Stairs

I never really thought about how many stairs I go up and down in a day until my birthday last September.  That's when my knees and hips began to hurt.  My knees and hips hurt and my husband Jay and I were trying to sell our house to move into a 2nd floor apartment.  A 2nd floor apartment with a 2nd floor of it's own.  All those stairs, 27 in all, started to scare me.  By December my knees hurt so bad it was difficult for me to get up from the couch.  My office at work is on the 2nd floor of a 2 story building and I was taking the elevator every day.  At this point I had already decided to do something about my weight and fitness level in the new year, but thinking of climbing 14 stairs every day to get to my apartment made me feel desperate.

Have you ever felt desperate about something?  Desperate enough to leave your comfort zone and actually do something about your situation?  For a very long time I have struggled with my weight.  I have been overweight for most of my life.  I have been unhappy about my body for just as long.  But I never felt desperate, at least not desperate enough to really step out of my comfort zone and make real lifestyle changes.  But being 31-years-old and worried about climbing stairs because of my knees made me feel desperate.

I've lost 40lbs since January 13th.  That is something that I'm proud of, but the thing that I'm more proud of is that I've made real lifestyle changes that I feel I can continue for the rest of my life.  Not only have I changed the amount of calories I take in each day, but how I look at food, how I grocery shop, how I prep meals for the week, and how I exercise.  These changes have helped me in so many ways, and my body doesn't hurt anymore.  I climbed 40 stairs at work today, from the basement to the 2nd floor, and when I got to the top the only thing I could think was "wow, my knees don't hurt".