I had a super busy day ahead of me.  It was Christmas Eve Day.  My plan was to go to the gym, go to my hair appointment, come home and finish wrapping gifts, spend a few hours working, make some telephone calls around the world to friends and family, and then curl up with my hubby for an evening together.  Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Just another day in the life of…..

That’s not how it turned out at all.  I got to the gym, ready to get my swim on at 7 am.  They were CLOSED.  Holiday hours, they didn’t open until 8 am.  So I had several options.  I could have gone to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, just a few hundred yards away and have myself something warm and yummy and blown off my workout, and just go to my 9 am appointment then continue the day from there.  NOPE, not me, I live in the land of no excuses when it comes to fitness. 

I dashed home, changed into bicycle riding clothes, grabbed my bike out of the garage, and took off like a bat out of hell because it was COLD - around 45 degrees - so I was moving fast to get my blood circulating.  I pedaled down the street and then hit an area that had sand across the road.  I picked what I thought was a safe spot to get through; it looked like a thin, well packed down coating and headed for it.  Guess what?  It was packed, but it was a heavy layer of sand and my bike wheel got caught in it and down I went.

Yup, there I lay in the sand in full view of the cars pulling out of driveways and heading on their way.  I sort of did a body inventory and nothing felt damaged - except, of course, my pride so I got up, brushed the sand off, told the nice gentleman who stopped and asked if I needed help, that I had it handled, thank you very much, and stood there for a moment.  I had some choices to make right then.  First, could I re-bend my wire basket so it fit back on the handlebars of my bike?  Second, do I call home and ask for hubby to come get me in the car with the bike rack - I was only 1 mile from home?  Third, do I just start walking home, walking my bike alongside me?  My final choice was to bend the basket into something that would fit on the bike, then get on the bike and ride it home.  I pulled up my big girl panties and did just that.  I found my elbow was a little sore, I had a bruise starting on my knee, and my wire basket needed some more help.

Who is this woman, who in previous lives, even a year ago would have picked up the phone, cried and told her husband to come get her and probably avoid the bicycle for weeks or months or maybe forever? 

There’s more to the story.  A week or two prior to my wreck I had finally made it up a hill on one of our favorite bike trails in Goleta at the beach for the first time in years.  Previously I had walked the bike because the hill was too intimidating and just too dang difficult.  That was a HUGE NSV (non-scale victory) for me, and I believe the memory of that moment pushed me forward, up and out of the sand and back on to my bicycle.

Last weekend we took my bike out again, headed to Goleta and hubby and I did the trail that has me finishing the ride with that now “almost impossible” hill.  I was a little shaky heading out, worried that I didn’t have control of my bike, ridden with anxiety every time someone heading in the opposite direction crossed my path, but on the return, when I saw that hill, I drew on my confidence, on the memory of beating that hill the last time.  I pushed the thought of falling off my bike way into the background of my thoughts and headed up that hill with the intention of completing it.

I DID IT!  It felt marvelous.  I had control again.  I could take my bike anywhere, and so what if I did fall.  All I really hurt was my pride.

What does this have to do with Weigh Loss Surgery?  EVERYTHING.  We have a tool, sometimes we don’t use it properly and then “it” doesn’t work - let’s call this what it truly is- when we make choices that don’t move us forward we fall in the sand.  WE are not working our tools.  We can just do what I did, get up, brush ourselves off, and get back on the bicycle.  We can remember how far we have come, how many hills we have climbed successfully and how many more we will climb on our journeys.  As we approach each of these hills we can remember what it’s like to reach the top and celebrate.  Don’t quit, don’t use a bad day, week, month or even year to keep you from your vision of a healthy active person.

GO GET 2016