Weigh-in Tuesday: Slipping up

I slipped up last week. Literally.

I had planned out a productive and eventful day, which I began with a trip to the mailbox, to sort and manage the bills. It's been unusually cold in Los angeles, so I was wearing my cozy sweater-boot-slippers to keep my feet warm. The day felt full of potential, and I was energized to fulfill it, so I ran up the lobby steps. So eager. So careless.

Until suddenly, everything turned slo-mo. I didn't have my footing, and although everything felt unsettlingly slow, for some reason, I couldn't move my body to react. BAM. My feet were somehow behind me, the rest of me felt jabbing pain.

Somehow I'd managed to simultaneously land on my glasses, my elbow, my breast, my knee, and all of my thigh at the same time. Well, big, stair-shaped stripes of my thigh. My glasses were chipped, twisted up to my eyebrow, which it gashed open. (a shallow gash, fortunately, but it bled nonetheless.). Most of all, my body ached, back twisted and muscles lashed from the impact.

Shaken and in a lot of multi-sourced pain, I pulled myself up and clued the stairs gingerly back to our condo. All the energy and momentum I felt before was completely gone, like it was jarred out of me on impact. On top of that, all I could think about was my Mother's last fall - the camel-straw that brought her life more rapidly to a close. About how much worse this fall could have been, had I taken it last year at this time, 68 pounds heavier. About how much worse it might be if I lose my way on this life-long journey to better health.

I canceled my plans for the day and went back to bed.

Resting was the best choice for me at the time. But the choices that followed? Not so much. A day in bed after a fall turns out very much like a day in bed with a cold. I get bored. And we all know what happens when I'm bored, especially when I'm not feeling well. One less-than-ideal food choice turns into two not-so-great exercise choices turns into ten really-awful moments of negative self-talk. And then I feel even worse. And not surprisingly, that same pound that's been torturing me - the one I had lost last Tuesday - was found again.

Luckily, my weekend was full of previously-scheduled engagements, and when I'm feeling down on myself, nothing helps me see things more clearly than time with friends and loved ones. Today I feel back to normal, with that same momentum I had a week ago. I'm out doing errands and Christmas shopping today, and my gear for Slimmons is packed and in my car (which is currently having an oil change.)

Now, to maintain that momentum for as long as I'm able... And not to be hard on myself when I'm not. That's the real trick. Just gotta take care of me. You take care of you, too.