Today I was looking through old notes I had saved on my phone. I stumbled across one of major importance:
So here it is, the end of 2018 in the beginning of 2019 and where are you? You’re in a hotel room, alone. You’re in another country and had an opportunity to see something amazing but instead you’re in a hotel room because you’re too overweight and things are hurting too much to walk. Your back is aching your knees are aching your ankles are aching. You pulled a muscle in your back you’ve hurt your leg everything is stiff and hurts.
What are you going to do? Are you going to keep living like this? You won’t live long. Are you going to do something about this? Is this the life you want to live?
Our family had the opportunity go to to Paris and London in December of 2018 and spend New Year’s there. We spent a couple of days in Paris then spent the better part of a week in London. It was an amazing trip…but also a bit of a misery experience.
A few years prior I had lost a good bit of weight on a weight loss program called Optavia (Then called Take Shape For Life), but I had gone off of that program about a year prior, after developing gallstones, and over time I had slowly gained weight. At the time of this trip I was probably somewhere around 430, give or take…about 35 pounds lighter than my heaviest weight up to that point.
During this trip there was a lot I had to deal with as a big guy. The 8+ hour flights and a LOT of walking. SO. MUCH. WALKING. By the time New Year’s Eve rolled around I was hurting badly. So I sent my family of with a friend to go watch the New Year’s fireworks celebration and I sat, all alone and miserable, in a London hotel room…eating terrible pizza from the nearby pub and watching British re-runs on the TV.
It was, for sure, a low point. Unfortunately it didn’t activate a change. I wish it would have, but it didn’t. I’d had moments like this before, and would have a few after this.
I haven’t talked a lot in this blog about the other stuff our family was going through, and I won’t get into all of it here. Maybe another time. But at this point we were about 2.5 years into a 6+ horrific situation. Our youngest daughter dealt with both cancer and mental illness and over that six year span we fought a lot of sickness, surgery, chemo, fear, chaos and worry. We lost her in 2022. It was everything we could do during that time to just survive. It was one of many factors to where I was in my health. It was a big one for sure, but it wasn’t, by far, the only factor…most of which existed long before her health became a factor.
I saw this note and several emotions hit me.
- I remembered how miserable and low I felt that night. How I felt like a failure and how I was literally missing out on big life events because of my weight/health.
- I had a feeling of accomplishment for how far I’ve come in the last 7 months.
- I had a moment of fear as well. The fear that’s always there a little bit…the fear of blowing all of this.
I’m about 110 pounds lighter right now than I was on that trip. Although my knees are ever worse for the wear, I feel like I would fair better on that trip now. Much better.
I’m hoping I get to take a similar trip in the future, when I’ve lost 80-100 more pounds. I hope I still have time to not miss out on those big life events like this.