With apologies to John, Paul, Ringo and George.

If you’re a regular follower of this blog, you know that 2009 has been a pretty rough year for me, health-wise. It started off with open-heart surgery to replace a bad heart valve, followed by 3 more week-long hospitalizations for post-surgery complications, some nasty problems with depression/PTSD, and most recently, a broken ankle.

While prospects for staying out of the hospital for the rest of the year look pretty good (knock on wood), none of these problems is fully resolved yet. I’m still working very reduced hours, and spending an awful lot of time with doctors and therapists.

But there’s another part of this story that I haven’t talked about here before, probably because it scares me even more than all these other issues, and I haven’t gotten a handle on the problem myself yet.


In the last five months, I’ve gained almost 25 pounds. This week, my “morning” weight was over 250 pounds for the first time since it hit that number on the way down from my highest weight, several years ago.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how this happened. I went from spending 2-3 hours most days doing pretty vigorous physical activity, like biking and hiking, to being in bed for days at a time or restricted to getting around on crutches for a few minutes/day. And I never adjusted my food intake so that it matched my reduced level of activity.

But here’s the real problem: I don’t want to adjust my eating. What I want is to have my life back the way it was 6 months ago. I worked hard for that life, I feel like I earned it, and I want it back. Now.

I’m well aware that this attitude is about as reasonable as the kind of temper tantrum a 2 year old might throw. I also recognize that the anger and frustration I’m feeling is a “normal” part of the grief process, and that sooner or later, I’ll have to accept my new reality and adapt to it. I know that once I’m off my crutches, back on my bike, and feeling a little better about life in general, I’ll probably be able to get on with the business of aging gracefully without minding it nearly as much as I do right now.

But knowing all this isn’t making it any easier to make these “attitude adjustments” happen—or to curb my appetite today.

Which, among other things, leaves me wondering how much use I can be to anyone else right now as a coach. I have this picture in my mind of myself arriving at the SparkPeople Convention in a few weeks, still hobbling around on crutches, and feeling and looking like a giant, grumpy pumpkin in my orange SparkPeople T-shirt. Not exactly the image I’d like to present when actually meeting you all in person, lol.

Maybe that mental picture will give me the incentive I need to get my eating back in line with my needs and drop a few of these extra pounds over the next few weeks. Or not—I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, here’s my question(s) for you:

How much does it matter to you that the people who give you info and advice are able to consistently practice what they preach themselves? Can you take what you need from the message even if you know the messenger isn't putting it into practice effectively? Does it help or hurt your own motivation to know that your “experts” aren’t always on top of their own issues? Why does it matter, do you think?