Wheelchair OR 5K... I think I'll RUN!

So let's review.  Last August, I was writing goodbye messages to my kids in my journal and challenging The Almighty to finish up anything he had for me to accomplish in this life because I was done.  I was in constant debilitating pain.  The doctors had long since let me know that there was nothing to be done to improve my lot, they could only treat the symptoms.  Since I clearly didn't have the "willpower" to lose weight and I wasn't a candidate for weight loss surgery due to my history of blood clots, I would just have to try to manage the symptoms and accept that I would be in a wheelchair soon.  There was talk of amputating my leg because of the damaged circulation from a massive blood clot 20 years ago.  My knee had been a mess since 1982 when I shattered the knee cap and it was now bone-on-bone with bone spurs and arthritis and scar tissue.  My right shoulder was also "permanently" compromised from multiple tears in the rotator cuff that they couldn't operate on so it also had scar tissue, bone spurs and arthritis.  I had undergone physical therapy which helped a lot.  I was able to effectively use my right arm again at least.  Couldn't do overhead tasks with it and it caused me a great deal of pain but it was at least functional.  The stated goal of the PT with my shoulder and knee were to give me enough mobility to perform basic personal tasks on my own.  Like dressing myself and going to the bathroom. 
I also had ruptured discs in my back twice and had others that were deteriorating.  I was told I had "degenerative disc disease."  And then, in early 2013 came Paget's.  The pain in my back started becoming really unbearable over the 2012 holidays and I was afraid I had or was about to rupture another disc.  It turns out I actually had developed a disease called Paget's disease of the bone.  It was causing the bones in my pelvis and hip to become very soft and the combination of that with my severe obesity (I was about 320 at that point) was causing remodeling (deformities) in the bones.  It caused excrutiating pain to even have to sit upright in a kitchen chair or the seat of a car.  Walking was...  torture.  I had become effective house bound.  Rarely left my bedroom.
I had other medical issues; autoimmune disorders - Hashimoto's thyroiditis, myasthenia gravis, fibromyalgia - high blood pressure, irritable bowel.  Needless to say I took a number of perscription pills each day.  In July of 2013 I was a serious mess and had also started having symptoms of congestive heart failure.  I hid this and avoided my doctor as I had made the decision that I wasn't going to seek treatment.  That I was, in fact, going to stop taking ALL the pills and let nature take it's course.  I figured a stroke from the blood pressure would put me out of my, and everyone else's, misery quickly enough.
On August 17th, I was watching movies on Netflix and a movie came up in my "recommended for you" section called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and the rest is history!  That was a Saturday.  Thursdays were my husbands paydays so on the 22nd I cleared out every single thing in my house that couldn't be juiced and stocked up.  I started my juice fast on August 23rd, 2013.  I consider that my "rebirth-day."  I don't live in pain anymore.  I swim and walk for exercise and have no issues with sitting, standing, walking, getting up and down off my knees, squatting.  But I haven't run yet.  I haven't run on land in over 25 years, maybe closer to 30.  I used to jog in the water, which I'm sure looked pretty crazy, because I didn't want my body to lose the muscle memory of HOW to run.  
So yesterday I was on Facebook and my oldest daughter, Bonni, posted that she had set up a team for the Tulsa Glow Run.  If anyone wanted to join her, it would be on August 23rd.  It took about a nanosecond for me to say, "I'll do it."  WHAT?!?!?!  Nine months ago I could walk across my yard without my son or husband to lean on! Even when I was active in my teens and twenties, I was into horses and swimming.  Never ran a race in my life! Was I crazy?!  Well, maybe so.  But just watch me run, baby.  I have 100 days to train.  I will be doing the Couch To 5K program 3 days a week and swimming 2-3 days.  
JUICE ON YA'LL!  I GOT THIS!!

Plateaus, Set Points and Other Boogeymen

I have said many times that even if I never lost another pound, I would continue to eat a plant-based diet and drink green juice because it has given me back my health.  I would reassure others who hit weight plateaus for a week or two to just keep at it and the weight would start to go down again.  Our bodies sometimes need time to adjust to this new way of being and doing, especially if we have been very overweight for a very long time.  I had been from 280 to 340 for a couple of decades.  So mid-March when I hit a plateau, I had to put my money where my mouth is so to speak.  I hit a plateau.  I hit 265 and my body froze, looked at me in horror and said, "Are you kidding me?  We're melting like the wicked witch after she got watered down by Dorothy! This ain't right!!!  Do you WANT to disappear?  What if there's a famine?  This is dangerous!  You can't just go losing weight willy nilly I tell you!"  
It didn't help that I had several extra-curricular stress activities pop up during this same time frame.  If you don't know or understand what the stress hormone, Cortisol, can do to weight loss efforts, look up Dr. John Bergman on youtube.  He explains it better than anyone else I've seen.  
So for a couple of weeks, I was totally zen about this plateau.  Seriously.  I really didn't let it bother me because I understood what was happening.  I had hit a lower weight than I'd seen in at least 15 years.  When it had been a month, I started to get worried in that scared, secret, small place inside me that has always feared this new found health and energy will be ripped away.  Right at this same time I was getting super busy trying to pack and clean to move out of this house finally.  After several months of planning to move, we are finally actually moving.  We HAVE to be out of this house by the end of the month even if it means camping out at the lake until we can find something else.  Long story....  anyway, I was extremely busy and having to use every coping mechanism I had not to let the stress get to me.  We had a very, very hard winter financially along with some other life stressors so it was no surprise, really, that the weight loss stalled.  Knowing and understanding that and dealing with seeing that number stay the same every day are two different things.  Actually, it didn't stay exactly the same.  My weight, as with most people, can fluctuate 3-5 pounds in any given week which is the main reason I usually weigh daily. So I had hit that 265 for about 2 days when my weight started doing a gentle rollercoaster up and down and up and down from 266 to 269 for weeks.  So I put the scale away.  I didn't want worry over that number to pull my focus away from the main thing which is my health.  I just played Dory and kept on swimming... and eating my plants and making my juice.  As Spring came on strong, I did what I had always planned to do and shifted more to raw fruits and salads and less soups and starches. Not a big shift but just a bit more of this and a bit less of that.  It felt right.  I felt a boost in energy almost immediately.  
I was out of town for over a week and got home last Wednesday night.  Thursday morning I decided to pull out the scale and see where I was at and it said 266.  Okay.  Saturday morning, 264.  Hey!  Monday morning, today, 261!  Yeah!  Bye-bye plateau!  I learned from you.  I let you be and you let me be and now we must part ways.  See ya!
That plateau lasted nearly two months.  I learned that I really do have the power of my convictions within me to put my health first.  I really felt that my body would eventually begin to seek a healthier weight once again.  But I knew that if it didn't or if it took a year or two for that to happen, I would be okay in the meantime as long as I continued to flood my body with real nutrition.  I learned some valuable lessons about myself.  I have said many times that how I feel is far more important than how I look and I proved to myself that this was true.  I've said that I have learned to trust my body.  Now I've proven it.  I've also proved to myself that if the scale becomes a detriment, I can just put it away.  
I recently watched a video shared by my friend, Lori.  It was posted by a bariatric surgeon and explained how our bodies will establish "set points" at a very high weight.  He went into the anthropology of it all.  His point was to make us feel hopeless to lose the weight without surgery.  FALSE.  The problem is that most people hit those points where their body is trying to adjust to the changes you've made, the weight loss slows or stops so they tighten down on the calories even more.  They starve their cells which makes the body freak out even more.  "Starvation!  She's trying to kill us!"  If you hit your plateau - or your new "set point" - and you just keep FLOODING your body with amazing nutrition, your body WILL relax and realize that it is safe to allow more of that weight to go.  Truth.  Doctors selling hopelessness to line their pockets make me sick.  Right up until I drink my green juice or eat my bowl of fruit or salad.  THAT makes me very, very well:)
JUICE ON YA'LL.  WE GOT THIS!!