Liberation

I went back to work yesterday and other than seeing my coworkers who I like, I became immediately reminded of why I am putting so much effort into a career change, and how worth it all the sacrifice and work will be. My podiatrist is limiting me to 4 hour shifts for 2 weeks then I will go back to full time. I had a bit of an accident on Sunday when I was carrying a wrought iron kitchen chair and it slipped and smashed into my achilles right at the incision site. Right now I have some hard scabs still there and it is already so painful just to stretch that skin so when that accident happened I let out a string of colorful words. I had been really having such good progress all weekend until that happened, my pain level went from almost none to about a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is the worst. Now it is more swollen than it has been but I also started new exercises in physical therapy and it's definitely making me hurt a little. I am doing calf raises, which I can do but they leave me feeling sore and swollen for the rest of the day. pushing off the front of my foot also feels challenging and hurts but I'm doing it as much as I can because the the Dr and therapist want me to get rid of the bad habits I have developed wherein I almost hop off my foot before the front of my foot has to bend and push, which makes me walk with a limp and puts strain on my back, knees and hips. None of which I need. I do feel like I am making progress but it's a lot more uncomfortable now that I am being challenged more. I am handling it. I know I'll get stronger every day and at some point I won't even have to think about it. Despite all the lofty plans I was making to get healthy during my time off, I feel like I will be in for a rude awakening when I get up on the scale again. I can tell that every little thing I do gets me breathing heavier like I have to work harder to do minimal tasks. Granted walking and talking with a mask on takes some getting used to again, but I can tell being this weight puts strain on my body. I have been watching a lot of episodes of My 600 Pound Life and it both inspires me and scares the bejeezus out of me! I know my roughly 200 pounds is not as extreme as the weights the people get to on that show, but Dr. Now makes it clear than even an extra 50 pounds of excess weight puts a lot of stress on your heart. Still, I know I am slowly killing myself with my lifestyle choices yet I am worried that I don't have the mental energy to devote to stressing over sticking to some strict eating plan. So I am starting to formulate my own plan that is based on my intuition of what my body needs and wants, bits and pieces of different plans that I am meshing into my own thing. I saw a term today that I am think feels pretty right, "plant-forward". I will still eat dairy and meat sometimes, I will eats fats but try to make the bulk of the fats unsaturated, but most of my diet will consist of plants. I will not measure, record or stress out about hard and fast rules or restrictions which means I won't feel guilty for not sticking to a certain plan. Since my doctor won't released me to exercise yet, I am going to use my physical therapy exercises along with some non-weight-bearing leg lifts and such to start strengthening my lower body so when I do get the OK I can feel good doing yoga and zumba. I also want to add the mental health piece into my mornings, something I have wanted to do but never committed to. My goals with mental health are to heal the past, work on strengthening my relationship with myself (self-love), learning coping skills that will replace emotional eating and compulsive eating, and finding a way to complain less/ stop focusing on the negative in life. That's what we all want, no? These are lofty goals but I think they will lead me to more success than hard-core dieting and exercise ever did. That's my hope at least. It is said that if you put the mental part into practice the rest falls into place. I hope I can make the commitment and find out. I don't have a magical "start date" when I go full-boar on changes, I am just going to integrate things into whatever my life can handle as I live. I'm sick of struggling, following then fighting someone else's plan. I am doing my own thing. It feels like complete a revelation of liberation!