One year anniversary!

Good morning friends! A year ago today I began my weight loss journey. I attended a weight loss seminar while contemplating surgery and that's when I was introduced to MFP. I'm very thankful something good came out of that seminar as I found out a day later that weight loss surgery or programs were not covered by my health insurance company. That was a good push because it got me mad!
So, to see where I was at, I ate my normal crappy food for a few days making sure to log everything into MFP. Yikes! 3500-4000 calories a day! What an eye opener! Time to take all the information in the seminar and put it to good use. Make better food choices and control food portions. So I purchased a scale and it's been getting used ever since - batteries have been changed twice already!
The next problem was activity. How do I get active when I make sedentary people look like marathon runners? I could barely make one block to the nearest store - it felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. Same thing with stairs - one flight and then rest until I couldn't hear the pounding of my heart any more which was usually 10-15 minutes. I purchased some exercise equipment - stationary bike, punching bag, weight bench and a mat. I tried pulling myself up from the floor onto the bench - that's not going to happen. The stationary bike and punching bag were just 5 minutes at a time but I did love using the mat to do a lot of stretching even if it was hell to try and get up from the floor.
Next problem was to get moving. I knew I wasn't able to go very far - I had zero stamina. The first thing I decided on was to walk during commercials while I was watching TV. I figured I could handle 30-60 seconds of walking. That's where the movement begins. Eventually, I was able to get around the block even though I was in the slow lane. A big day for me was November 3rd of 2015 - election day. I decided to push myself to walk to the polling station to vote. I was exhausted by the time I made it there! Sweating profusely in the hot 60 degree weather! The total trip was 1.2 miles. My legs and feet ached for a couple of days and had blisters on my toes and feet. So the walking had begun. I also made sure to purchase proper footwear after that 'long' walk - using tape and gauze on my toes.
A day I consider to be a milestone day is Thanksgiving 2015. It also happened to be my birthday! Well, I took all the controls off that day except for logging food. I didn't have a scale with me, as I was spending the day with friends so I guesstimated a lot! Nothing was off limits! I estimated about 5000 calories! I was having a helping of everything! I probably even had more than 5000 calories because the cheesecake (one of my weaknesses) alone was probably 1200 calories! Took me nearly two weeks to recover from that one day - I was only able to lose about a pound during those two weeks. I was proud I hadn't gained but realized I had to have some measure of control. So a bad day from that point forward should only be about 2200 calories. Also, I made a deal with myself - if I have one of those days planned that I would earn it through exercise. It would be my reward for exercising beyond my normal plan. This worked great at Christmas and New Years. I sampled and tasted most of all the goodies of the holiday while controlling my food portions and I still had a small piece of cheesecake - measured to the gram of course. I don't know but something definitely clicked in my head at that point because all foods began to taste good!
The next milestone date was January 4th - the day my Fitbit HR was delivered. It is recommended you take 10,000 steps a day or 5 miles. Yikes! Really? 5 miles? How? The first couple days using the Fitbit showed me how little progress I had made in activity! 2000-5000 steps. I began pushing myself to hit 10,000 steps daily even if it wasn't 5 miles - damn short strides! The steps began to add and eventually I hit 35,000 steps in one day. I can now comfortable hit 15k without any residual pain.
There have been some physical set backs on the way. My left shoulder had been bothering me for quite some time and was really affecting my punching power on the heavy bag - it would hurt to land a punch and it would have no snap even when I threw it - cortisone shot took care of that problem. Shin splints - very painful but only relieved through rest and ice (thank you Tracy for the diagnosis - saved me a doctor visit!) Arthritis in my left ankle derailed my walking for a bit but with medication, rest, ice, compression and elevation that problem has become manageable. And the most recent setback was a broken foot but has recovered nicely.
The comparisons from a year ago:
1. 7x coat - comfortably in a 2x
2. 6x pant size to xl-2x
3. 6x shirt to xl-2x
4. I can comfortably walk 5 miles in a day
5. I enjoy cooking and trying new foods
6. I'm happy about my life even though there are so many challenges ahead
7. I've lost 165lbs

I couldn't have done this without all my MFP friends! Seeing all the different struggles, the sharing of problems, the sad times, happy times, anger, laughter, - the full range of emotions is healthy. No more bottling things up. It's important to find out what works for you. I'm not here to tell anyone how to do this because we all are unique but here to encourage, share problems and hopefully share a laugh or two! Time to get my day started!

Dave