What a Difference!

I'm writing this morning while sitting in my sun room, the place I've spent most of my waking hours for almost two weeks. Since breaking a bone in my leg 12 days ago, I've been pretty much housebound, parked in one spot with my leg up. I have a tendency to be a bit of a control freak (perhaps I'm becoming a "recovering control freak"), so this experience requires ongoing attitude adjustment since I realize there's not a thing I can do to change the situation.

In my pre-Take Shape for Life/Medifast life, when out-of-control events happened in my life, my first instinct was to resort to eating. As I type this, I realize how ironic that was, because I couldn't control my eating, either! However, food was the way I dealt with the frustration. My weight first began to go up 25 years ago when we were given four weeks notice that my husband was being transferred to another store (he was a retail jewelry store manager for a large chain) in another city. We had put down some pretty deep roots in the town where we lived and the transfer was not something we wanted, but it was either move or find a new job. We moved - and I ate. On the heels of that move, my knee (same one that's injured now) became painful to the point that I had to stop exercising and taking stairs in our house became difficult. I needed surgery, but didn't want a second surgery on that knee (the first surgery was 4 years earlier and I had a difficult recovery). I put off surgery for almost a year, waiting for my knee to improve, which it didn't. It was a time of tremendous frustration, so I ate. Since I had become very sedentary, it didn't take very long for me to pile on 30 extra pounds. I finally agreed to surgery with the intent that once I finished rehab I'd get back to exercising and "work off" the extra weight. Instead, while in rehab I discovered I was expecting our son. Pregnancy piled on another 70 pounds, and from that point on the weight just kept coming as I kept eating to deal with any and all of life's events (and there were many).

I've shared before how my Take Shape for Life/Medifast journey began a healing process that has forever changed how I related to food. What I've realized over the past few days is how true that is. My current situation is exactly the kind of thing that would have had me diving face-first into sugary carbs (my drug of choice) three years ago. What's different now is that I don't even want to - honest! It's not a matter of me fighting the urge to stuff food - the urge isn't even there. I can't describe how amazing that is - God has truly healed that place in my heart!

Instead of carb-loading right now, I'm actually temporarily back on 5&1. Because I usually wear a BodyBugg that tracks how many calories I burn each day, I know that on a given day, if I don't exercise, I burn between 1,500-1,700 calories a day. As a result, I try to keep my caloric intake for the day between 1,500 and 1,600. Right now I know I'm burning less calories, so I'm compensating by taking in fewer calories. Since it's hard to be on my feet, preparing food is a challenge, so voila! Medifast to the rescue :-). I'm able to keep to my 6 small meals a day (which is how I always eat) and don't have to worry about having to prepare anything. Once I'm back on my feet, I know I won't have extra pounds to deal with as a result of being so sedentary.

Those choices I began to make almost three years ago when I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast are still making a difference in my life today. The choices you make today can and will make a difference for you one, two, or three years from now. Choose wisely :-)