Assessing the Damage

In the last three months, I've had some pretty serious changes.

• In February, I was diagnosed with a 7mm protrusion from my L5-S1 (that's the bottom non-fused vertebrae in the lower lumbar spine).
  
• In April (on my dad's birthday), I quit smoking.
• During the last couple weeks of April, I realized I was seriously packing on the pounds from having quit smoking (and, let's face it, I was no skinny minnie to start with).

Ah...so basically, I'm a mess.

Shortly after I found out that my back was broken, I began doing some serious looking-over with my typical diet and lack of fitness work. It was a pretty bleak picture.

I'm married to a metabolism on legs. He can (and does) eat anything he likes without consequence. It has always been this way for him and it's a fact that does not change even during prolonged periods of sedentary behavior for him.

Not so with me.

Once upon a time, in a not-so-distant place and time, I was a fairly fit specimen. I was smoking a pack a day but, aside from the black lung, I was doing well. I worked out 5 or 6 times per week and had maintained a healthy weight of 140 and a size 6 for a little over two years. In the months right before getting pregnant, however, I began taking some medication that caused me to put on about 20 pounds really quickly. To compound that, I felt like crap during my pregnancy and I didn't work out often at all. On top of that, my OB/GYN forbade aerobic exercise. That reduced me to sporadic stretching...but it's not like I argued with her about it. I didn't over-gain during pregnancy, but I still had that 20 pounds sitting there after it was all over and about 6 or 7 little friends to keep them company.

The upshot of my sob story is that I chunked out a bit and got really, really out of shape...and then my back blew up. So one night in March, I got it into my head that I ought to quit smoking, start working out, and lose those pre-baby pounds that I've been holding onto for almost 3 years, now. You know--so that my back can heal and I won't have to let someone cut my back open to fix the problem with surgery.

So here I am... and this is what "here" looks like:

Weight: 176
Bust Cup: 43
Bust Band: 35.75
Waist: 37.25
Right Thigh: 24
Left Thigh: 24
Left Arm: 13
Right Arm: 13.25