Choose Your Destination

Right.  Let's get to it then ...

Small steps lead to big results.  It is true in life, and it is true in the journey to lose weight.

While it will obviously be a while before I can stand on my own again, I am making progress.  I hobbled to the bathroom on my own this morning, for the first time in over a week.  It was a slow and pain-filled trek, but I did it.  Weight loss is like that too - sometimes slow, often pain-filled, but ultimately there is progress if we stick with it, right?

I am still in awe at how much pain a person can have, without actually breaking a bone.  And I also see the wisdom in what the ER doc said, in that a break would've been better and faster to recover from, but that is another story.

I can't stand on a scale, but I can take masurements.  So, tomorrow, I am going to try that, as a way of tracking how I am doing. 

Someone suggested in the comments of my last post, to work the upper part of my body, or work what I can.  What a great idea!  So, I've been trying that this week, very carefully of course.  My husband burned through a week of vacation, just to stay home and take care of me.  Getting to the bathroom unaided today was a big step to independence.  He can set me up in the morning with food/water on my handy TV tray (can't stand, so can't make use of the kitchen, which is a loooooong way from the recliner), and go to the office on Monday.  Small steps, more progress.     

Despite how painful it is, I periodically get off the chair.  I don't want to develop blood clots in the leg, from inactivity, so I stand (lean, more like it) on the crutches for a few minutes every few hours.  Even THAT is like a weight loss journey, if I stop to think about it.  If we don't move, we can do great harm to ourselves.  What is the old saying?   Move it or lose it?   I have to put movement into my life, so I don't lose my life.  As I struggle with these injuries, I think how easy it would be to just sit here - eat, watch a little TV, nap, eat more ... And then I think to myself, "No excuses!"  I don't want to let myself down.  I've given myself a free pass for decades.  And, if it wasn't this injury excuse, it would be another, so I'm not even opening that floodgate.  I know where it leads - and it is not where I want to go. 

I choose another destination for myself.

That is really how I've come to think about these struggles.  Life tosses all sorts of things at us.  Do we let ourselves float on the ebb and flow of every little whim that makes up life?  Or do we choose our own destination, and pick up the oars to at least try to get there?   I could easily take a vacation from the weight loss journey, trust me.  I am in pain.  I can't move.  I have every excuse in the world, and TONS of sympathy, so who would blame me?  But, if I were to do that, where will I be a month from now?  Better off?  Or worse off?  Yes, we know the answer to that one already.  So ...

I choose my destination.

I am moving toward improved health, and less weight.  I'm eating on plan, I'm doing a little bit of exercise from my chair (something is better than nothing), and I've got my eyes on the goal.  Sure, I may be using oars on the ocean right now, but it is better than floating unaided.  Sometimes, in our journey, we will find ourselves in a motorboat, sometimes in a row boat, rarely (I hope) adrift with no method of propulsion.  If we can't row by ourselves, it is as easy as getting someone to help.  Find your inspiration, and use it.

I am tossing out a challenge for just today, that you choose your destination this day.  Will you have something good to look back on today, as you lay your head upon the pillow tonight?  You can, you know, if you choose to do so.

Do something positive, to move toward the destination you choose for yourself, whatever that may be. 

Just for today, choose the destination!