I was out of commission for almost 6 months. When you fracture a vertebrae in your spine, there is no quick fix. There is pain every single day. There is chiropractic sessions twice weekly that are not pleasant. There is stretching that hurts. You still have to move around to get through daily life, but even breathing isn't comfortable. You can't stop living life, moving around, working, etc., so recover is slower. It sucked. I catered 5 large events (one of which was J's wedding, which I was SO honored to cater! It was awesome and worth it!!) with a fractured back and couldn't stand up straight or breathe deeply by the end of the events.
Things happen. There will be setbacks in life sometimes. It's never going to be a perfectly straight, flat path. There will be twists and turns. There will be pot holes and bumps. Flat tires will come up unexpectedly. This was my flat tire. It took 6 months to fix (and the vertebrae is still pushed forward about 50%, but it's not fractured anymore) and now I'm back on the road.
Unfortunately, in that time, I gained 40lbs back. It's amazing how easily it'll just sneak back on without you realizing it. I knew I would gain some back, since exercise was temporarily out for me. But when the depression hit, the emotional eating came back with a vengeance. I was back to eating habits I had before I started this whole thing.
So, about 2 months ago, I began the healthy eating again. I began to also eat breakfast again (as I also got into the bad habit of no eating all day, then gorging on dinner and night snacks). I picked up a vegan protein powder that I could take to work so I would eat lunch again. In this time, my mom also found out she was gluten intolerant. This helped because it caused me to be more conscious again of what was in the food I was preparing, as well as having to prepare more food at home, and from scratch, in order to ensure it did not contain gluten.
One month ago, I started training again with J! How exciting!! We're still being careful with my back. But he's still kicking my butt, so that's good. I'm also doing one day of yoga per week, and 2-3 days of cardio. I'm definitely not where I was before the injury. I can run, but not nearly as much. Lighter weights feel heavier. Even 30-45 minutes of power walking feels more strenuous. But I'm doing it, nonetheless. Now that it's warmer out, I'm walking the mile and a half to work much more often.
Then, last weekend happened. I was decorating for a friend's birthday party and tripped and fell over some decorations (a piñata, to be exact. You're allowed to laugh at the fact that I could injure myself on a piñata) and hurt my foot. After a night of walking on it and climbing stairs, I woke up the next morning with a lot of pain, swelling, and a hard lump. So to urgent care I went, just to make sure nothing was fractured. Fortunately, it was just a foot sprain. But I had to wear one of those post-op walking boot things for a few days, keep my foot elevated, I wasn't even supposed to work (but I did anyway). So last week I couldn't work out until Friday. Oh, and I pinched my sciatic nerve again a couple weeks ago, so lower body workouts have been out.
Even with the minor set backs this past month, though, I have lost 9 pounds. It's not as much as it could've been, but I'm very happy with the results so far and I know it'll be a lot better next month.
I'm back at it and hopeful :)
