Begin Again!

by annemariedemyen, posted in February 2023, Health and Fitness
Happy Valentine’s Day

It is Valentine’s Day!  Last night my husband and I celebrated with an awesome supper of steak, lobster, crab, baked potato, asparagus, and mushrooms – all barbecued by my husband Dan (after doing the shopping, cleaning up the yard, and shoveling the snow and ice off of our walks). Today, he went out to run errands and returned with this bouquet of roses.   I am too fortunate to have such a good man in my life. 💞 

Today also marks another special occasion for me. 

One year ago today, I was sitting on my rocking chair, wrapped in a shawl, and feeling miserable.  I was cold, tired, and struggling to breathe through my asthma, COPD, and bronchiectasis.  I was seriously overweight.  For days, I had been thinking that I would take it easy for one more day and hope that ‘tomorrow’ I would magically feel well enough to get up and do something to improve my situation.  Finally, one year ago today, I realized that the magic was not going to happen unless I made it happen.   I got off my chair, put in my earbuds, turned on some Buddy Holly, and started to dance.  It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t long until I was wiped out, really struggling to breathe, and my heart was pounding harder than my music.   I had no plan and I had no goals. But… It was a start, the start of my journey to health and fitness.

The next day, I got off my chair and danced again.  It still wasn’t pretty, but I did a bit better and I knew that I was on the right path to regain my health – and my life.

I wasn’t wrong.  This past year has been amazing.  My health has improved, my strength has improved, and my life has improved.  I have discovered and experienced benefits of my fitness journey that I never, ever imagined.

  • Finding my Volley friends Dwight and Jackie, who share this fitness journey with me – every day! Two strangers who have become family to me during these past months.
  • Finding a way to LIVE, and live well, with Asthma, COPD, and Bronchiectasis.
  • Finding peace, and happiness, and hope – despite what happens around me.
  • Finding that I have so much more potential than I ever realized. Finding that I have so much power to create my life, as I wish to live it.
  • Finding how effectively I can use ‘setbacks’ to motivate myself to push forward.
  • Finding that a fitness program is not only for the athletic, or the already strong and healthy, or the young, or those who spend limitless funds on equipment, gym memberships, or designer workout clothes. With free Zumba classes (or Yoga, Pilates, etc.) On You Tube and minimal equipment (dumbbells, resistance bands, yoga balls) one can put together an entertaining and effective workout program – even if one is working with limited workout space.
  • Finding that all one needs to live better is the will and the determination to make it my priority and focus.

 I cannot begin to detail how much, and in how many ways, I have come to appreciate this journey that I am on. I have loved this past year and I am excited and ready to move forward into Year Two. Broken arm and all, I am excited to see where this next year takes me.

Take care and have a great day! 💞🌞

Advertisement

32 thoughts on “Begin Again!”

  10. Crab!!! You are sooo lucky and I am so thankful that you are healthier than you probably have EVER been. That’s amazing. People don’t realize how you have charged through life without being as healthy as you are now. I am so ridiculously proud. Thank God you have the gift of Dan. Such a good man. (He made you crab). Love you like always.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Thank you! And yea – only the really lucky get crab these days! And it was perfect, as was everything else. Yes I am grateful for Dan. He has always been good to me but he has been going over and above since I broke my arm.

    Like

  23. Your dinner sounds absolutely scrumptious and the roses are beautiful. I am so proud of you Anne, what a great job you have done over the last year taking care of yourself and getting better. Hugs. ❤

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Thank you, Mags. I made a ‘hash’ with the leftover steal and potato (plus onions, mushroom, and peppers) for supper tonight. With asparagus on the side. It was still delicious. ☺️. I am happy with the efforts I put in and the benefits I got out of my workouts this year. I am anxious for my arm to heal up enough to get back to full workouts again.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. I am glad you are feeling better, Paul. I am watching ‘My 600 Pound Life’ right now and the young woman highlighted was just talking about how fortunate she is to have her health and her life back. My issues are respiratory, but I could so relate to what she was saying. Getting fit is a second chance that we are fortunate to get. I often get inspiration from this show. ☺️

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s