I've got to break free

It's going to be this week, I can feel it. As long as I'm pain free for another day or two, and numb-free.. I'm supposedly pretty much in the clear... for now. Which means cycling is back, watching everything is back, and making sure this never, ever, ever happens again is back. Or.. something?

My back injury has been a major wake-up call. Let's, you know, leave it at that without delving dark into the recesses of everything that happened before and as a result of it. It's really been a first time an injury has been caused by my weight since I was big, and made me realize I don't want to play this game. Quietly I've taken mental inventory, used the month off the bike to think, and to appreciate the times on the bike. Suffice to say, in the end, it was good. During, it was horrible.

A good reminder of why it's worth it came this past weekend. I needed some new dress shirts for work after a, ummm, "dryer mishap" ruined three. So on Sunday while out of town I hit up a retail store or two and picked up some new clothes. While driving back to my in-laws' I thought about how much of a chore it used to be to get clothes, you know, when I was Big.

Clothes are one of my guilty pleasures, I'll admit it. When I was younger, I actually shopping for clothes and being well dressed. As I got Bigger, the options narrowed and narrowed until they were limited to the Big and Tall store(s). Which meant basically I got bland looking gigantic clothes that cost a lot of money. At my biggest I was wearing a size 62 pant that barely fit (my belly flopped over the waist of them), and a 6XL or 7XL shirt - you know, limited options and stuff that essentially looks like a tent come to mind. I hated buying clothes, absolutely hated it. I'd wear stuff until it was falling apart just so I didn't have to go through the experience of going to the Big and Tall again (albeit, I'll admit, at least the staff there was nice).

Now it's nice to be able to buy off the rack in a normal store, at low prices. I bought a pair of khakis on clearance at Cabelas on Sunday, and mused to myself about how much I used to pay for khakis - Dockers fit best at size 62, and at that size 5 years ago they were $75 normally, or $65 on sale. Bland, plain, cheap polo shirts were anywhere from $40-55. If you want some hidden costs of obesity, there it is.

Really, it's all about quality of life. I've struggled with one question in my mind over the past three weeks, and it's a simple one. A simple question, but with so much behind it that defies anything I could continue to post. "Has all this been worth it?"

This morning I sat down, looked out into the gray icy, cold, snowy scape that's outside of my window and asked it once again. A smile crept up my face and the answer finally hit. However many setbacks, challenges, see-saws, "fudges" and utter failures have occurred during this journey. As many times as I've made a post saying "I'M BACK ON TRACK!!" only to fall off a day/week/month later. Or even as many times as the willpower has been utterly and completely lost. No matter how many pounds have been lost, or gained, or lost again.

Yes, yes it has. It absolutely has.