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 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.