When the Direction Isn't Forward...

Hello, friends.  If you followed my first blog, you will surely remember that much of it was about my experiences in finding myself while I dropped 100 pounds.  So, perhaps you'll understand that this blog post is one I never wanted to write.

At my annual checkup yesterday, I had to face an ugly truth that I've been watching reveal itself in my mirror over the past year or so with no workouts.  I've regained 45 of those pounds.  

What do you do when the direction you're moving isn't forward?  Part of me wants to hide under my covers and pretend that the past few years haven't happened...to go back to that day in January of 2012 where I hit my biggest goal and felt success like I'd never known and re-do life from that point forward. I want to rewrite those intervening years so that there would be no debilitating knee pain and subsequent knee replacement and no family fraying at the edges. There would be easy-going and forward-moving gains in my overall health, my weight would still be dropping, and all would be right with the world.

But then there's this part of me that is firmly grounded in reality.  And in all honesty, that's the girl who needs to respond to this. She's the one I found on that Journey to Me ..and she's the only one who is going to turn this around and get me moving in the right direction again.  

You see, what I discovered inside myself while losing that weight is a woman who is really quite strong...capable...fiercely determined.  SHE is the one who will take on the challenge of reclaiming her health, not the old Angie who wants to hide from her issues.  Hiding is what put those 328 pounds on me in the first place. It won't be avoiding the truth- or excusing it- that gets me moving in the right direction on the scale and in life again.  Nope.  It's going to take honesty and strength.

So...in the spirit of full disclosure...I'm giving notice now.  It's time. I know who I am.  I know what I can do.  And friends...it's ON!  

This isn't just about losing those regained pounds.  This is about reclaiming the person I want to be and the life I want to have. Every part of it.  The weight I carry on my frame is more than just a measure of the pull of gravity on my body.  It is the outward, visible representation of the pull of life on my spirit...it's the baggage I've been hauling around emotionally and spiritually that I need to let go.  

Because I value transparency and accountability, I'm going to keep you updated, perhaps on the first blog...maybe on this one.  I haven't decided yet. But you can trust that tomorrow, I will be in the gym for my first workout in about 15 months.  It won't be easy, and it surely won't be like the workouts I was used to prior to my knees taking me out of the gym. But it's time to count on the new knee to hold me (and to carefully use up whatever I've got left of the old knee that will be replaced in June) and it's time to push myself again.  It's very humbling after working so hard to build my fitness to have lost it and have to enter a gym as a newbie again.  But the wondrous thing about physical fitness is, it can be regained, and you can believe that I will. 

That 100 pounds I lost a few years ago was really only the beginning.  It's time to finish the task God and I set out to do back then...to finish peeling back the layers that I've used to hide my heart and become who He made me to be.  No apologies, no excuses, no looking back.  FORWARD is the word God gave me this year, and it's time to get moving in that direction.  I hope you'll stick around and see how this plays out!

Moving Forward...

Angie

:-)