Running Post an Injury and My Constant Struggle with Weight

I ended my last post with a reference to #walkTOrun. It's my new hash tag for my latest effort to get back to running and exercise. I've started and re-started so many times it's not even funny. I can't even remember the first time I really started running, unless it was 10 years ago on a treadmill at the gym. That's when I got the lap band and lost the biggest amount of weight.

Biggest I've been, June 2006 - Smallest I've been post high school, January 2009

The smallest I've ever been is high school. Who wasn't? Once I started college it was a downhill battle with my weight with me reaching the biggest size you see in the left picture, after college, being married and having two kids. I would lose weight with each pregnancy and nursing, but the weight would come right back. In December of 2007 I got the lap band and the picture on the right was taken in January of 2009,

The last ten years have had their ups and downs weight wise but I have never gotten back to the biggest size I am on the left. Around a year and half ago I found a new lap band doctor after my old clinic closed. I was en route back to my lowest weight post lap-band when I started feeling a lot of restriction. I was about to go on vacation to Germany so my doctor took a good amount of fluid out. Since then I've had a fill but I haven't gotten back to the right spot and I've gained weight.

So here I am now. I'm 48, I cut my ankle pretty badly before summer even started, and I've gained fourteen pounds total since last year. I've struggled with my weight my whole life, but now I'm at the age where it's do or die. It's not about looks any more. It's about surviving and living longer than my mom did. I'd like to land somewhere between 69, the age my mom was when she died, and 94, the age my dad almost reached when he passed away last February. 

What's really frustrating is that two years ago, a whole year before that lap band complication, I had been really running for the first time in my life. By running I mean not on a treadmill, outside in the heat, on the streets, and I'd built up to a really good walk/run rhythm. I was running more that summer than even a year ago. I want to get back to that type of running. 

I know not everyone has a lap band to help them but at my age, and with the complications I've had lately with my foot, I think there are still a lot of people who can relate to my struggle. A lap band is not a magic bullet solution. It's a small helping hand but you can still eat around it and cheat the system. Believe me, I've learned how to do that in the past 11 years. I want to blog about running post an accident and injury and how to beat this monkey that's been on my back my whole life. 

Goal 2

                                                                   Biggest I've been, June 2006 - June 2017

My first goal is to start walking again so I can build up to my walk/run once my foot is better. My second goal is go get to where I was last year in the yellow dress above. If I can get to the yellow dress size then it's only 10 more pounds to get to the size I was in the gray dress in the top photo. After gray dress the final goal is to get down 10 more pounds than that. But baby steps.

Goal #1 starts tomorrow. Back to walking to build up to run and preparing my meals the night prior so I have time to exercise.