3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Weight Loss Community - Gonna party like it's 1999!

Things have just been crazy! Some of you may recall me stating that the past year and a half have been especially difficult. I've been struggling to lose weight and have been trying to deal with agoraphobia (which makes a lot of situations beneficial for weight loss rather difficult). I've lost well over 100 pounds so far, but in the aforementioned time frame? Nothing. For ages now I've been maintaining around the weight of 250. It's better than gaining it back (and then some!) like I have a few times in the past of course, but it's still not where I want to be.

I read somewhere over month ago that it's possible I have a vitamin D deficiency (I may have been a vampire in a former life as I tend to stay out of the sun) and decided to start taking supplements. I've been seriously fatigued for ages and have been fighting my anxiety attacks. After a while I noticed that my energy level increased, so in addition to the healthy eating I felt ready to get more exercise in and have actually been spending some time outside. And the more time I spend outside, the more confidence I gain. :)

So for weeks I was getting walks in, usually amounting to a total of 2.6 miles per day. I'd been been doing a stationary bike for several months already, and maintained it with the new walking I've been doing. I've also been trying to tone my arms with dumbbells. And all the while the scale still wouldn't budge! All the new walking I did in addition to the exercise I was already doing didn't seem to be helping at all. I was also throwing in some jogging along with the walking, but making sure to take it easy since I'm still at a relatively high weight and don't want to hurt myself.

Um . . . but I ended up hurting myself anyway. Oops. :o

At first I thought it was probably the small amount of jogging I was doing but later realized it hit me after tightening the tension on the bike for too long of a session. I could barely lift my legs that night, let alone walk. I felt even worse the next day and struggled over whether I needed to baby my injury or carefully work through it. The pain got excruciating at times, preventing me from even doing the simplest of housework and sometimes preventing me from sleeping at night. I took some OTC medicine to take the edge off and hoped that I could heal up soon. I also started to apply ice once one of my knees started to swell.

The pain forced me into a temporary setback that's been extremely frustrating. I'd been working extra hard to have more energy and feel healthier, and it felt like there was no rewards for me other than . . . well, a lot of pain. In the past week I've spent a lot of time feeling restless and moping over not being able to use my legs. I debated on even going to my TOPS meeting but didn't let myself out of it, figuring if I was in enough pain I could just go home early.

It wasn't easy to make it to the meeting. Besides having a horrible time just lifting my poor leg into the car (one of them healed much faster than the other), there was either a set of stairs to climb or an enormously long ramp to tackle. I opted for the stairs and made it inside in one piece.

The crazy part? Now that I could barely move and had such a slow, terrible week exercise-wise, I had a loss that brought me to my lowest weight ever at TOPS! After lingering around 250 for so long and not being able to get significantly under, the scale read 245! I think I've finally broken my year and a half plateau. :dizzy: I've lost even a bit more since then, now being down to 242. While it's funny that it's happened after injuring myself, I'm pretty sure I've jump-started my metabolism back to where it's supposed to be. As of yesterday I healed up just enough to take a short walk, slightly less than a mile. It never felt so good to be back outside again! I'm still in pain so I'm taking it easy of course, but I'm anxious to work back up to where I was and beyond. And I'm so excited to see the scale finally moving again!

So why am I gonna party like it's 1999? I haven't been able to stay under 250 since I was 23, which was way back in . . . you guessed it . . . 1999. For the first time in ages it seems feasible that I can finally get down to 220 once again, the lowest weight I've ever been as an adult. I'll keep working hard and be extra careful about injuries from here on. ;)

Anyway, just needed to share my excitement before I burst! :lol: I've sort of amazed myself that I didn't just give up because I hurt myself. And let me tell you, I'll never take me legs for granted again! :o