One dictionary definition of complacent is: Satisfied with the current situation and unconcerned with changing it, often to the point of smugness.
Well, I am not too sure about the smugness part, but I do know that any time on my journey from 424 pounds to a healthy life that I became complacent I soon found myself in trouble.
Details Matter
Take for example when I decided I did not need to weigh and measure my food because I was pretty much eating the same things each day so I knew their calorie and protein count.
This happened to me for the first time about 6 months into my journey and then again at various times along the way. I was either losing weight with textbook regularity or maintaining my new weight. What happened was simple- my jeans began to feel tighter, my joints began to hurt a little more AND I found myself hungrier throughout the day…..oops, backslide, back to weighing, measuring, and tracking my food. Then the jeans fit properly again and the scale was my friend in many ways.
Logical Consequences
How about the time I stopped keeping track of how much water I had drank in a day? What happened then? Well, once I began keeping an eye on it, I realized I was barely squeezing in the 64 ounces my doctor “prescribed.” I found that perhaps the cause of my headaches, muscle weakness and fatigue, and all-over malaise and achiness could be traced back to my lack of hydration - not to mention constipation that the lack of hydration caused or the fact that I was hungry all the time. Hmmm – easy fix, set up a plan for getting in the 80 ounces of water minimum that my body likes.
Fitness
Then there is fitness.
For the first year, my only fitness was walking into and around first the grocery store, then the big box stores, and finally the mall. I was slow as a snail, but I was doing it. I totally ignored my doc’s recommendation of 30 minutes per day and just did what “I could”. Then the weight loss started slowing down and I did not like that. The solution was obvious even though I chose to ignore it for many months more: a regular fitness routine. Mind you, I was still over 3oo pounds, and my joints hurt so I decided to get into the water and within 6 months built up my swimming laps from one lap to swimming for 30 minutes to an hour 7 days a week. As the years passed, I added first a little treadmill and some strength training to my routine, and now I strength train for an hour twice weekly and elliptical for 45 minutes those same 2 days and swim 5 days a week for at least 45 minutes. I work out with a trainer so I am constantly challenged there, and I challenge myself on the elliptical by “running” high-intensity intervals. It took me several years to work up to it and now I am running at least a 5k (3.11 miles) in 45 minutes on the elliptical.
At 68 years young, I am proud of that.
Bottom Line
What is my point here you ask? My point is simply that I take nothing for granted. I KNOW what it takes to be a successful weight loss surgery patient and to reach my goal and maintain it, which is the truth. The not-so-apparent truth is that unless I CHOOSE to take the actions that fit my new healthy lifestyle the majority of the time I cannot and will not maintain my weight and my freedom of movement and my health at this level that I enjoy.
My question to all of you on your journeys is simply – Have YOU become complacent?
If your answer is yes, What are YOU willing to do about it?