I've been debating about whether this was the right time to write this one or not. The reason for the debate is that I have a cold right now, which makes it seem like a bad time to extolling the health benefits of my journey, but there are many other things that are going on that make me think this is a good time to write it.
I've done things most of my young adult to adult life that haven't been the best for me or my health. As I covered in a previous blog, I started smoking when I was a dumb teenager. I used to drink a lot more than I should. I've always struggled with my weight and haven't been a very active person.
Somewhere around 12 years ago, I made some definite decisions about my drinking and decided, pretty easily, that I didn't need to drink as much as I had been and it was time to be smarter. Nine years ago yesterday, I decided that it was time to quit smoking. That was a lot harder for me, but I was able to conquer that too. My weight and lack of activity...I didn't really spend much time working to make that better. I figured if food was my only vice then I was doing pretty well. I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about it.
The part I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about was what I was doing to myself. Anytime I would go to the district health fair, they would tell me that I was obese, my blood pressure was high, and either my cholesterol or blood sugar was borderline high (it never seemed to be the same one). So I stopped going to the health fair. I used the excuse that I had to drive to South High early on a Saturday morning, often around Valentine's Day. One of my doctors started to talk to me about my weight and my blood pressure and I said I was going to make changes, but it never really translated to action and I only saw that doctor once a year anyway. The fact of the matter was that I didn't want to hear about it. I wanted to believe that I was a relatively healthy big person and being overweight wasn't that big of a deal.
I tried to ignore the fact that I wasn't a relatively healthy big person. I was a big person that ignored all the things that I didn't want to see. I had a ton of aches and pains. I woke up sore more mornings than I didn't. My resting heart rate was higher than it should be as well as my blood pressure being high. I got sick pretty easy because I didn't take care of myself. I suffered from chronic and often severe back problems, which I won't talk about too much because I covered that in a different post. I had severe flare ups of my arthritis in my knees and while my weight didn't cause the arthritis, it definitely complicated things and made it worse.
Finally when I decided that it was time to take better care of myself and make the healthy changes that I needed to, I started to see the results. As I talked about before, almost immediately I saw the benefit of not having my May/June back pain and immobility because of that. I didn't think about it much, but I wasn't getting sick as often. In fact, I have only been to my doctor twice since since I started on this journey and one of those times was for hip pain as a result of my workouts. I don't get sick as often. In general, I feel so much better than I used to. I can wear shoes other than tennis shoes and not have the foot and ankle pain that I used to have. While I still have some soreness, I know that it is due to getting in shape, which somehow makes it easier to deal with. :)
As some of you know very well, I've had some pretty serious health concerns during this time period, which might make this blog seem a little contradictory. However, none of those problems are related to my physical health in general and, honestly, I was better able to deal with them because of my improved health. When I had previous health procedures done, there were concerns about my blood pressure being as high as it was. That wasn't a concern this time around. I recovered more quickly with fewer complications because of being in better health. So while I have had some health concerns since I started this journey, overall, I would say that I am definitely in better health since I started taking care of myself and I couldn't be more pleased!
So with my sniffles and coughs (sadly, being in better health doesn't make me invincible), I will embrace the changes I've made and continue on my journey, happy in the knowledge that I'm healthier than I've been in years.
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