I've come soo far

Today I had a lot of different emotions.  I was busy at work, but the type of project I was working on today didn't require too much concentration so it allowed for my mind to drift onto different topics.  Lately I have just been too darn hard on myself.  I've been doing a lot of that coulda, shoulda, woulda talk in my head.  Serves no good purpose, except to perhaps make me feel badly about how I'm doing.  The truth is that I don't have a reason to feel badly about myself.  I have been harping on myself for the weight gain I have had over the last few months.  Yes, some of it was caused by all the medical issues and medication that I have been on, some of it happened in my desperate attempts to get my low blood sugars up to normal levels and some of it was emotional eating.  If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I just lay it all out on the table.  I don't care that it doesn't always paint me in the most favorable light.  What I do care about, though, is that I continue getting healthier through all of this.  I don't want to be in this place where I'm beating myself up for being a human being.

It took me spending some quiet time with God a little earlier this evening to get some perspective.  It now has been 11 months since I started this journey towards a healthier me.  For my own benefit, I need to recap the positives that have occurred as a result:

• I sit here weighing 150 pounds less than when I started at 417 pounds.  That's a whole adult person off of my body.
• I no longer have blood sugar so high that it is uncontrollable.  At my height, I was taking two 5mg Glyburide pills a day, three 850mg Glucophage pills a day and injecting insulin.  Yet, I still could not have normal blood sugar readings.  Now I'm dealing with blood sugar that is too low!
• I used to take 20mg of blood pressure medication a day.  Now my blood pressure is the low normal range.
• I no longer need to take the cholesterol medication I was taking every day.
• I used to wear a size 34.  In this past year, I've gone down to a size 16.  For a person that weighed as much as I did, I dared not even dream of something like that.
• I used to need a seat belt extension in my own car and my tummy would rest against the steering wheel when I drove.  I even had to tilt my seat back so that I could drive.  Even worse, I couldn't get in the back seat of my SUV because I couldn't fit in between the door and the seat (see how it's designed above).  The door opens both in the front and back, so it's one big door yet I couldn't get in the back.  Now I can with no problem.
• I look forward to exercising each time that I get to do it when, for years, I avoided doing it.

While I do have medical issues that makes things more difficult for me and despite the fact that I'm in pain all the time, things are still a world different than they were last February.  As I continue on in the second phase of my weight loss life and eventually into maintenance, I know I don't do this alone.  Not only am I supported by amazing friends and family, but God has carried me through so much.  After years of being abused as a child, raped when I was a teen, horrible relationships, cancer, permanent injuries to both arms as well as osteoarthritis in both knees and fibromyalgia coursing throughout my body, I still know that I have lived through so much that my journey to a healthier me is something that is doable, too.  I can feel the fear, worry about failing and yet still keep putting one foot in front of the other.  How do babies learn to walk?  By trying over and over again.  By falling and getting right back up again.  No matter how many times I might fall, God helps me back up each and every time.  Besides, I'm a stubborn, scrappy woman.  I've been a fighter all of my life and I will continue fighting here, too.  In time, it will be less of a fight.  One thing is for certain ... there is no room for beating myself up.  No coulda, shoulda, woulda.  No telling myself that I'll be alone and single forever (which was the stupid talk I was doing bigtime today).  It's not the loving, kind thing to do to myself.  Would I treat other people that way?  Of course not, so I deserve nothing less.  I am a good and decent person.  It's high time I treated myself with more respect more often.