Perserverance

So I haven't written in a while and I realized that despite the success I have had in the last year the struggle remains. I also realized that when the struggle is at a peak I tend to withdraw , hence no entries to the blog. I will be working on that because when I withdraw it is not healthy for me and I believe for many of us when we withdraw is when we succumb to old behaviors and patterns. So moving forward I welcome inquiries from any of you if you don't hear from me or don't write for a while. I do know accountability helps me to break old habits including the one of withdrawing when the struggle is winning.
What is the struggle... everything... Life.




If there is anything I have learned on this journey it is weight issues are life issues.
Any addiction is a life issue. All of us have issues, wonder what your addiction is? Anyway...

Life is a Joy and Life is a struggle! We can't separate the two! Sometimes the struggles seem greater than the joys and other times the Joy wins over the struggle, so goes the dance.
So in May I had my year appointment after bariatric sleeve surgery. I got rave reviews and plenty of kudos for the 100 pounds I have loss. While the wonderful staff were all excited, inside I was unimpressed not because I did not feel successful but because the pain from my hip is winning over the joy of the success. This is a danger zone for me. I know my patterns after almost 14 years of this journey and when I start to see the joy being overshadowed by pain, be it physical or emotional (usually both because they are connected) I fall into bad patterns of depression and then comforting with food. SO again while I recognize my patterns and I can interrupt the patterns with different choices the struggle is still very real and alive.
To update, I had a cortisone shot about 8 or so months ago and it actually helped relieve a lot of the pain. It was not 100% but it was enough I was not in tears from pain on a daily basis, I was able to sleep longer than an hour or two at a time, so it was significant. Around the time I was coming up on my year after surgery it started to wear off. For a few weeks the pain began to grow and it was obvious the shot was wearing off. Long story so fast forward to result of it all, I still have no surgery date for the hip but I got another cortisone shot. It has not fully kicked in like the last one but it is better and hopefully getting better each day. My biggest frustration is while the shot helps it is not enough that I can start back with my exercise regimen. This is the hard part and actually if I am honest it scares me too.
This scares me because I know my body well enough now to know that at different stages of weight loss it get comfortable and stops working at its highest capacity, it plateaus. This is normal and expected and what i have learned that is when you change-up your diet or exercise to jump-start your metabolism or trick it, so to speak. However with a "sleeve stomach" I really can not change my diet much and with a bum hip I can not exercise much, not like I was before which was 3 to 5 times a week. So fearing the plateau is also real. What is one to do???

So the Struggle is real, yet I will persevere because it is what I do. I will fight to have the joy shine brighter than the struggle. I will continue to keep the struggle in its place but also acknowledge that the struggle is real because denying it is to fall back into patterns that I do not want to visit again.

There is so much more to add but I am going to stop here for now and just encourage anyone who has questions ro comment to feel free to do so. You can leave comments or questions as an anonymous person without having to sign up for blogger, but if you do please leave your name in the body of your comment so I know who you are.
Thanks again for all the support and encouragement.
Peace to all of you as you face your struggle, and never lose sight of the joy in you life, appreciate the little things, and hang in there.