This week is a landmark week on the wellness journey. Six months ago I had a visit to my doctor’s office where I got on the scale. I weighed 358 pounds, the clinically highest in my life. For some time I had experienced back pain and other difficulties when walking long distances. When I got on the scale that day, I knew I had to get back on track because the Quarenteen and then some had caught up to me.
It isn’t like I don’t know what to do. I have been attending a weight loss support group that I dragged my mother to for fifteen years. She is an insight of information. She was co-leader and eventually leader at one point. But COVID struck us with those meetings being cancelled and then being fearful of going and becoming exposed to someone in contact because at the time we both had to work and didn’t get our vaccine. Once we were vaccinated and my mother had retired, we knew we had to get the weight off. It became a priority because of me still having a job and a second-floor apartment, that if anything kept me alive for that time being.
If you have read my Wellness Wednesday articles throughout this year, you have seen the accomplishments and progress I have been making. It wasn’t easy and when the summer heat approached, we took a back seat to walking, then came the backsliding. In the course of over a month and a half, over half of the almost 30 pounds I lost creeped back. I knew I had to, as my mother says, “put the rear in gear.” I knew I had to if anything mind my food intake and not eat totally random foods because they are accessible. I had to be mindful that I have to gain control back and do some of the work to get the weight off. That may mean changing the way I exercise by going to a gym that is closer than my home. Sometimes, the option isn’t totally what I want, but if it meets the bare minimum for what is necessary, then by all means I need to do it.
Change is hard, but I need to do something in the wellness department. I am often looked at as an example. I was the only one in the last weight challenge at the day program to lose and am often looked at as the go-to for advice and information as far as it comes to weight loss. I only learn what I am taught and read by those things I attend. I always say what works in one person to lose weight may not work in another, but you have to give it a shot and see if it does. That was me walking. If I do it, it works, but I try to find excuses upon excuses why I don’t want to. Once I get off my duff and do it, I am fine and am excited that I did and usually reward myself with a shower and a change of clothes as a relaxation technique. I see the latter as part of self-care and the need to de-stress from what I many times see as a stressful activity.
While I may not have had a continual weight loss over the past six months, I have lost something. As of yesterday, I have lost 23 pounds since the doctor’s visit in March, which I guess I have to pat myself on the back for doing. I could have done nothing or have gained weight and the situation would have become more dangerous where intervention may have needed to have occured. Yes, I have my vices and my occasional faults, but who doesn’t? As long as you get back on track after that fault and focus on what you need to do to remain healthy is what matters. I also have to realize that I need to stop making excuses when I need to initiate healthy things that need to be completed for my benefit, although I become the king of all excuses when the time approaches. I know winter is coming and I still need to work on things for my benefit once and for all, because I am 36 and I do want to lose weight and live longer.
Dustin's Dynasty 