Moving to a Better Neighborhood

Happy Sunday morning! I can hardly believe we're at the end of another month! I hope you've seen some real progress this month and that you're ending May several pounds lighter than you started.

I spent yesterday morning watching my two oldest granddaughters play soccer. After the games, I stopped at my daughter's house to drop off some things she is borrowing for an upcoming party. While I was at her house, my 4-year old granddaughter came up to me and asked, "Grandma, you're all better now? You're not sick anymore?" I was puzzled because I haven't been sick in a while and had no idea what would prompt her to ask me about my health.

My daughter heard the question and walked into the room to explain that she and her girls had been looking at photos of them as babies, and they saw pictures of me before I lost weight. Since the girls are now 6 and 4, and since I've been at my goal for over a year, neither of them have any real memory of me at 268 pounds. When they think of me, they think of me as I am now (thank the Lord!!), so they didn't know what to make of the obese person in the photos. My daughter explained to them that when those photos were taken, I wasn't feeling very well.

I think her explanation pretty much sums it up. Two years ago, I didn't feel well - physically or emotionally. It's not that I was chronically sick or depressed, because I wasn't, but I didn't feel WELL. I didn't have energy and moving around a lot sapped my strength, so I was quite sedentary. I was diabetic and on medication for cholesterol and gastric reflux. I wasn't depressed (and having been clinically depressed in the past, I know what true depression is), but I also felt lousy about myself. I hated how I looked, I hated not being able to get this area of my life under control, I hated having to negotiate spaces to make sure I'd fit, I hated always comparing my size to others.

Dr. Andersen calls this living in a non-sick state. We aren't sick, but we aren't healthy, either. That's the state I lived in for a very long time. When we're living in a non-sick state, if we don't make changes, our address will eventually and inevitably change to "sick state." The good news is that we can move to a much better neighborhood :-)! The changes we are making now, day by day, will move us to health and has put us on the path towards optimal health. Health and optimal health sounds a lot better than "non-sick", doesn't it?

So as far as my little granddaughters are concerned, Grandma used to not feel well, and now she does. Someday they will understand a lot more about the journey I'm on and where I came from, but for right now, all they know is that Grandma is healthy and feel fabulous!

I want everyone else to feel healthy and fabulous, too, which is why I write a daily blog as a way to hopefully encourage you. You'll get there, one Medifast meal at a time!