As I lay there, thankful I didn't headbutt the sheet rock, it occurred to me that I was going to have problems getting up. I was in the hall, nothing to grab on to, and my wrists, knee, and leg hurt so badly that I couldn't crawl on them. To top it all off, I was home alone.
Eventually I pulled myself upright gripping the door frame, and iced the worst parts of black and blue bruises. I thought all was improving until a week later my leg swelled up like a balloon and turned an ugly purple red.
I ended up on antibiotics to fight the infection and spending a lot of time in bed with the leg elevated and iced. I ultimately recovered and the down time gave me the opportunity to contemplate other ways I've fallen down in life and the recovery process.
I'm not talking about physical falls now, but life tumbles. Things like going through divorce. That's a fall I'd rather not experience again. It was painful. I did learn that with time you heal and recover. You try to learn from your bad choices and pain to not repeat the cycle, make different and better choices, and have a healthier relationship in the future.
Falling down happens in my eating and health habits. I've been trying to establish new and improved eating and exercise patterns in my life, but sometimes I fall down and make bad choices. It slows down my progress, but if I get back up and keep working on it, I will improve. My body responds, my health responds, my mind responds, I feel better.
It's not always easy. Some days I don't feel like going for my swim, but I've been faithfully keeping at it. Some days I don't want to weigh, measure, and write down everything that I eat, but for me that is part of getting up. I have to eat and move mindfully. If I don't, I consume more than I need and I don't move as much as I should.
Sometimes I'm afraid to go to my weekly weigh in at TOPS. I'm fearful that instead of the loss I'm working so hard to see on the scale, I'll see a gain. But the weigh in is part of getting up from the fall for me. It is an accountability to myself and others. It is a time of meeting with like minded people who also know and understand what it is to fall down and fight to get back up to achieve their health and fitness goals.
At this morning's weigh in I was the week's biggest loser in our TOPS group with another 3 pounds gone from my frame. Some of the others lost and some gained. I'm so glad everyone came and that when we do fall, we have people who love us, give us a hand up and help us get back up and on track.
