Debworks and Health: Part One

I’m writing a series about my personal journey to better health.  This is the first entry in that series.  What does it have to do with business?  Everything.  How we treat ourselves is how we treat others.  How we talk to ourselves is how we talk to our employees.  How we feel affects our decisions, actions and our businesses.  This year Hamilton County, Iowa is focusing on health and how it relates to business.  This is my personal blog where I share things I’ve learned along the way as they relate to business.  Thank you for reading my story.

November 5 I started training with Randy from Lucky Shot Athletics.  We’ve met once a week, almost every week, since then.

My first two months I did pretty well.  I lost a few pounds, over 14 inches and felt a lot better.

Then life came into the picture.  Lots of work related events that required my time and attention.  My mom’s health is not getting better.  I’m in the end stages of a divorce.  These things all led to a lot of stress.

And I deal with stress by eating.  Comfort food like bread and ice cream and hamburgers.  Potato chips, cheese and burritos.  One day I found myself sitting in my chair, reading a book and cheese drooling down my face as it fell off the potato chip and thought “oh, this is how I deal with stress!”

Years of “here, have a cookie, you’ll feel better” and “let’s go out to eat and celebrate” help to sink in the idea that comfort and rewards come in the form of food. 

Then throw in this damn winter weather.  It’s cold, abnormally so.  There’s no sunlight.  You have to wear a ton of clothes to even be slightly warm enough.  I suffer from depression, take medication for it, and it is worse in the winter.

So stress and bad eating kick off my IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome).  Suffice it to say I spend a lot of time in the bathroom, I have problems with inflammation all over my body, and I want to sleep a lot.

 I’ve been here before, this space in the weight loss game.  Fired up for a few months, then find many reasons to fail.  Not my fault!  Stress!  IBS!  Depression!   And I quit. 

Not this year, not this year.  I’ve ran and crawled to the edge of the cliff and damn-it, I’m jumping into my future!  There WILL be either wings to help me fly or a net to catch me in a new place. 

Thursday come back and find out what helped me make the decision to continue, why it’s so important to my work that I go forward, and what I’m doing to make a difference … starting with my own life.