The effect of weight

I have been in physical pain the last couple of days.  I pulled some muscles in my upper back at work several days ago.  I actually stayed at home one day this week because the pain was too great.  It's left me struggling with sleep this week so I'm especially glad to see that Friday is here.  I need to get back to regular life.  I haven't exercised since Sunday when I went walking with Sara and I really miss the benefits that it gives my body.

Before I got on here to put up a post, I was reading back on some of my previous entries.  If you have your own blog or journal, have you ever done that?  It's very enlightening, in so many different ways.  Sometimes I reflect back on the last year or two and think that I've been through a lot and then, in the next breath, I think it was no big deal.  Then, reading my writing and seeing what was going on, I really realize that I have been through a lot.  What I was just looking back on was the time period about five months ago when I was having extremely low blood sugar readings when I was at a lower weight.  I wasn't on medication to keep my blood sugar low because it was doing just fine on it's own.  In fact, I actually had to eat more carbs to stay in a normal range.  At a higher weight, it takes medication to keep me in a normal blood sugar range and I have to watch my carb intake much more strictly.

All of that got me to thinking about the effects of either excess weight or lower weight on my body.  It is such a battle that I fight with the food.  I've said many times that I'm emotional eater.  If things bother me, if I'm bored or whatever emotion I'm feeling, I express it through food.  Sometimes it's a lack of consciousness of what I'm doing if I'm constantly snacking and at other times it's a very concerted effort.  I often wonder at what moment in my life did the switch happen where I ate food for normal reasons (fuel for the body) to becoming an emotional eater and a compulsive overeater.  Was I born with this or did a life event cause this to occur?  And, will there be a moment where it switches to being normal or will this always be a struggle for me?  The good thing, though, is that I'm not just sitting here pondering these questions.  I've done the brave thing for myself and decided to discover answers and change through therapy, I can journal and write my way through the challenges and I definitely can continue putting one foot in front of the other. 

This certainly isn't easy.  While most of the people reading these very words don't really know me, in so many ways you do know me.  The depth of my soul is on this blog.  I can tell you that being heavier bothers me and you understand all too well what I'm talking about.  Life was definitely much easier to maneuver in a smaller body.  The ironic thing was that, at my smallest weight, I was still weighed more than some people at their highest weight.  Perspective is everything, isn't it?  Reading those older posts really helped me see, more than ever, that this is something I just have to take a day at a time, a moment at a time if necessary.  Now that my upper back is a little better, I can move around much better and I can look forward to doing some walking this weekend.  As I continue putting one foot in front of the other, things will continue to get easier and better.  That's how I started when I began Optifast at 417 pounds.  I remember then that I could hardly walk a couple of blocks without getting winded.  And while I live with chronic pain these days with the pain in my legs, arms and lower back, I know that I can go much farther than those couple of blocks.  And as long as I keep taking steps forward, I will get to where I'm supposed to be.