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Once Bed-Ridden, Now I'm on the Road to a Healthier Me!

-- By ~INDYGIRL, SparkPeople Member

1. You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to stick with it. Forget all or nothing thinking. It never seems to work. I'm pretty much a black or white thinker, but I have to remember that it's what you do consistently that shows. Decide on a goal for each day. One day at a time is doable. Forget on planning your life out; take it one day at a time. If you got a traffic ticket, you wouldn't go break every traffic law the rest of the day like you do when you eat a bite of pizza and just keep going. I like to remind myself that one slice of pizza is always going to have fewer calories than two slices of pizza.
    
2. Make time for exercise. This isn't always easy, especially because I don't like exercise. At one time, I was 460 pounds and bed-ridden, so exercise was not easy at all. In fact, it was next to impossible. I started out with physical therapy, doing 1-2 minutes of exercise with 1-pound weights, which I did a couple times a day. Later I moved it up to 3-4 minutes, which turned into 10 minutes, and then walking came in to it. I just started moving in ways called "functional fitness," which is moving in ways that enhance your daily activity. It's basically physical therapy, like bending and stretching to help you do your laundry. Any activity you can do will help you get moving. Something is better than nothing. I used to have to sit down between rooms in my house just to go to the kitchen. It wasn't very far (and technically I shouldn't have been going to the kitchen most of the time!). Luckily, I can move around freely in my house now and I'm no longer bound to a wheelchair. That 1-2 minutes of exercise really does go a long way.
    
3. Use the food tracker. It really works as a reality check. I'm a person who eats out of shame. If I eat something that I feel like I shouldn't have, I will eat the rest of the day, thinking, "Oh, I may as well." My nephew told me, "If you're going to think 'I may as well,' you could also think 'I may as well not.'" Even when I think I've eaten more than I should, it can trigger a binge, but thanks to the Nutrition Tracker, I can fit anything into my menu plan. Even if I do go over my goals for the day, the food tracker keeps me in control better than if I didn't use it.