Spring cleaning were two words that I dreaded coming out of my mom’s mouth. It meant a top to bottom sweep to clean our home to get it ready for another year. Part of doing this manic mad drive in a weeks time included going over one’s closet. As children we were to separate the clothes that we had outgrown or were beyond repair.

Once I was older and on my own that broke down even further into placing in the corner clothes that you could not fit into but would save. You know for the time the weight would be lost. We would be able to fit into every single thing in our wardrobe because after all the pounds would be coming off. That is the lie a lot of us tell ourselves when we do a cleaning of our closets.

I am no exception. Especially since a medication that I was on had ballooned me 38 pounds over. My darling husband had noticed the gain but he had decided I knew and that it was not an issue or the pain relief from the drug was worth it to me. If only he spoken up. First of all the medication was helping slightly and second the gaining of weight had not been noticed by me. Who really looks in a mirror?

When the crap hit the fan, aka the realization of how much my body weighed a plan was formed. The slow and steady format of watching what one ate, counting calories and exercising was the way I went. I monitored week after week and soon month after month as the scale number slowly went down. Slowly is probably an inaccurate word, it took its bloody time to go down.

The added poundage was not good for me especially for someone who has fibro. It effect the joints and the pain just gets enhanced. Exercising was painful due to the condition but not doing so meant my body was hurting even more. While my primary goal was to lose weight to be healthy the underlining reason was to help with the pain to be reduced to any degree.

My main problem was having a fixed number in my head of what I wanted to weigh. It did not matter that the weight was started to be dropped. I kept at it with my regiment. My doctors were noticing well I pointed it out to them. I was proud and at the same time wanted their praise for doing so well. Still that magical number in my head was like a beacon of light never diminishing as it flashed 24/7.

The measurement around one’s waist should not be over 35 inches according to my doctor. Anything higher one is at risk for stroke and heart attacks, Through the many months I went below this number not just slightly but enough for breathing room. They were pleased as well as I was.

Time came to tackle the closet.

To Be Continued- The Closet