Looking For Some Positives

Well, I made it to my counseling session BY MYSELF yesterday. It wasn't easy, but I brought the walker with me and stopped to sit whenever I needed to rest. And I got there and back in one piece.

Needless to say, I am so SORE after enduring three very active days. On Sunday, I climbed up that long flight of stairs in the movies and then walked a couple of blocks; yesterday, I traveled alone and also walked a couple of blocks; and then, this morning, I had PT. They finally gave me a new exercise to do besides the standing leg movements and stretches; they had me maneuver my foot on this balance board to get a better range of motion. Sounds easy, but it was actually quite hard to keep my foot on the board and then rotate it along with my foot. I ached afterward.

When I came home this afternoon, I was so stiff and sore that I found it difficult to walk, even just around the apartment. My ankle hurt, my back hurt and my knees hurt, too. I found myself wanting to beat myself up for it, for not being able to walk well enough yet, for not losing enough weight yet so that I don't have back pain.

But then I sat back and thought about all that I DID manage to accomplish over the past few weeks and tried to focus on that instead. I can now walk up and down stairs. I can now walk without the walker for short periods. I can now walk for a couple of blocks with the walker (if I take a couple of breaks, but the point is, I can get the distance completed). I can now balance on my bad leg and raise up the other leg during my standing leg movements (when I first started, I could barely do this). I can now travel by myself and don't have to rely on Jon to take me everywhere.

These are really big things! I am proud of myself, but I do tend to be impatient about life in general. I wish my leg would heal more quickly and I wish that the weight would just fall off. But I can see the beginnings of some improvement. I'll just have to keep working hard.

I'm still struggling a bit with my eating. I haven't binged in a while, but I know that I need to eat better things. I tend to have a lot of bread and rice and pasta, and while none of this is bad in of itself, I do eat too much starch in general. I also tend to overindulge on cheese and not have enough vegetables. I didn't do too badly today; instead of having a bagel for breakfast, I had a couple of small rolls with some grapes and bananas, and then for dinner, Jon made me gazpacho. I did overdo it on the cheese, but I journaled everything. My main problem is that if I like something, I'll eat the whole thing. So if there's a block of cheese in front of me or a tub of low-fat cream cheese, I'll nibble on it until it's done. Part of me has considered getting all of these trigger foods out of the house ... but then, there wouldn't really be anything left. As of now, I'm having Jon keep minimal food in the house, anyway, and I've been known to eat weird stuff when I get desperate. I mean, I've eaten sticks of butter. Gross, I know.

I am getting better at monitoring myself, though, and am trying to come up with a game plan for when I return to work full-time in a couple of weeks. I used to order in often, but I think that I'll bring a lunch bag each day instead. I really like having grapes because you can nibble on them all day and it's like eating healthy candy. That will also keep me away from the vending machine. I suppose it's good that I can't walk well because I won't be able to make trips to buy M&Ms or even to pick up food from the outside!

For now, I'm going to continue to take my eating one meal at a time and my walking one step at a time. It's a little disheartening for me that I have to deal with my recovery and my weight simultaneously, but I figure that I'll have one hell of a story to tell when I conquer both.