Three years ago this week

Little did I know three years ago this week that I was about to start a journey that would change my life in countless ways.  Today I'm a completely different person, inside and out, than the me just three years ago.  In many ways, I don't even recognize the "old" me and I often marvel about how much I've changed.  Many times I catch myself thinking, "Who IS this Vilma???"  Some of my friends ask the same thing.

A few weeks ago I was mowing the lawn and a neighbor walked by.  I don't really know this man other than he lives up the street from me.  I don't know his name.  I'm not even sure what house he lives in.  A couple of years ago we started greeting each other, but we haven't really talked more than twice.  In any case, he stopped by while I was working on my front yard and we got to talking about nothing in particular.  Then he asked me, "You've lost weight, haven't you?"  I laughed and said, "Yeah, some."  He then scoffed to indicate that it was a lot more than "some."  He asked how I had done it and I gave him my normal answer:  it was a lot of hard work, but I watched my calories and exercised.  It didn't happen overnight though.  It's taken almost three years to get here.  He expressed surprise and said, "Wow!  Three years?  That's a really long time!"

On the one hand, it often feels like it's taken an eternity to get to this point.  On the other hand, I've changed so much in every respect, my lifestyle is so different now, and I've learned so much about myself that it's amazing it "only" took three years to get to this point.  The changes happened slowly and gradually, some almost imperceptibly, but now that I'm on this side of the journey, I can look back in total wonderment and say, "Wow!  I did it!  I'm not that person any longer."

I remember exactly how I felt when I clicked the button that meant I joined Weight Watchers' ("WW") online program in November 2012.  I only joined because I felt I had to do something  about my weight, but I had no desire to do anything about it.  I was familiar with the WW program and I joined again because it's easy to follow and I wouldn't have to learn anything new.  I felt like it was a last ditch effort, but I was sure I'd fail soon enough.  The second I clicked on that button to join, I felt immediate buyer's remorse about wasting my money on something that wasn't going to work.  In fact, I joined month-to-month, ignoring the discount WW offered if you paid for multiple months.  I figured when I cancelled in a month or two, it would have been cheaper to pay monthly rather than for several months at once.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that the simple act of clicking that button would turn out to be the beginning of an incredibly successful weight-loss journey.
  

I was so disillusioned with myself and I had so little motivation to change anything that after I joined WW, it still took me a couple of weeks before I even started following their program.  The only reason I did was because I realized I was paying for something I wasn't using and I told myself, "Just try it for the remainder of the month.  You can do anything for two weeks and then you can cancel before the second month is charged."  However, after losing a few pounds during the first two weeks, I decided to go for another month.  And then another and yet another.  Before I knew it, I followed the WW program for over two years before ultimately cancelling it when it stopped working for me.  I don't even remember the exact date I started actively using the WW online program, but I know it was around this week three years ago.

So what has changed in three years?  Where do I begin! 

Back then I was just existing, not living.  I remember how awful I felt day in and day out, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.  My knee was always screaming in pain, too, so that general moving was painful.  Everything was a chore.  Everything was a burden.  I was so unhappy back then!  I'm sure I was clinically depressed as well.  How could I not be?  It was especially disheartening to realize that I retired a year and a half earlier to "get healthy" because I felt my job was killing me and here I was, nothing had changed.  I retired weighing about 300 lbs. and a year and a half later I still weighed the same.    

I remember waking up every morning with no real plans to do anything for that day and wondering why I bothered to wake up at all.  At least having a job got me out of the house and among people.  Although I didn't miss my job one iota, in retirement my days were long and boring and unless I had a doctor's appointment, had errands to run, or had to help my mother with something, I really didn't do much.  Periodically I'd meet a friend for lunch, but even that brought me no joy.  Nothing gave me joy except my critters, they're the only things that made me happy.  Worst of all, I had no desire to do anything at all and I had no plans to change anything either.  I had no future so why plan anything.

It took me about seven months on WW to lose 50 lbs. before getting stuck on a 16-month-long plateau where my weight didn't budge.  By the time it was over, I had regained about 10 of those pounds.  I often feel anger about having "wasted" 16 months, but it turned out that I had to go through that plateau to come out ahead in the end.  If it weren't for that long-term plateau, I'm positive I wouldn't be where I am today.  It's crazy to say that, but it's true.  The frustration of being stuck for so long led me to the realization that I had to reassess what I was doing and try something different.  That led me to join Total Woman where I met my trainer, Flaminia, who eventually turned everything around for me.  The new me didn't actually evolve until the long-term plateau ended just a little over a year ago.  The main reason I succeeded is that I never gave up no matter how hard things got. 

Not only am I eating healthier these days which helped me lose over 120 lbs. during those three years, I'm now being called a "gym rat."  This, about a woman who led a sedentary life for over a decade until just three years ago.  Today I work out every day.  I may take a day off here and there every couple of weeks, but working out is part of my daily routine now.  In fact, sometimes I work out twice a day.  When I wake up every morning, I plan my day around the gym.  When I'm bored, instead of eating, I go work out at the gym or I'll walk around the neighborhood even though I worked out already that morning.

In the old days, when I woke up in the mornings, I'd lounge in bed for as long as possible, refusing to get up.  Not only did I have no reason to get up, I knew that my knee would scream in pain while it adjusted itself to a standing position.  Every morning I had to stand there for a few seconds waiting for the screaming to subside so I could hobble around my house until my knee stretched out enough where I could walk, usually with a limp.  My knee hurt 24/7 and the only thing that determined whether it was okay was when it didn't hurt too much.  The pain woke me up several times a night, every night, too.  This thing with my knee had been going on for many years.

I expected that my knee would feel better as soon as I started losing weight, but it didn't.  I was really disappointed about that.  I resigned myself that it would never feel better so I just lived around the pain.  I had done it for so many years, it was nothing new.  But then once I lost about 100 lbs., it was like a switch clicked on and suddenly my knee felt a lot better and it has progressively been improving as I lose more weight.  
 
Nowadays, the second my eyes open in the mornings, I spring out of bed and I don't even have to think about my knee as I get going on my day.  Although it still hurts, the pain is barely noticeable now.  It no longer wakes me up every night.  There are times I tweak it where it'll hurt a lot, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be and it recovers much quicker, too.  It will never be normal, but I'm grateful it's improved as much as it has.
 

My neighbor commented that three years is a very long time.  It is, but time was going to pass whether I did anything about my weight or not.  Had I not even tried, it'd still be December 11, 2015, today and I'd still be morbidly obese (probably even heavier than 300 lbs.) and definitely still miserable.  Instead, I’ve lost a ton of weight, I'm very active now, and I've completely changed my lifestyle as it pertains to food for the rest of my life.   

The changes within me are numerous, way beyond my physical appearance.  I've tried to explain my transformation throughout this blog, but it's difficult to enumerate all the changes I've experienced and continue to discover today.  Suffice it to say that things are so much better now.  Everything is better.  I'm still not done yet, but so far my journey has been amazing.  I'm also planning for the future because I have one now.

Three years is a long time, but considering how easy it is to gain weight and yet it still took me many, many years to get as big as I eventually did, it stands to reason that it was going to take me years to lose it all because losing weight is a much harder route.

So if you're discouraged because it'll take a long time to lose weight, keep what I've said in mind:  time will pass anyway and think how much better your life could be in a year or two (or even three) if you start making some changes to your lifestyle now.   Trust me, the end result is so worth the tough journey.