I am positive that insurance companies are totally in love with the idea of classifying people by BMI, because it benefits them financially to do so.

Regardless, I was faced with the decision to give up or fight. And I’m not giving up. Not when I have come this far.

It also taught me something about myself and how I need to overcome exterior hurdles. To this point, just about all the constraints I had were ones I put on myself. Adapting was necessary. Was I up to the task? For a while, I really wasn’t sure. But I took the advice of my surgeon and I’m getting better results. It pays to get my ego out of the way.

I faced challenges. Many of my challenges this year weren’t actually my own; today is the one year anniversary since my husband had an accident that resulted in two knee replacements — when it was originally going to be my year. I had to put that aside and be there for my husband’s recoveries. I had to be the strong one; the ass kicker at times.

I have spent so many years being the one with the lesser physical abilities that it struck me as a complete reversal to be the stronger one. How the heck did that happen? But it also gave me a unique perspective as a caregiver. While my inabilities were not from surgery, I know what it is to be restricted, what it takes to overcome it, how to function in those situations.

I defined myself. This is one of the biggest battles we all face: who are we? Who do we let define us?

The answer, for me, is that I define myself — I will not live with how others choose to define me. I’ve done that for far too much of my life, and as I look back at stages of my life, I realize how much I allowed that to happen. How unhappy I was. It had little to do with weight; that was only a symptom.

I have big hopes for the year ahead, not the least of which is the ability to look back a year from now and know I have made even greater strides toward health. One of the biggest accomplishments of this past year is settling into who I am, with no apologies, and I plan to continue that.

This is me.

 

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