Today i have an admission to make. I have failed to follow my own advice. Last year was a roller coaster year. It started on January 1st when I lost my Dad. We were not close that last few years but not because I didn't want to be. My dad was just a hard man to get to know and he lived in his own little world. He did not invite many people into that world.
After losing my Dad, I decided to make my life count. I started this blog and I began my journey to become a better me. Over the next few months, I lost 53 pounds by just controlling diet and exercising slightly more. During the first six months of the year, I lost more than weight. I lost my Dad, my boss, and a good friend all in the span of a few months. I was more determined than ever to keep up what I started.
In August, the next blow hit me. I was taken off of blood pressure medicine and the next week, my Dr. called me back in for blood work results: Diabetes. Blood sugar 425 and an A1C of 14! I was floored but I was determined not to let it be my downfall. The next visit was in November. WIth a small dose of insulin daily, I was able to reduce my sugar to normal levels and my A1C was at 7 in just three months. My doctor was happy but I wasn't. I had gained back 25 pounds and was now having more problems with my knee due to the excess weight. A month later I was sent to the Nephrologist to look at excess protein inmy urine. Now I have a definite damage to my kidneys.
The pain in the knee kept me from exercising as I used to and the insulin made me hungry all the time so it was difficult to lose the weight back off. For 6 months, I have exercised little and feel like crap. This week I went to the DR. and the Nephrologist. The doctor still won't take me off the insulin and the Nephrologist says I have Stage 2 Chronic Kidney Disease.
The good news? My A1C is now 6.4! I am on a reduced dose of insulin and with Blood pressure control and continued Sugar control, I should not have to worry about progression of the kidney damage. n Still there is the nagging problem of the weight. Reducing the weight will lower my sugar and my blood pressure and that is a good thing. The issue now is to exercise through the pain in the knee to lose the weight and to lower my BP and hopefully get off the insulin completely.
I will do this because I have no choice. Getting worse is not an option. I choose to get better and I choose to do it on MY terms. See, even the most optimistic persons sometimes lose sight of their goals. Now I am back on track and I will get back to where I was last year before the bad news hit. I am confessing this because I know if I do, I am asking you to place me under a microscope and hold my feet to the fire. Will you? TODAY I CHOOSE CONFESSION!
Friday, April 12, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
TODAY I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN MYSELF!
Do not ever believe it if someone tells you something you want to do can't be done. Well, if someone tells you that you cannot go back in time and change the destiny of your parents--believe that but elsewise don't believe them.
It is a proven fact that the people that are the quickest to tell you something can't be done are the very people that have not done anything themselves. These are usually the same people who will send you emails telling about kidney stealers, Butt Spiders, and needles in gas pumps and McDonalds playgrounds. However rational they think those things are, they find it irrational that you at age 40+ want to run a marathon, change professions, write a book, etc.
The truth is that it is the people who tell you that things are possible are the very ones who are most successful themselves. I want you to know that in the words of Zig Ziglar "Whether you think you can or think you can't...YOU ARE RIGHT." If you think you can climb Mt. Kilimanjaro nude in the winter, then you can. If you think you can become a singer, then try out for The Voice, American Idol, or America's Got Talent.
The only thing holding you back from achieving your personal goals are two things: 1. Having a Goal and 2. Believing you can attain that goal. Below is a symbol of my life over the last twenty-four years. If I had listened to the naysayers, I would have given up and never tried to reach my dreams. As it were, I have accomplished more in the last half of my life than in the first half. Much of it in the last seventeen years.
At age twenty-three I got married and had a minimum wage job, no college and worked as a manager in battery reconditioning retail store. At twenty-six I bought into a partnership in a ladies shoe store. At twenty-eight, my wife was pregnant and we lost our business and I took a job with my previous company and we had our first child while on Medicaid and I worked two jobs.
Six months later, we moved home and I got a job with a restaurant chain in their management program. A year later I was a GM with the company. Three months later, we were pregnant with our second child and I was demoted to Assistant Manager. When my son was six months old, we bought into a second partnership and moved to Missouri to run a Sonic Drive-In as managing partner. Nine months later, we had a parting of ways with our partners and we borrowed $500 from my mother and we moved back home and in with my mother for a few weeks while I waited for a job and a paycheck.
At 31 I joined my present company in the management program. I spent ten years with them as a DM before I got a promotion. I have been with them twenty-two years this year. In those twenty-two years:
At 38 I received a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do; at 39 I was divorced after 17 years of marriage and became a single dad; At 40 I became Director of Training; At 41 I lost my sister. At 43 I married my best friend; At 49 I became a granddad for the first time: At 50 I lost my Mother; At 52 I lost my Father and another sister, two of mentors (one my boss of 22 years), lost 53 pounds, developed diabetes, was promoted to Vice President and this year (still 52) I published my first novel. Never be afraid to take chances; it may be your Chance of a Lifetime.
It is a proven fact that the people that are the quickest to tell you something can't be done are the very people that have not done anything themselves. These are usually the same people who will send you emails telling about kidney stealers, Butt Spiders, and needles in gas pumps and McDonalds playgrounds. However rational they think those things are, they find it irrational that you at age 40+ want to run a marathon, change professions, write a book, etc.
The truth is that it is the people who tell you that things are possible are the very ones who are most successful themselves. I want you to know that in the words of Zig Ziglar "Whether you think you can or think you can't...YOU ARE RIGHT." If you think you can climb Mt. Kilimanjaro nude in the winter, then you can. If you think you can become a singer, then try out for The Voice, American Idol, or America's Got Talent.
The only thing holding you back from achieving your personal goals are two things: 1. Having a Goal and 2. Believing you can attain that goal. Below is a symbol of my life over the last twenty-four years. If I had listened to the naysayers, I would have given up and never tried to reach my dreams. As it were, I have accomplished more in the last half of my life than in the first half. Much of it in the last seventeen years.
At age twenty-three I got married and had a minimum wage job, no college and worked as a manager in battery reconditioning retail store. At twenty-six I bought into a partnership in a ladies shoe store. At twenty-eight, my wife was pregnant and we lost our business and I took a job with my previous company and we had our first child while on Medicaid and I worked two jobs.
Six months later, we moved home and I got a job with a restaurant chain in their management program. A year later I was a GM with the company. Three months later, we were pregnant with our second child and I was demoted to Assistant Manager. When my son was six months old, we bought into a second partnership and moved to Missouri to run a Sonic Drive-In as managing partner. Nine months later, we had a parting of ways with our partners and we borrowed $500 from my mother and we moved back home and in with my mother for a few weeks while I waited for a job and a paycheck.
At 31 I joined my present company in the management program. I spent ten years with them as a DM before I got a promotion. I have been with them twenty-two years this year. In those twenty-two years:
At 38 I received a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do; at 39 I was divorced after 17 years of marriage and became a single dad; At 40 I became Director of Training; At 41 I lost my sister. At 43 I married my best friend; At 49 I became a granddad for the first time: At 50 I lost my Mother; At 52 I lost my Father and another sister, two of mentors (one my boss of 22 years), lost 53 pounds, developed diabetes, was promoted to Vice President and this year (still 52) I published my first novel. Never be afraid to take chances; it may be your Chance of a Lifetime.
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