Part Two: STRESS EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME
My cortisol levels were f*!#ed. My upbringing was stressful, undergrad was stressful for reasons we don't have time for here, I couldn't find a job in my field after I graduated which was stressful, and the job I eventually did land was crazy stressful (Youth Specialist at Children's Village). But again, hindsight is 20/20. I had no idea how stressed out I was all the time. All I knew was binge eating Taco Bell made me feel better for awhile, so I did. And I continued to put on weight. Sure, I would do active things sometimes, and every once in a great while I would feel the figurative weight of what I was eating and go buy a bunch of veggies and pretend like I was going to eat them. But when you work erratic hours at a job you hate and you were never taught how to cook, you waste a lot of money on groceries that die in the crisper.
Thankfully I knew early on the field I thought I wanted to go into wasn't for me. I decided to apply to massage therapy schools - I've always had an interest - instead of pursuing my master's in counseling. I switched to the midnight shift at CV so I could go to school. For about a year of my life, I only slept from 5-9:30 pm, 3-5 nights a week (crazy the stuff you can do in your 20s). But, despite being sleep deprived, I was able to start and stick to a gym routine. I started slowly losing weight. For the first time in my life, I wasn't stressed out of my freaking mind. I mean, yeah, it's a stress on the body not getting enough sleep, but mentally, I felt like I could relax for the first time ever: calm living situation, manageable job, school I enjoyed.
Unfortunately, while I had figured out a career that would work for me, I hadn't dealt with anything from my upbringing. That's how I ended up with my ex. I'm not interested in throwing him under the bus, but the long short of it was I was dating my dad. And while my dad was the best dad he could be with his mental illness, neurodivergence, and undealt with childhood abuse (woohoo for generational trauma!), he was an abusive husband. I spent ages 26-34 in a low-key abusive relationship. It was hard to admit; I don't give off victim vibes, and I don't put up with a lot of sh*t in other areas of my life. But abuse comes in a myriad of forms, and if you don't deal with your daddy issues, you date them. All the mental stress and then some came back with a vengeance, and before I knew it, I was using weed and food to escape. I put on 50-55 lbs during the first 4 years of our relationship. At some point, our scale broke (shocker lol), and we never bothered to replace it. Oh, I knew I was fat, but I had buried my head in the sand about HOW fat I was getting. I was still able to do the physical things I liked to do - my job, kayak, hike, walk the dogs, occasionally yoga - so I assumed I was more or less the same weight I started working at BL in 2017. (This is also the danger of living in yoga pants; you can almost always make them fit.) So imagine my surprise when I went to the doctor for covid at the end of 2019 (I was an OG super spreader without knowing it - sorry), and I got on the scale for the first time in at least a year. 275! Holy $h*t! My brain tried telling me the scale was wrong. But my gut knew that wasn't true. And I knew I needed to make a change immediately.
I got back to the gym once I felt better. I lost 10-15 lb in the first 6 weeks of 2020, solely by getting on the stair stepper and elliptical for 30-40 min, a few times a week. Just as I was getting back in the groove, the shutdown happened. No need to relive that time in detail, but the weight loss came to a screeching halt.
Once things reopened, I started working out again. I counted my calories to help keep me on track. But when you're constantly under stress, you fight for every pound lost. I would lose 5, gain 3 back after a fight. Lose another 5, gain 6 back when I went out of town and didn't get back into my routine right away. I was technically losing weight, but I was mentally exhausted. I still managed to lose 40 lbs between 2020 and 2024 with exercise and curbing my binge eating when I was aware of it. But the noticeable change happened in the beginning of last year (spoiler: I dumped him).
Next and final week: How I've kept it off
