Another month has passed in this seemingly never-ending weight loss journey. I am telling you, it has gone on forever. And that is disheartening. However, in the same breath, I know that this journey of weight loss and fitness is one that NEEDS to go on a lifetime. I just wish I was at the maintaining journey and that I hadn’t spend so many years struggling. And if truth be told. I am still struggling. In fact, there is an elephant in the room that I have been blatantly ignoring and not talking about. But I am sufficiently frightened at this point. So it is time to talk and reveal the weight loss and fitness elephant in the room.
Elephant in the Room
Over the last almost 19 years of being on this journey and publicly writing about it on this forum, I have frequently written about how I was so lucky that I never lost mobility. I may have gained weight but I was going to Zumba three times a week. I was still running. I was riding my bike. I was active. I was the fittest fast person! I KNEW I was writing this post today and last night I was reading some old posts as I was looking for something in particular and I accidentally stumbled upon just such a statement. (You can read that post here.) I know that the movement and that the fact that I never stopped moving was instrumental in my relative good health! I then read in a different post about how I had clawed and worked so hard to get to a point where I could consistently run multiple miles. I talked about my hard work and the effort it took to get there. I actually wrote about how I would NEVER let myself slip back to the point where I was starting from scratch again. Yet I have allowed myself to slip backwards big time. No that’s not the elephant in the room! The elephant in the room is that I didn’t just slip back to the beginning point, I have regressed and have LOST mobility. Life is a struggle right now for me.
Exercise
Jason and I were quite active for so many years. But then something happened after we got married. I don’t know that I rightly want to blame buying our house as the culprit. I don’t think I can lay appropriate blame on his accident with the axe. I can’t blame it on mom and her stroke, or the addition of a dog, or my bout with Gerd. I mean, seriously since we got married it’s been a roller coaster. I even titled one post ‘A Year for the Record Books” (you can read that post here). No, the blame lies with me. Sure those things contributed, but when it’s all said and done I am the one that failed. I had grand plans on so many instance. In fact at the beginning of 2023 I actually exercised religiously for about 5 months. At one point since we lived here I started to run again. I have sporadically vowed to start and I stay strong for a day, maybe a few days or even a few weeks but then I fall apart and stop. There have been more failures than successes. My failures are due to not due to lack of desire, but they are still failures. Meanwhile, Jason’s run in with the axe, the hours spent visiting mom each week, and everything else combined to break the habit of our activity levels. Hiking? Yeah, that stopped happening. Bike riding? I haven’t been on my bike since we moved into our house 2.5 years ago! It was a one two punch. I wasn’t exercising and we stopped being active. I don’t know why I didn’t think things would get ugly, but they did.
How bad is this mobility Issue
So the question is how bad has this mobility issue progressed? Too far, is my answer. Any mobility issue is too far though! I started noticing issues about 6 months ago. Yes, I have been sitting on this for about 6 months. The first thing I noticed? If I had to get down to the ground it had become quite laborious and decidedly awkward. Deep knee bends and crouching as they say on my haunches? Yeah, that couldn’t happen. Kneeling on one knee and then standing back up. Nope. I devised work around because face it, sometimes you have to get down on a knee. I was scared at the loss of mobility. And I vowed to work on it. Apparently, I didn’t work on it hard enough and /or consistently enough.
Fast forward to more recently when I was going about my normal daily life and walked a bit more than I normally do and my legs were so sore! Inclines about felled me! It was so embarrassing and demoralizing! How much did I have to walk to feel that pain each night? I’m so embarrassed to say it was a whopping 7,000 to 8,000 steps! What? I am struggling with only 7,000 steps! My legs are so sore and achy after 7,000 steps spread out over one day? This is NOT normal and highlights how my mobility is diminishing each and every day.
The silver lining in facing my decreasing mobility
There is a silver lining in my discoveries about my decreasing mobility. There are actually two things that I am grateful for.
1. I am grateful that even while I made the horrendous discovery that 7,000 steps were enough to cause me to ache and hurt I am able to recover rather quickly. I walk like I’m on two peg legs by the evening, but by morning I am completely recovered. That is a good thing!
2. The other thing that I am grateful for is that I have had my eyes opened. The squatting thing where I can’t squat or get up off the floor easily was bad, but the walking thing was jarringly in my face. I wear a garmin watch. Apparently I haven’t been looking at my step count. My struggle with those measly 7K step count days made me look back at recent weeks. I have been averaging less than two thousand steps! That is pitiful. That is embarrassing. That is shameful. But, my eyes are opened.
The bonus silver lining is that it’s not too late. I can turn this ship around. It is going to require a change in my thought processes.
The biggest change in my thought process is the mentality toward exercise. The best time for me to exercise is first thing in the morning at 5AM while Jason is in the shower. I hate to exercise that early and I have been for the last SOOO many months saying that I will exercise after work. But after work never happens. So the mentality has to change. 5AM is when it has to happen and as of now planned exercise is non-negotiable. If it’s a scheduled day, it’s non-negotiable. I need to start thinking in that term. To put it into the proper perspective. My alarm goes off at 5AM. I don’t want to get out of bed! But I do. It is non-negotiable. I get out of bed because Jason and I have to work. It is non-negotiable. When you weigh the consequences, it is obvious to us that even though we don’t WANT to, we have to. And thus when that alarm goes off we get out of bed. Likewise. Do you think I like walking the dog outside at 5AM in the morning, in the middle of winter when it’s zero degrees? Of course I don’t want to. But I do it. Because it is non-negotiable. The consequences of not doing it are abhorrent. I don’t want to have to clean up a mess OR potentially allow my dog to develop bad habits. So I do it, even when I don’t want to! Exercise has to be that way now for me. I don’t want to do it at 5AM (the only time that doesn’t get sucked up with other activities and responsibilities) but I have to. It’s non-negotiable because I have to beat down this elephant in the room.
Now that I have faced and admitted my decreased mobility, I have to do something about it. I have to stop the downward spiral of my mobility. Furthermore, I have to INCREASE my mobility. It’s not too late for me. (It’s never too late) But the quicker I fix this problem, the easier it will be to minimalize the losses and recover what I have lost!
