My weight-loss Journey began in 2016 starting in January. I just had a child in November of 2015. I was incredibly overweight. During my pregnancy, I had put on over 85 lb. It was a very hard thing for me to come to terms with. Before my pregnancy, I was fairly active. I went to the gym on a regular basis lifted weights and ran 5 km 3 days a week. However, I've always been overweight. I've had a very unhealthy relationship with food and still kind of have an unhealthy relationship with food.
I'm someone who loves to cook, to invent new dishes of food, and to make different various desserts. I've been often known to be called the housewife, or marriage material. My husband would come home to freshly made meals every day and there was always a different type of dessert ready for him to try. When inventing new desserts or when creating new things there's a lot of tasting involved, and although I didn't eat that much of it I ate enough to continue keeping on the weight that I had. I always seemed to be stuck around 200 lbs or 195 lbs no matter what I did it didn't matter I'd always stay that way and that's because I always ate at maintenance.
It wasn't until probably 2017 that I started realizing just how much food impacted my weight loss. I started to track the calories that I ate and I started to weigh things religiously. I was extremely shocked to find out just how much I was consuming. Given that I had always been active and that I had always done things to keep my body in shape I thought I just had some sort of problem with my overall digestive system but it turns out it was my over-eating problem I had a problem with my FORK. During my time that I was pregnant I struggled through depression, anxiety and I had a crippling fear that I would become nothing. I couldn't find any purpose in life I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do or who I wanted to become. It was one of the hardest times of my life. I did something you probably should never do I pursued an education without any knowledge of what I wanted to do in life or where I wanted to go. This choice that I made was probably one of the worst choices I could have ever made and is still to this day infected my life. Now I'm $40,000 in debt without any educational degree. Well, I'm one year away from achieving a bachelor's in science in psychology. but I can't physically complete this degree because well I don't have the financial capability of doing so.
I guess one good thing came up I learned that I really liked working with children. so I got my diploma in educational assisting and became an educational assistant. My joy of teaching and my joy of helping those with behavioral needs has also been a great motivator for becoming more healthy. A lot of these kids strive to have someone they can look up to and I figure if I model good behavior, healthy eating and physical fitness maybe these kids can take at least these three things from me to help them battle their demons.
Anyways back to my weight loss, the year is 2016 and I am struggling with postpartum depression. I am trapped inside my house I feel like I haven't seen anyone else but my screaming child for the span of let's say six months. I've lost connection with my husband my family and anyone else that may care for me because I feel like no one actually does. Although I was mistaken and it was really just my own depression consuming me. I thought that I couldn't be a parent I had given up on myself. I struggled every day even to get out of my bed.
It did not help my son was born with reflux and was instructed by my doctor to record how many times he would vomit a day. I can tell you that it was anywhere between 65 times to 100 times a day. Every time I see a burp rag I get a little bit of PTSD.
So what led me to go to the gym again? Well, one day I woke up in the middle of the night to my screaming child. No matter what I did I couldn't calm him down anything I did not help him. He would not stop crying and I knew immediately something was wrong. I told my husband we needed to go to emergency and he got up and packed the bag and we went to emergency they sent us home because my son was always happy and despite being in clear pain he smiled and laughed leaving us to weight over 6 hours in the ER. It happened again and this time I didn't leave I demanded they did testing it wasn't long until they sent him to children's hospital because something was wrong they had him on morphine, oxygen and they prepped him for surgery. They told me he might need a heart transplant. I was distraught that my 11 month old baby might need a new heart. After this terrible time, it made me realize that I started taking my own life for granted. But this boy this son of mine that I may not have connected with yet due to postpartum depression meant everything to me at this moment I thought I would lose him and I was scared. Then I started thinking about myself and realized that this kid needs me and what if I am taken by something like diabetes or heart disease because I neglected to take care of myself? Is it right of me to neglect my own child of his mother because I was too selfish and self-centered to think that I didn't need to be healthy because there was no possible way I would get there anyway because I was too far gone? Well my son was fine and none of the eight doctors working on his case figured out what was wrong with him he made a miraculous recovery and we were sent home not two weeks after.
I made it a goal of mine to become a better person. Not just a better person but a better me. I changed my habits and even though I struggle now today and still have not made it to where I want to be I still continue to do everything I can to stay healthy for my son. And when I see that he's lights up as he sees me exercise and asks me to go to the gym with him every time I go it brings a joy to me knowing that my kid wants to be healthy like me knowing that I will grow up to be healthy and I won't have to worry about heart disease and diabetes if I continue on this path of good eating and good exercise. So yes I still struggle with eating too much or making too many pastries and eating too many of them but at least I'm making progress. And I strive to make progress every day and I strive to challenge myself with realistic goals and to make those goals. I use my exercise and my healthy eating to teach my son how to cook things that are healthy and how to exercise to be healthy I build my knowledge to help him build his knowledge and I see that he takes that knowledge and applies it to himself. He's a smart little three year old.
I guess the purpose of this post is to show you that weight loss is a long journey and it's a never-ending Journey. No diet is going to change the way that you are you have to develop a lifestyle change you have to realize that this is forever. You can't just change your diet and expect to be the person you want to be and then go back to doing exactly what you were doing beforehand because you're just going to gain all that weight back and lose all that progress you made over the time. I hope that with this progress and with this post sorry it's so long that people can realize that if you want to change or you want to be a better person you need to find something that means something so much to you that motivates you to continue to grow as a person and to continue to love yourself and to continue to help yourself develop even if that something is you. Because this is about you this is your life this is your body and this is your way of treating yourself. Don't you think you deserve to be treated the best possible. As humans we want to be treated fairly we want to be treated with respect and we want to be treated nicely but we treat ourselves like garbage. So keep this in mind when you're trying to strive for your goals, you’re trying to become a better person, you're trying to lose weight, you're trying to get stronger keep it in mind that you're doing this for you. You're doing this to better yourself you're doing this to become healthy to become better aware to become more physically strong you're doing this for you, not for anyone else, not for the people that may see you and suddenly acknowledge you. You're doing this because you want to. You're doing this because you need to. You're doing this as a gift to yourself.
I see so many people getting held up on cheat days and expecting to just make it to that cheat day because, “I need to reward myself.” but really you're rewarding yourself by losing the weight, by eating healthy, and by gaining strength. You're rewarding yourself every time you choose to take a healthier route versus the opposite. So I encourage you to think of weight loss in a way that says hey I'm rewarding myself today hey I made a new goal in my fitness routine I'm rewarding my body I'm rewarding my mind I'm rewarding my muscles. It’s an interesting concept to think of because we don't really think about that. Instead, we think about how sexy we feel being skinny and how the other people will think of us being skinny but really none of that matters. What other people think about us is just an opinion. Does it matter that just because your skinny now suddenly people are paying attention to you because I can tell you if people are paying attention to you because you're skinny and they didn't pay attention to you beforehand they're probably not really worth the attention themselves? Because you are not defined by your body you are not defined by what you look like you're defined by your personality and the things you bring to your life.
So think of it that way love yourself, reward yourself because I know you can achieve your goals and I know I can achieve mine but know that it's a lifestyle change you need to do not a temporary fix not a fast not at 3 week challenge or a new juice cleanse diet it's a lifestyle.
Have a lifestyle that works for you towards you, and stick with it.
As you can see weight loss is a battle. (Last year of recorded weight) Weight Loss Record (One-year)
WARNING: These pictures are me in my underwear
- Where I started: Starting weight photos
- My progress: Current Progress
- My Routine: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I do the recommended routine found here Recommended Routine. I use the app Progressive Workouts. During these days I do barbell squats with weights 5*5 and deadlift 5*5. I essentially combined by two favorite lifts from starting strength into the recommended routine.
- Given my job and lack of a second vehicle. I walk anywhere between 5 km to 10 km a day during week days. Roughly 3 km to 5 km on weekends.
- I also occasionally do skill work (working on handstand progression currently)
- My diet: My diet is simply everything no matter what in moderation. I tried keto, I tried paleo etc but I love cooking and love varieties of food to much so instead of eating my normal entire plate full of food I made use of measuring cups and a scale to measure out appropriate portions. This ultimately has been the best for me
- I would be lying though if I told you this is what I am doing now. My goal is to potentially compete in a bodybuilding or powerlifting competition for 2020. So I am cutting, my meal plan as it stands right now looks like this everyday and will probably for the next month or longer.
- Breakfast: Coffee + Cream - Supplement (Vit D, Caffeine, Collagen (find it helps my nails not be so brittle but aside from that nothing else))
- Lunch: Protein shake - Whey Protein, Psyllium husk, Creatine, L-glutamine
- Dinner: Chicken breast, brown rice and a shit ton of vegetables
- Snack: Nuts (moderation), apples, oranges, any amount of green vegetables.
Note: I'm a mom, and work full-time so if you too are finding it hard to make time for yourself do your best to try it's worth it. Sometimes that means me completing my 1.5 hour workout in 30 mins by skipping rest times to get to my son on time to pick him up from daycare at his preferred time. You do what you need to to get to where you want to be.
I also highly recommend reading Overcoming Gravity and Starting Strength
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