I’m a bit astonished that it has been over two months since my last post but it really should be no surprise to me since I’ve had little to say about my leg injury or my weight loss (and that’s really all that’s consumed my personal life the past few months). It feels like I haven’t had much progress in either area. I’ve been feeling very much like a little hamster on a hamster wheel but sometimes that in itself is progress.
I finished physical therapy earlier this month. Even though I was still having the same symptoms in my left leg (and sometimes in my right leg), my PT didn’t think there was much more that they could do for me in terms of physical therapy. He felt that the best thing to do right now would be to continue doing my stretches and PT exercises at home. He gave me the OK to get back to doing whatever I want exercise-wise and to start running again. He also watched me run and felt some adjustments to my gait might help with the pain. I have a tendency to push off and land on my toes and ideally I should be landing on my heel.
I’ve been running the past couple of weeks, trying hard to adjust my gait and to stick to soft surfaces. I also picked up some orthotics that a a podiatrist recommended. For now, I’m going to try to limit my running to 2 – 3 times a week and only for about an hour. I still have a sharp tight pain in my left thigh but it seems worst during the first mile/mile and a half of a run. After that, the pain subsides and it just feels a bit sore. I’ve been making sure to stretch my legs pretty well before and after runs, along with icing my leg after a run and massaging my leg with a foam roller everyday. Doing all of those things has certainly helped with the pain when I’m not exercising but it does not seem to be preventing the pain when I’m running. My gut feeling right now is that my back wasn’t the cause of my symptoms but that a tight IT band might be the real culprit. I haven’t had any back pain since I started running and it seems like the only time I had severe back pain was usually after some sort of medical appointment (usually after something a doctor, chiro, or PT would make me do).
It has been really amazing to get back to running. Nothing else makes me feel so physically empowered and capable. I’ve really missed that feeling most of this past year.
Despite my excitement about running, I can’t help but feel angry and disappointed that I’ve been so unsuccessful in getting my leg treated. I feel like much of the past year has been wasted. Wasted seeing specialists. Wasted getting my hopes up. Wasted being frustrated. Wasted trying this or that treatment. Wasted going to physical therapy. Wasted not getting a real solution. Wasted not losing weight.
Given how much time and effort I’ve spent in 2009 trying to get this issue resolved, I’ve decided to give up on it for now and learn to live with it. Trying to get this injury treated really slowed down my weight loss – I didn’t have as much time to exercise or prepare food, was limited in the exercises that I could do, and felt pretty bad about the whole situation. I really could use a break right now from medical treatments (especially unsuccessful ones) and I think not having to worry about all of that will help kickstart my weight loss once again. I also feel that I haven’t had very much luck getting my injury treated simply because I’m fat and don’t look athletic. I think most doctors and specialists I saw didn’t take me very seriously and didn’t understand how important it was for me to get back to running as soon as possible. I’m hoping that my leg will heal itself eventually but that if it doesn’t that I will be thin enough at some point to get proper medical attention.
When it comes to my weight, I’ve been maintaining it at around the 68 – 70 pound mark. I was really hoping that I’d get to 80 pounds by the end of the year but that just didn’t happen. As I feared when I joined Weight Watchers a few months ago, I really couldn’t stick to it. Their program (which is a diet, regardless of what they say) was just too restrictive. I know people can lose weight doing Weight Watchers and I really envy those people who can stick to a plan and steadily lose a pound or two every week. But for whatever reason, I’m not wired that way and I seem to take a lot of missteps before I eventually move forward.
I’m now back to writing down my food in a paper food journal, monitoring my appetite, and trying to only eat when I’m truly hungry. I was really hoping that I could get to 90 or 100 pounds by the time I turned 30. Right now, I think I’d be happy with 75 or 80.
And that’s why losing weight (naturally) is so fucking incredibly hard. It takes a lot of time and energy. It takes months of losing and gaining the same five pounds. It takes a lot of readjusting and shifting. What worked for me three years ago, may not work for me today. I wish it was faster, mostly because I’m tired of having worked so hard and come so far and yet not being there yet. Even though I do sometimes feel like a little hamster on her little hamster wheel, I have to remind me myself that just being on the wheel is better than not being on it. I’ve managed to maintain my weight loss for three years. I exercise several times a week. I eat mostly healthy food. I’ve managed to lose and maintain an amount of weight that most people can’t lose or maintain. I’m down 4 – 5 sizes. I’m the lowest weight I’ve ever been as an adult.
And for now that’s something to be proud of.