In tough times food becomes a source of comfort and creates a vicious cycle. You gain weight, nothing fits, you get upset so you eat more food for comfort, gain more weight, get more upset and eat even more...
In order to break away from this, the most important and toughest step is admitting the problem. It took me a few more months to realize that I was using food and alcohol to comfort myself during this pain ridden difficult time. The key challenge with this problem, which millions of people worldwide deal with, is that there is no easy fix for this. I did't know what to do about it or how to fix it.
Amidst all this chaos, in a rare moment of sanity, I decided to try meditation. I signed myself up for a 10 day residential course on the outskirts of the city and without thinking landed there. In hindsight, had I thought a lot about it I would not have attended the course.
I will not get into the details of the course in this blog (you can read about it here in stead) but it helped me stop using food and alcohol for emotional comfort - the first step towards recovery! I stopped gaining more weight and started thinking about how to shed the 40 pounds that I had gained.
Now that I was controlling my diet and weight gain had stopped, the second step was exercise. I had been exercising on and off - walking, elliptical trainer, yoga but I wasn't able to push myself too hard due to the pain. By this time I had started private therapy sessions with Praveen as my schedule at work was more hectic than ever and I was unable to find time to go to the centre for treatment.
While the doctor was still against me exercising, Praveen said that we would start slowly and that he will help manage the pain with therapy. Under his guidance, I started incline walking on treadmill and as expected the pain did go up but with extra therapy and my determination and his motivational words, I kept increasing the incline and speed and distance walked.
There were many times when I felt discouraged either because of pain or when I would think of how I used to run at high speeds for an hour or so before fibromyalgia, but I didn't stop working out. First I increased the time to 20 minutes, then I increased the incline, then the speed and then time again ...and in a few weeks I was walking for 30 minutes at 6 kmph at an incline of 10.
I had broken out of the state of inertia, I had taken 2 important steps - stopped using food for comfort and started a walking regimen. While I knew that there were many many more steps that I would need to take to reach fitness levels of an average individual, I refused to think about it. I kept my focus and directed all my energy to putting one step in front of another!
In order to break away from this, the most important and toughest step is admitting the problem. It took me a few more months to realize that I was using food and alcohol to comfort myself during this pain ridden difficult time. The key challenge with this problem, which millions of people worldwide deal with, is that there is no easy fix for this. I did't know what to do about it or how to fix it.
Amidst all this chaos, in a rare moment of sanity, I decided to try meditation. I signed myself up for a 10 day residential course on the outskirts of the city and without thinking landed there. In hindsight, had I thought a lot about it I would not have attended the course.
I will not get into the details of the course in this blog (you can read about it here in stead) but it helped me stop using food and alcohol for emotional comfort - the first step towards recovery! I stopped gaining more weight and started thinking about how to shed the 40 pounds that I had gained.
Now that I was controlling my diet and weight gain had stopped, the second step was exercise. I had been exercising on and off - walking, elliptical trainer, yoga but I wasn't able to push myself too hard due to the pain. By this time I had started private therapy sessions with Praveen as my schedule at work was more hectic than ever and I was unable to find time to go to the centre for treatment.
While the doctor was still against me exercising, Praveen said that we would start slowly and that he will help manage the pain with therapy. Under his guidance, I started incline walking on treadmill and as expected the pain did go up but with extra therapy and my determination and his motivational words, I kept increasing the incline and speed and distance walked.
There were many times when I felt discouraged either because of pain or when I would think of how I used to run at high speeds for an hour or so before fibromyalgia, but I didn't stop working out. First I increased the time to 20 minutes, then I increased the incline, then the speed and then time again ...and in a few weeks I was walking for 30 minutes at 6 kmph at an incline of 10.
I had broken out of the state of inertia, I had taken 2 important steps - stopped using food for comfort and started a walking regimen. While I knew that there were many many more steps that I would need to take to reach fitness levels of an average individual, I refused to think about it. I kept my focus and directed all my energy to putting one step in front of another!
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