The story of imperfection

I'm happy to report that I had no incidents of low blood sugar today.  Yay!  That wasn't the case yesterday morning, unfortunately.  I woke up in the middle of the night again with a reading of 53.  The good thing I can say about the lows is that, thank God, they are not as low as I was when I hit 38.  It's still frustrating, don't get me wrong.  The tough thing that I have been experiencing with having these low blood sugar readings is that I so desperately want to move forward with losing weight again and being in a healthier space.  I admit here that the weight gain has broken my spirit in some senses.  I was going along fine until October-ish.  That's when the weight loss was stopping, then I had medication changes that caused significant weight gain, I was on the modified fast and I started eating to deal with emotions with all the medical challenges I have had going on.  This is so hard for me because my mind and my body are acting separately.  On one hand, my body is in a lot of pain in my legs, back and arms.  I'm dealing with low blood sugar from diabetes and I'm pretty much in pain in every waking moment.  I try to handle it the best I can by being silent about it and powering through, but make no mistake, I'm in pain.  Then, on the other hand, my mind tells me I can do anything I want to do so get out there and just do it.  If I did it before, I can do it again.  Somewhere in the middle of that is my heart that aches for relief from the frustration and I'm asking God why, when I want to get healthy so badly, there are such huge roadblocks in front of me.  Even with the weight gain, it's not a little weight gain, it's a lot.  I know there's a purpose for all of this, I just can't see it right now.

It's hard facing the reality of my situation, but I am here, dealing with it and being as honest as I know how to be because putting on a false front gets me nowhere except maybe eating to cover up feelings.  I am not going to slink away from posting what's going on as I try my best to move forward.  I see so many blogs of people who, while they were doing great, were posting all the time and then all of a sudden everything stopped.  I completely understand why someone does that, though ... it would be great if we could all report positive, happy things all the time, something like, "I got on Optifast and dropped 250 pounds.  And when I finished the fast, I had no problems transitioning back onto food and had no cravings. Now I run marathons and am normal." Hmm, what is normal, anyway?  A new healthier way of life does not just happen by osmosis.  It takes a lot of work, sacrifice and significant change over the course of our lives, not just the course of 20 weeks, 40 weeks or beyond.  The change is not just about the food we eat, but also why we eat and learning new ways of doing things.

Today I spent some time moving some of the clothes that are too tight on me now because of the weight gain into the closet in my guest room.  I could have kept them there in my closet as a reminder to myself everyday of what I am capable of doing since I got down to that size in the first place.  Yet, what I have been doing in actuality is berating myself and being incredibly critical of how everything looks on me now.  It actually is a more positive move for me to relocate those clothes temporarily into another room while I do the work of taking care of myself and my health.  I don't want to spend time each and every day judging myself for the weight gain and staying in a space of negativity.  That just doesn't do anything good for me.  Instead, I want to own where I'm at and really work towards more healing.  In time, those clothes will come back and it will be okay.  It happens by me taking baby steps, just like I did in the beginning.  I remember the days, when I first started, where I could barely walk a few blocks without getting winded and sweating a lot.  Even though I'm in pain now, I am able to do several miles at a time with no problem and actually enjoy it.  Tomorrow I'll be doing my usual Sunday walk with Sara, which I always look forward to.  We'll probably walk around 4 miles, which is what we've been doing lately.  I like that.  I want to continue doing things that celebrate positivity, knowing I have the inner strength to move mountains.  I've done it many times in my life before.  I used to weigh 420 pounds at my absolute highest.  I'm nowhere near that weight today, so I can't forget to celebrate that major achievement and to stop judging myself for being an imperfect human being.