I had my weight loss surgery when I was 55 years and 8 months old.  OLD was exactly how I felt.  I had been abusing my body with excesses of food for as long as I could remember, and if you look at my “baby” pictures you’ll see I was a chubby 2 year old and it continued until I ate myself to 424 pounds.  THAT is a lot of poundage to haul around for a few years…  I think I reached that weight a year or two before my surgery.  Before that it had been the low 200’s, then the high 200’s then the 300’s, and you get the picture. 

I went up and down, losing 100 pounds on several occasions.  My point is not my ups and downs in weight.  What I get to live with today, as a 69 years and 5 month YOUNG woman is the result of that abuse that continued for upwards of 53 years.

It’s left me with edema in my right leg due to a blood clot (DVT) when I was about 32, I have had scoliosis for years (it’s a genetic disposition), I have age related macular degeneration, and I walked around with high blood pressure for who knows how long, I have arthritis in many joints, my right knee being the worst of the bunch, and I have recently been diagnosed with peripheral vascular disease.

I sound like a mess, right?  If my back’s not hurting then my knee is, I hate driving at night any more, walking on pavement hurts my legs and my back, and many nights I wake up with pains in my legs, and the outstanding veins in my legs are not a pretty sight.

Wow, I could curl up in a corner and order a rocking chair to be delivered to my front door by Amazon and call it quits, right?

I AM NOT READY FOR THAT

I will NEVER allow a medical condition to define who I am.  I had weight loss surgery to be the BEST me that I could be and because I didn’t want to die.  I choose LIFE.  That means that to stay flexible and mobile I am at the gym 5 days a week, swimming, running on the elliptical and strength training. 

That’s just a little bit of what I can do.

I can swim, snorkel, scuba, kayak, and fish in the ocean and will be mastering Stand Up Paddleboard soon.  I can hike at elevations over 2 miles high for a few miles, not be breathless or in pain because dirt trails (even with rocks to negotiate) do not cause me pain; I can ride a bicycle for miles, I can walk on the beach.  I can work in the kitchen for hours creating new recipes for my next cookbook. 

These are all physical things I CAN DO.  It all started with one lap in a swimming pool at over 300 pounds.

Now my days are filled with fitness and fun activities I can enjoy because of my fitness level.

All because I decided that I CAN.  Life is all about perspective.  I choose to accentuate the positive.

What CAN you do?