Photo by Nick Abramson Unsplash
Once upon a time, a 100 Day Experiment saved my life.
I know that sounds dramatic–but it’s absolutely true.
In 2013, I took a ten-day trip to New York City with my daughter. I came home in so much pain that I couldn’t put my own pants on. My husband literally had to pull my pants up for me. For months.
Around that time, I started snoring at night so loud that my poor husband had to wear ear plugs so he could sleep. (We just celebrated our sixteenth anniversary, so our marriage did survive 2013. He is a patient man.)
He was afraid for me, because before each ear-splitting snore, I stopped breathing.
I was sick. So sick. Everything hurt all the time. I couldn’t stand long enough to make dinner. My whole body was swollen and miserable. I weighed nearly 400 pounds and I was starting to have trouble moving, to the point that I was truly worried about my mobility. I was so tired that I could barely function.
I came across a blog post one day that talked about how much a person needed to to eat just to survive. I did the math and it was way more than I would have expected. For me, in that moment, the number of calories was close to 3000. I was like…come on now.
But, in desperation, I decided to try eating that amount (instead of continuing an insane routine of eating far, far below it, followed by far, far above it — the binge eater’s cycle) and exercising for 10 minutes a day.
A hundred days. I don’t know where that number came from, but I committed myself to doing those two things for 100 days.
It changed my life.
By the end of the 100 days I felt better. I went from barely being able to walk ten minutes a day on day one to swimming 3000 meters on day 100. My pain level decreased drastically. My mood improved dramatically. I didn’t feel sick anymore.
And I was in a position to start to make decisions about my health moving forward.
I had a sleep study and was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea.
I went on a CPAP, which instantly corrected my exhaustion.
I eventually lost 120 pounds and didn’t need a CPAP anymore. The pain stopped.
It’s been six years and I’m still working on myself. But it started with that 100 Day Experiment and I am not even the same person I was before it.