I Chose...Wisely
- Frank Weber
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
By Frank Weber
Copyright ©2025
Every good thing in this life has a price attached to it.
Nothing that is good in this life, in any way, will ever be free.
There is always a price that must be paid.
A little over ten years ago, I went on a fitness rampage and I lost 100lbs.
I felt great in that regard.
Clothes fit so well that I longer had to try on even jeans – I could just pick up a pair of 32’s off the shelf and they always fit. Sometimes even a little on the loose end.
I can’t explain the feeling of surging emotions when I would walk into a bar – or ANY place for that matter, and eyes turned to me.
It’s the inherent human need to feel ‘wanted’ and at that point in time, I WAS most definitely ‘wanted’. Nothing ever came out of it all, but that didn’t really matter to me.
Point was, I had one more ever-present justification to keep pushing myself as viciously as I had been for the few years before then.
To say I sacrificed in my personal life would be a ghastly understatement.
I did. And I did it willingly and whole-heartedly.
Because I could not only see the results, but I COULD FEEL THE RESULTS.
And it felt GOOD.
Strange thing is, I never truly allowed myself to ENJOY my life at that time.
I was all about self-sacrifice to keep that ball rolling.
The whole scenario brought about an overwhelming air of confidence in every aspect of my life.
All except one. That one exception was the price that I was forced to pay for losing all that weight and feeling so emotionally strong. It was the price I was forced to pay for feeling ‘that’ good. Sad part is, I knew it all along, but there was no way I was EVER going to allow it to stop what was happening. As a result, the REAL world – the price I was forced to pay – kept cracking and crumbling in the background.
Well, in MY background.
EVERYONE ELSE around me saw what was really happening to my body, and even though they incessantly badgered me over it, I never listened. I was too willing to accept that price.
That price was my degenerating hips – both of them by that time. Both of them all but fused in the sockets.
And back then, I chose…poorly.
Had it just been the degenerative arthritis, things may have been different, but when you throw in a work hip injury and several years of long-distance running, my time was cut way too short.
Slowly, and piece by piece, segments of my workouts and lifestyle began to break off and fall away into nothingness. The changes were so gradual that I was actually able to convince myself they didn’t matter because I could just change my workouts and get the same results.
No dice.
The workouts and lifestyle were pinpoint-particular to my body at the time they began.
They did not – and would not – ever translate into ANY other phase of my life.
And so, one by one, each and every one of my gains disappeared. Still, I refused to admit it to myself.
After 8 years’ time – since that first scale reading of 185lbs – almost all of it was gone.
And worse, by this point, I could no longer walk without shuffling my feet. I couldn’t even lift them off the ground.
Almost all gone, but not entirely. So, I kept on trying and grasping for that one branch to help pull me out. Of course, it never came, and my suffering then increased exponentially.
I pushed my body so far and so ridiculously beyond livable thresholds that I came close to actual DEATH. I’m NOT being dramatic in this regard. I came dangerously close to dropping over dead from it.
Now, ALL of it was gone.
Everything that made me feel good was now gone.
I began to put the weight back on. 100lbs of loss became 75lbs and that became 50lbs.
I no longer felt all that good about myself.
No one cared when I walked into a room. Now they gave me looks of pity as if to say, “Look at that poor guy…he looks like he’s in so much pain.”
Some did say exactly that to me.
Everything was gone and there was no way to get any of it back.
When the depression became too deep and I could no longer stand the couple-inches shuffle of my feet just to move, I went back to my doctor.
That was when I found out that my RESTING blood pressure was 180/110!
I was in a position to keel over dead at any minute, so I immediately started a meds regimen and that helped. But in the end, the high blood pressure was caused by the horrendous pain that I had trained myself to ignore. Once I had the first hip replaced, it dropped to a RESTING reading of 140/90. After the other hip was replaced seven weeks later, it settled at 120/80 – my IDEAL level!
That’s the range I live in now.
Prior to my surgeries, both my hip joints had completely fused. It hurt to sit and NOT move.
The amount of pain I actually, quite literally absorbed is STILL unimaginable to me!
My surgeon put it to me like this, “You want to end the pain? Ok. You have ONLY two choices…replace both hips or die. That’s all you got.”
He’s a good man. I owe him a lot.
I had pretty much written off running in any capacity, but I still held out hope that maybe I could workout enough and eat well enough to drop the weight back off.
I had NO idea that it DOES NOT work that way.
Then I developed blood clots in my leg and the meds I was forced to take all but destroyed my body. Even now, a good year after I took the last pill – and was declared free of all clots – I can feel those effects. I’m weakened. I get winded and lightheaded so easily. If I get a head of steam and try to do more than the absolute minimum, I’m wasted for the day. It’s a daily Sisyphean struggle.
So I began to calm down.
It took SO much inner reflection for me to fully understand myself.
I EARNED the life I live now.
I didn’t get to this point by sinking into the couch with a bucket of fried chicken.
I did have some good times, and I did feel good.
I put a lot of the weight back on, and it would appear that it is here to stay.
But now I think that it’s all OK. I’m able to exercise for my own personal health – to look at me, no one could guess what I actually do.
Getting used to the weight coming back after losing so much after having been fat most of my life is the most difficult part, I think.
But I tell myself, “You lived more of life than a lot of people ever will.”
And I tell myself, “You’ve earned this body and you have earned this time of rest.
And most importantly, I can walk again. I can walk freely again.
I can walk so well now that I have to keep reminding myself of my two replacement surgeries because they seem so distant.
When all was said and done, and I was just barely surviving the consequences of my own behaviors, I had a decision to make:
“Do I have both hips replaced and live the life those surgeries could bring me or no?”
It was the stark reality that I had to face.
It was the price I had to pay.
And now, looking back on everything that was and looking around at everything that is..
I chose…wisely!
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