I broke my ankle in a motorcycle accident about 7 years ago and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. Not the accident, that was actually so tame that I didn't realize I had broken anything and walked it off. I actually drove myself to the hospital in my car and all they did was treat my road rash and send me on my way. It never occurred to me or anyone else that I might have broken bones in me until the next day when i woke up and my ankle was the size of a grapefruit.
I tried to "walk it off" and made it one step before collapsing on the ground. I'm gonna call BS for those scenes in a movie where someone just ties a stick to their broken leg and then carries on in some sort of jungle pursuit. NO WAY that they did that.
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After getting to the hospital and then getting proper treatment, it was pretty remarkable how much I wasn't in pain at all. I didn't even receive any sort of special pain killers for this to be the case. This was the first time I had ever broken any bone in my body and I thought it was pretty crazy about how much it didn't hurt at all. Of course I was keeping my leg elevated and not walking on it at all, at least for the first month or so but towards the end I was just walking on the cast because I was bored of crutches.
I recall the last time I went to the "bone doctor" (not looking that one up) the doc advised me to keep the cast on for another month and I said "get this thing off of me, I'll just be careful" he again advised me to keep it on and I told him that if he didn't get it off of me I was going to have my friend terry cut it off of me with a rotary saw in my garage.
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Doc didn't call me on my bluff and agreed to get the cast off of me but I had to sign a waiver that stated I was going against the docs advice and this would relieve him, and the hospital of any sort of liability. I really wanted that thing off my leg so I agreed and just like I promised I took it very easy on my foot for the next 6 months or so.
Here is the kicker though. During those 3 months of having my leg wrapped up like a burrito I was doing no activity. I was simply sitting on the sofa watching TV and waiting for the next pizza deliver to occur. I was drinking beer but probably a lot less than I normally would but I was not paying any attention to what I eat. Prior to this injury I was already putting on a bit of weight, but once I sat on my butt for 3 months it was pretty clear that this was going to be a one-way street for me and the bad habits I developed out of necessity had become the norm for me.
I would eventually balloon up to nearly 250 lbs, which isn't bad for a football player. Hell, that isn't nearly enough actually. But i was 250 lbs of fatness, not fitness. I also smoked, and we all know that you shouldn't do that.
It wasn't until years later after some trauma happened in my life that I decided to turn things around because I looked in the mirror and I hated the guy that was staring back at me. I got serious on that day because I knew that my ideal weight was around 70 lbs lighter than the person who was staring back at me.
It's odd to me that physical trauma is what resulted in me becoming a fat ass in the first place and mental trauma is what resulted in me heading back in the other direction. The only struggle I deal with these days is that I tend to take it too far with the beers and that is likely what got me in trouble in the first place.
I suppose I am just rambling now but I just want everyone out there that is looking in the mirror unhappy with the person that is staring back that it is never too late to start... you just have to really want it. My transition resulted in me going from around 175 to 240 over the course of a year and then staying at around 220-240 for 3 years and then eventually getting angry enough at myself to change things and got serious enough to get myself back down to 185 in the past 18 months. I could probably lose the last 10 based on the level of activity that I do these days, but this would incorporate cutting beer out of my life totally and I don't know if i am ready for that yet. I am still a normie afterall.
pre bone break, to post bone break, to once I decided to change my life and be a bit more healthy