Healthy You Challenge Update

I have two major achievements to report this week! First of all, the non-scale achievement –

I live at an apartment complex called “Top of the Hill”. As you may imagine, it’s on the top of a hill. On one of the walking paths, there’s a fairly steep incline (steep for me, that is). Last night, I managed to get all the way up to the top of that incline for the first time in almost a year! I was able to get up it during parts of last summer, when I was trying to lose weight and get healthy, and I did lose about forty pounds. But then I fell off the bandwagon for several months and gained thirty of those pounds back. Last night was the first night since getting back on the bandwagon that I was able to make it all the way to the top of that incline. I’m going to go for it again tonight, also.

Now, for the scale achievement –

I’m now down a total of 24 pounds.  I was hoping to be able to report that I was down 25 pounds, but I didn’t quite make it that far.  Still, anything in the downward direction is good, right?  One more pound and I can put up a 25-pound lost Healthy You button on the blog!  As far as the scale goes, I have such a large amount to lose that I just can’t think of it all at one time. So I’m just trying to think in 5-pound increments. It makes it a lot more manageable.

In other news this week, I had to get a colonoscopy last Friday. If you’ve never had one of these, the test itself is a piece of cake. The prep for the test is another story altogether. If you want, you can read my post from last Thursday entitled “Rectal Tornado”. The colonoscopy showed no polyps, but I have some diverticulosis and some internal hemorrhoids. I have to get more fiber in my diet. That’s something that I’ve been doing a pretty good job of lately, but I haven’t done a good job of it over the course of my life.

Also this week, I got my next set of pre-surgery appointments set up. If you’re a regular reader, then you know I’m currently enrolled in a 6-month weight management/surgery prep course and I’m on the road towards gastric bypass surgery. So, in August, I have an appointment with a nurse practitioner and an appointment with a clinical psychologist. Then, in September, I have a set of three life skills classes that will deal with what you need to do to be successful post-surgery.

I wrote a post the other day called “The Moment is NOW”, about how we should concentrate on the here and now, because we can’t control the past or the future.  I think it’s a good way to approach weight loss.  Maybe you will too.

With the exception of the colonoscopy prep, this was a good week. Hope yours was good as well!