Sometimes it's progress even when it doesn't feel like progress

I've been whining to myself, my husband, my coworkers, my friends, and anyone else who would listen, about how brutal the holiday shopping season is on an extremely old and creaky person like me. Well, not someone like me...just ME. Hour after hour of standing on concrete, and running and bending and reaching in a retail store, then going home to work on a friend's start up of a non-profit business, and to take care of a house and a husband and all these dogs...that's hard stuff.

But now the holiday shopping season is over. Since I had today off, I did some errands this morning, some cooking this afternoon, and otherwise goofed off with the husband and dogs. I even spent some time this afternoon reading a novel by Nicci French (stopping every few paragraphs to push a dog off my lap). I can't sit very long nowadays because of painful bursitis in my hips and painful sciatica running down my legs, but suddenly I appreciated anew the progress I've made on my WLS journey. When I used to work in China for 4+ weeks at a time, every step I took climbing up the stairs in a factory seemed to wipe me out. I'm not saying I'd enjoy that upward trek today, but I could probably do it without a major drain on this old body.

So the message is that sometimes it's progress even when it doesn't feel that way. I am so grateful that I don't have to lug an extra 90 lbs up even one step of a staircase. i'm grateful that I can survive a brutal day in a retail job. And I'm grateful that WLS - first the band, then the sleeve - has made possible the reduced weight and increased energy I too often take for granted today.

I went from being unable to carry my books to class to carrying my big self to the base of Mount Everest at 17,600 feet altitude over 10 days of hiking. Progress occurs in big an little ways in life. I am 5 years out from surgery and don't always move forward, but I move!

So true Jean. 

With weight loss it is always a keep on going thing.

I know at any time, if I gave up, I would gain everything back.

My feelings exactly. I just am so danged glad that I don't have to deal with that old body and that I have a tool that helps me. Like you first my band helped me and now my sleeve. I don't know where I would be without them. Well, actually I do know. I would be much older physically, in more pain, unable to move, and living in shame. These tools require hard work but the alternative is too horrible to contemplate, at least for me. I would do it over again in a heart beat.

My progress varies widely because I am a widely variable type of gal. I is all my choice now and I am glad of it.

Happy New Years to us!