2530 Days - What Changed?
Posted on 5/15/2018 by dsjohndrow
I don't know what your plans were when you started using MFP. Mine were to lose weight, look good, eat chocolate, and run fast. After a while, that changed to find a sexy mate (and I did!).
It has been quite a journey in life.
My first year here I was recovering from congestive heart failure. It pretty much cost me everything. Despite the fear of death, financial hardship, and stress on personal relationships, I lost about 60 pounds.
I started running.
In year two I made a lot of mistakes. I injured my knee running and my shoulder doing Crossfit. Two surgeries later, I still kept losing, running (eff CrossFit), and learning about food.
Food portions (scale) and switching to Superfoods changed a lot for me.
From nearly 300 pounds, my weight fell to 197.3. I felt good. The more I ran, the bigger my legs got and my weight went up. Not a big deal, my waist went down and stayed down. My MFP friends remember me losing my pants in airport security, and cheering me on in my first 5K.
You cheered me on for my first 10K, and half marathon, too!
A few weeks before my first full marathon - just 938 days after my admission to the Framingham Heart Center, I was diagnosed with cancer. It scared me. I didn't feel ill, so it didn't really affect my running.
I ran the Cape Cod Marathon. I wrote a book. It's on Amazon.
Since then I have run 90 races; Ten were full marathons, five of those were world major marathons. I didn't know this until yesterday. There are only 3,800 runners in the world who have completed all 6 majors.
I am betting on Tokyo for 2019 to claim my 6-Star Abbott World Majors medal.
For me it's the Stanley Cup, the Super bowl, the World Series, and the Masters all at the same time. The old fat guy changed his lifestyle. Really, I changed my exercise and eating habits. I still weigh in once a week, pack my food in portion control tubs for work, make a weekly menu and shopping list, cook and prepare most of my meals, and get 30+ minutes of running in 5 or 6 days a week.
My old lifestyle put me close to death at 53.
I chose to live. I chose this community for support. I am grateful. Thank you.
うまくいきますように
You can do this! Make Tokyo2019 THE ONE!
You don't know it, but it is mostly because of you and your journey and reading these blogs of yours! I don't always "like" or "comment," but I read. So I lost again almost all the weight I had gained. Screwed up again. It's like I am sabotaging myself so I can whine!!!
In 2016 I had a huge life change. We moved from our home of 39 years in a place and city I love, with family and friends I love to a town in the middle of BF Egypt to be near my husband's sister who is in poor health. She and her husband have no children who can help; and on top of that, my husband felt like he owed it to her to be near and help in any way possible since in 1972 she gave up her life for a year to take care of their mother as she died from cancer.
And then in 2016, my left hip began bothering me, so much so I had steroid injections at the behest of my doc because he didn't feel it was serious enough for surgery. Injections helped but didn't cure.
Some months later, the hip began hurting again. The worse it got and I was on a cane, my back began bothering me. Hip injection did not work. MRIs, CAT scans, X rays - hip is bone on bone painful. My back - I have two ruptured disks. I have been in so much pain for the last 6 months I have been unable to exercise at all. Since we live in the middle of nowhere, there is not a pool anywhere near that I can get to for water exercise. I am actually debilitated to the point I can barely walk. Everything I do hurts my back so much I can barely breathe. I was given pain medication, but it didn't work. Was given a different pain medication, it works but only if I take more of it than is recommended. It's an opioid, so I'm not doing that and end up with another problem. So I've been taking way more Advil and/or Tylenol than one should ever take just so I can get out of my chair or sleep. I had a back injection about a month ago; it didn't work.
Lest you think I have not been to the doctors to get this taken care of, I have. The injections prevented me from having surgery because you can't have surgery for three months after having injections because of the potential for infection. I have an appointment with a neurosurgeon on Tuesday the 22nd to discuss back surgery in the very near future. But then will have to wait on the hip surgery.
My husband and I celebrated our 51st anniversary this past weekend, had a wonderful dinner with his sister and her husband on Friday night. Our anny was Sunday the 13th. He woke up Saturday morning throwing up, was sick all day. We went to Urgent Care Monday because he wasn't better, not throwing up but hurting. Doc said it was his gallbladder and told him to go to the ER if it got worse. It did. He's in the hospital, had surgery yesterday and I'm not there with him, I'm at home because of my back and hip. Thank God our son is in town right now from his job in Alaska. He is in the hospital in the town from which we moved because we didn't want to give up our docs there and start over with new ones. It is a 1.5-hour drive away. My hubs is tall and slim, not fat at all. But because I am FAT and have all these problems, I can't be with him!
Sooooooooooo... I was told I had to lose 20 pounds to have hip surgery. I did that and WAS on the way to losing more and had surgery scheduled. THEN. THEN! Then my precious little dog was diagnosed with cancer and the first time the oncology department of Texas A&M Veterinary Hospital could see him was the date of my surgery! Because my dog is that important to me, I canceled the surgery to go to the doggie oncologist. In the meantime, they called and had had a cancellation so we could go earlier. I didn't reschedule the surgery because I didn't know what my pup's schedule would be. After that visit, I was a complete wreck. But it turned out to be sort of okay and he ended up with chemo every three weeks. Because my hip was hurting so much, I couldn't go with him to the appointments; my husband took him. I decided another injection in my hip would have to do until... I didn't know until when. It didn't work.
And then the back pain started. Got worse and worse.
Got so out of control, I was to the point I thought I was going to slit my wrists. This is the reason for having back surgery first - if I can since I just had the back injection a little more than a month ago.
I know this is rambling and probably not making any sense. But had I stayed with my original plan and was as dedicated as when I first started, I would be way past being at goal now. Instead, I'm hanging in at just about 25 pounds down from where I started. That is pitiful. 25 pounds in 3.5 years. That's about 7 pounds a year. Again, pitiful. That leaves me 80 pounds to lose. And had I lost the weight, not so sure I would have back problem!
All this to tell you: You. Are. Awesome. After reading this blog today, I am once again renewed in my focus and determination to get those 80 pounds off in the next year. If you can do this with the problems you've had and with the humor and laughter and desire to live longer than the next year, I can do this. Stay tuned. And thank you.
^v^