Part Three: The Scale Isn't the Whole Story

My body had been telling me a long time something wasn't right. You hear about the mind/heart/gut triad all the time. For me, the gut is where the truth lies. I had mastered the mental gymnastics of staying in a broken relationship. My bleeding heart couldn't get past his past and wanted to still be the caretaker. My gut, though... my gut had been screaming at me for years to leave. I silenced the screams under piles of simple carbohydrates. But when I finally was able to listen - thank you God, meditating, therapy, starting separate but similar healing journeys with my best friend, learning to be a little vulnerable and talk stuff out - I broke up with Adam the first couple weeks of 2024. After 8.5 years, it was a shock to my system, but something crazy happened when he moved out: I lost 20 lbs in 2.5 weeks.
!!!!!!!
What had taken me 2.5 years to do dating Adam took my body 2.5 weeks to do without him around. Interesting. I was at 215 lbs, a number I hadn't seen in a long, long time.

The last 1.5 years have been a continuation of this journey. I started picking up more classes at BL. The first 6 months after he moved out, I walked 5-8 miles a day, mostly to process everything, but also because I hated sitting around in my house without distractions sometimes (the tv, modem, router and computer were all his it turns out). I FINALLY had the mental energy to apply what I knew about nutrition and started meal prepping over the weekends. I started being open with people. 2024 and 2025 so far have been the best years of my life.

So, the practical application stuff.

First and foremost, BE REALISTIC. What does this mean? It means it's going to take awhile. It means implementing small but doable changes. I'm sure at some point you've tried some kind of diet. Or maybe obsessive calorie counting coupled with whatever your watch tells you about your steps (I've never had a fitbit or smart watch, so it can be done without tracking every tiny thing you do). Maybe you've told yourself you're cutting out sugar/carbs/whatever completely. Guess what? No you're not. You're not. I mean, you might for a week, a month, hell, even a few months. But one day you'll be on vacation or at a party, and you'll "cave", and before you know it, you're back to eating how you were before. Start small. I LOVE pizza. It's probably my favorite food, and I definitely don't discriminate. I get equally excited for a nice wood fired pizza with toppings I can only half pronounce as I do Little Caesars. And you better believe I still eat pizza on the regular. Instead of pretending like I was never going to eat it again, I just switched to frozen cauliflower crust pizzas when I'm in a pinch. And when I order it intentionally, I do it on a day I've been really active, and I try to eat some vegetables with it. The fiber mitigates the blood sugar spike you get from white flour; you feel full faster and it takes you longer to feel hungry again. But sometimes I still just eat pizza and bread and know I'm going to feel sluggish/bloated. I just don't do that, like, several times a week now.

Walk if you're able. Seriously. If you have a desk job, one class in the morning or evening isn't going to cut it. Find a walking buddy. Get a treadmill or elliptical. Something. If the weather sucks or you don't have money/space for a treadmill (Andrea, look away), get a Planet Fitness membership and swing by a few times a week. Watch your show, listen to your audiobook, whatever it is you do from the couch, start doing while you move. Make the time.

Learn to be uncomfortable. I'm not necessarily talking about physically, although expect soreness/minor injuries along the way. The first class I started going to consistently was Deb's weight training (hi Deb!) sometime in 2023. I picked it because it fit into my schedule "easily" (I forced myself to become a morning person, speaking of being uncomfortable). I hung out in the back couple rows, and I probably could only do 60% of the class. Even though I know no one was watching/judging/caring, I was embarrassed at my fitness level, especially working out next to women twice my age kicking my ass. But I stuck to it. I eventually added Claudia's turn up (hi Claudia!) because of the schedule thing. And as I became more comfortable with group fitness, I started branching out more. Now 2.5 years later, it feels weird if I don't go.

Accept your limitations, whether they're permanent or temporary. I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), a hormonal disorder that puts me at higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity. I've never been diabetic, but I have been - and possibly still am - insulin resistant. I knew it made weight loss harder, but I had a tangible example of that at the turn of the year. I have a good friend I only get to see a few times a year. I saw her early December 2024 for dinner, and then again around mid February. She looked like she had lost some weight. I asked her if she lost 20 lb. She said 25. I asked her what she did. She said she started going to therapy and hopped on the treadmill when she could (she has a job and two young kids as well). While I was happy for her success, my initial reaction was to be incredulous. With all the mental health sh*t I did AND the amount of working out I do AND dog walking I do AND my (physical) job, I felt like I DESERVED to be losing weight as quickly* as she was. But life isn't fair, and like I said at the beginning of this whole thing, everyone's journey is different. So even though the scale has.barely moved for me in a year, I know my body is slowly changing, and it is what it is. (*This may seem contradictory to my 20 lb in 2.5 week weight loss when Adam moved out, but that was a one-time pivotal moment in my life, and I was working out like crazy and I couldn't eat for a week or two. Therapy and a little more exercise never did that for me. Ah well.)

Speaking of the scale, did you know I'm still considered medically obese? I went down two classes during this journey, but at 5'7" and 197 lb, I am obese, class one. After losing 75-80 lb and working hard to keep it off, this doesn't feel awesome. But the scale, while a useful tool, doesn't tell the whole story. Minus some hormonal things from my PCOS, my internal stats are fantastic. I am in the best shape of my life. I can run literal circles around most of the crowd I keep, including the one who are thinner than me. At some point in the past year, to maintain my sanity, I had to let the number go. I still weigh myself once a week to keep myself honest. Would I like to lose 20 more pounds? Yeah. My goal weight is 180. I'd still be considered overweight, but I have a half sister built just like me who ran a full marathon at 175. I don't need to be in marathon-running shape. I just don't want knee replacements at 45. I also am not giving up custard. I just get small ones now.

Whether you've been reading this every week, or you just happened to read this one, if you take away one thing, it's this: Your mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health are intertwined. You need to make time and space for yourself to accept hard things about yourself - without judgment - and figure out what that means for you. Your trauma isn't your fault, but at some point, it becomes your responsibility.  Take a good look at your life. Is there a person you see regularly that drains the everloving f*ck out of you? Maybe you aren't even aware they do. Maybe it's your job. Maybe after you hang out with that person or get home from work, you smash a pint of ice cream, binge eat half a bag of chips and feel the need to doom scroll on Instagram for an hour. Pro tip: if this is a pattern, that person/job/situation/relationship needs to change. Sometimes that's really scary. Sometimes it doesn't seem possible. But as far as we all know, we only have one life, and it's up to you how you're going to live it. You have the power to change, you just have to be willing. Willing to be scared and uncomfortable and vulnerable and work hard and be frustrated and celebrate the small victories and be uncertain of the future. There's no easy way out of it. You just have to take it day by day. But it's worth it.

Thanks for reading. Peace and love to all of you.

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

Hey guys…just wanted to give you a heads up that for the next couple of weeks I’ll be handing off my Sunday antics to Sarah.   Most of you know Sarah as a rock star massage therapist and recently she has taken on the role of desk manager as well.  In addition to being such a huge asset to BL, Sarah is truly one of my favorite humans.  Her journey has been such an inspiration to me and so many others, that I wanted to give her a platform to share her weight loss story with all of you.  

So here you go…take it away Sarah…

Being vulnerable is hard. 

This all started with a look.
I was at a blood drive in April, getting my blood pressure checked before donating. It was 90/64. The woman taking it made a face of disbelief, followed by the up and down glance at my body. She asked if that was normal for me. I told her it was the low end of my average, but I had gone to a weight training class beforehand, so it tracked. She did another glance at my midsection, then thankfully moved on.
Now, when you've been chubby/overweight/obese/fluffy/husky/whatever a fair chunk of your life, you get used to the looks. The subtle smirk when you order a Diet Coke (which no one orders these days because they think it's healthier for them; I like that burning, sweet sweet cancer taste only carbonated aspartame can give you). The eyebrow lift when you get a side of seasonal vegetables with your entrée instead of the mac n cheese. The confusion when you summit a mountain and this really fit couple sees you sitting with your friend having a snack, and they ask you if you just climbed the mountain (no b*tch, I flew ???), and then patronizingly give you a high five, and you feel obligated to do it because they're probably trying to be encouraging, but really you just want to use your extra weight to your advantage and manhandle them off the cliff. I was - I am - used to it. But for whatever reason, this lady was the straw that broke my back.
At my revolving door meeting with Andrea and Chris back in May, I told them I had this idea. I wanted to share my weight loss story. I wasn't sure how or when. I just knew that lady pissed me off, and I wanted to break some myths about being fat and weight loss and health and what it actually looks like. Or can look like. Everyone's journey is different. My hope for you, reader, if you struggle with your weight, is you can see it can be done in a healthy, manageable, lasting way. But to do that, you have to start with the why.

Part One: Habits Start Young
You don't get obese overnight. I won't delve too much into my upbringing, but it's relevant. I grew up poor. When you grow up poor, food becomes A Thing. Usually that Thing is a problem. We never went without eating, but there were times I would eat 2-3 pieces of cheap white bread for dinner. Maybe there were other options, but they wouldn't have been any better for me. Couple poverty with being a 90s kid, and I lived on cereal, bread, frozen meals and canned/boxed pasta. Which, if you've ever looked it up or been to one of Andrea's nutrition lectures, you know that all breaks down into sugar. And sugar is great for a quick dopamine hit! I was addicted to sugar from a single digit age, unaware of how that would affect me later on.
I also developed a scarcity mindset. When your parents can't cook and the options suck even if they made it "right", if you're lucky enough to get pizza for supper, you eat as much of it as you can while it's there. Especially because my dad would eat anything that wasn't claimed with a name on it. And if you did put your name on it, you had a day to eat it before it was fair game. (Spoiler: he did a lot of drugs, and he used food to cope with both the high and his own mental health issues.) All of that to say, I learned to binge eat at a young age. I put on a lot of weight when puberty hit me at 9. No one thought much of it because I was "growing". I lost a lot of that weight in an unhealthy way when I was 13-14: intermittent fasting, calorie deficiency and exercise increase all at once. In hindsight, when I did the math, I was medically anorexic. Sure, I looked "good"/healthy, but I was malnourished. Surprise: it didn't last. The day I started eating a normal amount of calories again, I slowly put the weight back on. When I went off to undergrad, I was a little chubby. When I left undergrad, I was (un)comfortably overweight. And I still didn't know how to manage it.

Next week: Stress and what can happen when you don't deal with it

Hey guys…as some of you have already heard, Commerce Twp is enforcing an ordinance that no longer allows us to offer massages in the lower level, at least for now.

Team BL has been working hard to move the massage program upstairs.

We appreciate your patience as we work out the kinks. We are confident that with a little pivoting, we will be able to continue to offer you these wonderful wellness treatments for years to come!! 

Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend!!

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