Taking My Body Back from Cancer

I'm looking back at the inches I have lost since I started going to Curves on July 7, 2004. I weighed 152 pounds then. I have a graph that shows a consistent decrease in inches from my beginning date until Nov. 2005. Then I struggled with going up and down for awhile. I remember my weight would keep going back to 138. My lowest weight and lowest number of inches on my body was the summer of 2007. So I have been thinner in the past than I am now.

I’ve been doing well at losing weight and exercising on the diet I began at the first of February 2009. In three weeks I’ve lost 5 ¾ pounds, taken two inches off my hips and 2 ¾ inches from my abdomen. I’ve lost an inch from my chest and an inch from each thigh. And I've lost a whole 1/2 an inch from my waist! Will wonders never cease? (sarcasm) To lose over 5 pounds in 3 weeks is unusual for me. Usually I lose 5 pounds in 5-6 weeks if I stay motivated. That’s IF I stay motivated.

I don’t feel deprived this time because I’m approaching this from a position of power. I’m claiming my body back from cancer. I was strong and fit before I developed the tumors, and I’m going to be strong and as fit as I can be with cancer. I realize I’m going to have to repeat this each time I have surgery or have an increase in tumors. However, right now I feel well enough to take on a challenge.

In the summer of 2007 I was finishing up three years of going to Curves. Five years earlier my weight had climbed to 166 and I didn’t want to see how heavy I had gotten, so I quit weighing myself. A few months later a group of women at church began a class to lose weight together. My goal was to lose 40 pounds, and in five years, I had done that; I weighed 127. My muscles were strong; I even had muscle definition in my arms and legs! In August 2007 I thought I just had to lose 3 more pounds of belly fat to be just right. I had worked out 300 times at Curves and had the T-shirt to prove it. So for the first time in my life I was slim and strong at the same time. And I didn't start excercising regularly until I was 51 years old.

By November 2007, I could hardly excercise at all. I would go to Curves, but be too tired to complete a circuit. In December I remember being in pain when I would work on the machines. In December I also began to have chest pains at times when I was excercising. This is when I acquired a cardiologist and a rheumatologist. My internist, Dr. B, was very thorough in trying to figure out where the problem was.

Now I have cancer. It began when I was at that strong place in 2007. My body was as good as it was going be. All I know now is the song about God that says,

"Let not the rich man boast in his riches. Let not the strong man boast in his strength... I will boast in the Lord most High; I will boast in the One who's worthy!"