Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Making a Comeback


Don’t you just love a good comeback story?  You know, the kind of tale where a character has been really successful, but then life throws them an unexpected curveball and they go through some really hard places…or maybe they made some poor decisions that led them astray…but in the end they come back, stronger, wiser, and better than ever?  There’s so much emotion involved as the character moves through each season of their experience…The joy of the good times, followed by the agonies of the challenges, and finally, the relief and excitement when they make it through to the other side of their struggles.  I have laughed, cried, and cheered my way through many such books and movies.

Right now, however, I feel as though I’m living out my own comeback story…Having been overweight my entire life, I finally decided 4 years ago that it was time for a change.  I worked hard to change my eating habits and incorporate exercise into my life.  I’ll be honest with you, it’s not always easy to implement exercise and healthy eating when you’ve spent 39 years without giving much thought to your own personal fitness, but I did it, and I lost 169 pounds in about 18 months.  I was smaller than I had been since I was 13 years old.  I felt fantastic!  I had taken up running and biking.  I was no longer restricted or limited by my size in any way…then I got hit with my curveball, and it knocked me flat on my back.  During the following 2 years, I dealt with so many doctors and lived in so much pain, that as I stopped exercising and devoting time to good nutrition, I regained over half of the weight I had lost.  

By the time that I had recovered from my health issues, I went through a really depressed period of time where I thought I could never lose the weight again.  Oh, I wanted to.  Desperately.  But I had pretty much given up hope that I could actually do it though.  It all came to a head one Sunday afternoon in March as I started pulling all of my now way-too-small clothes out of the closet.  I was so mad at myself.  All that work for what?  To regain half of it?  To give up without reaching my goals? Or even worse, to keep on gaining and end up heavier than I was when I started???

I had to make a decision.  I could either spend the rest of my life miserable, hating myself because I wasn’t who I wanted to be, and feeling like a failure…or I could do something about it.

I have to say, making the choice to get back on track has set me free.  Free from the feeling of “I can’t”.  Free from feeling like I wasn’t worth something better.  And free from the overwhelming feeling of being out of control and unable to do what was right and make a change in my life.  

For the last three months now, I’ve been paying attention to proper nutrition, working out regularly, and staying accountable to a supervised program, and the weight is coming back off at a healthy rate, averaging about 2 pounds lost per week for the last 15 weeks, and I feel fantastic!

You see, no matter how far you have strayed from your goals, you can always make a comeback.  It doesn’t matter if circumstances beyond your control sidelined you for a while, or if you chose to stray from what you knew to be the right path.  Or like me, maybe you’ve experienced a blend of the two.  Today, however, you are not powerless.  You have the ability to choose to do what is best for your body.

Are you ready to make your comeback?  

Philippians 1:6 “…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…”
 
(Just a reminder/disclosure…I am not a medical professional, a representative of any formal weight loss program, or a certified trainer, so anything I write in this blog is not intended to be taken as advice, guidance, or recommendations.  It is simply a journal of my own personal experiences.  Thanks!)

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