Rebalancing my walk

There´s one part of losing weight that I had not, until now, really been aware of.
You see, there´s a difference between the way a thin person walks and a fat person walks. If you are fat, you have more tissue on the inside of the thighs that forces you into a wide-legged gait and more weight to balance out all over. The result looked, at least in me, like a big fat duck waddling along, feet wide apart and with the toes turned outward, and with a distinctive sideways motion that made my head and upper body move from right to left at least twenty centimeters with every step. It´s  not the way a human being is physiologically intended to walk. The sideways movement strains the hip joints, the outwardly turned toes make the footing instable, leading to frequent sprains and a bad case of plantar fasciitis on top. To add insult to injury, the weight of my chest and belly was pulling downwards on my spine, making me bend over forwards with my head hunched between my shoulders.
All of this, I could, at my top weight, not help. I simply wasn´t able to walk in a different way with all of that condensable matter to lug around. Since my joints, my back, and my feet creaked in protest at what they were forced to do, I started to use a crutch all of the time, thereby effectively abandoning any pretense at walking straight.
But didn´t I lose half of that weight by now? And put the crutch away many kilos ago?
The kicker is that the body goes into autopilot when walking. The way you walk is determined by habit, unless you pay conscious attention to what you are doing.
It was MIL who alerted me to this. On our last visit, I got up to walk over to the kitchen when she suddenly asked me if I was in any pain. When I replied that I wasn´t, she wanted to know why I was limping so badly then.
As I said, I hadn´t been conscious of limping. But when I did pay attention, I realized that I still, at just four kilos above the limit of morbid obesity, walked as if I still had to carry those almost fifty pounds I already got rid of .
Habits die hard. Bad habits die hardest. And a bad part of that habit is that there is probably already some cartilage in my joints worn off the wrong way, so, it feels- at least now- easier to move like before than it feels to walk straight again. But that is what I must not succumb to. Right now, I am starting a new habit. Every couple of meters, I check my posture when walking. I pay attention to not set my feet to far apart sideways, and I keep reminding myself to walk straight.
It feels different to walk like that. More confident, taller. The way I walked before I became fat.
It is mine to take back. All I have to do is pay attention.
There are some little-used muscle groups, especially in my back, that I have felt for the first time in ages now. I never even tried to stand tall while I was fat, so, the muscles used for straightening my back have obviously suffered from underuse.
Perhaps I should try some strength exercises to get my muscular balance back.
And then, I can enjoy the fact that, with the condensable matter gone, there´ll be nothing left in my appearance to tell that I have been third-degree morbidly obese.


Julia