More than Just Pounds

I was always very slender growing up and when I became a teenager and started growing larger in places, I panicked! I ended up with anorexia and bulimia - yes, I had both together. It got so bad that I had to be hospitalized at 16. I was 98 pounds (5'4) but saw myself in the mirror as huge. Kids at school were always asking my sister was I dying because I looked so frail. In the hospital they taught me how to eat properly and I had to gain up to 125 pounds before I was released, if memory serves me correctly.

From then on, I didn't have struggles with my weight because I was very active with dancing and then went in the US Air Force. After I got out of the AF, I packed on weight fast because I was in a very bad situation at the time and also had been on steroids 3 months for shingles. I ended up around 200 pounds and a size 20. I started studying an ACE Fitness textbook and a college book on nutrition and I developed my own plan and lost 60 pounds on my own simply eating clean, calorie counting and exercising.

Then, I got pregnant with my daughter shortly after reaching a healthy weight. I ate a lot during pregnancy and gained the weight back. After I had my daughter, I did the same thing I had done before and lost weight but got stuck around 168 pounds. It was then that I signed up with WW in 2004. I went on to make goal of 146. Around that time I started training with a trainer that was also a fitness competitor. She taught me all about weight training and eating enough food. I increased my food intake, started heavy weight training and increased cardio and got even smaller down to a size 4! However, despite being smaller in size, my weight went from 142 up to 150 and I didn't make lifetime and quit WW.

I eventually stopped training because I got liver issues from a combination of things - extreme caffeine intake with supplements/coffee among other things and I put the weight back on and would lose some of it and then gain again from my many health problems. I then went through a decade of trauma. In that decade, I went through 5 surgeries, lost 3 organs, lost 4 babies (one was 5 months along), became disabled, had my son, had a hysterectomy, suffered a traumatic brain injury and permanent brain damage from a car accident and from all that (and a shoebox full of medication) - I got up to 200 pounds and a size 20.

I had to get physical therapy on my entire body - all the bed rest had given me atrophy and there was always something putting me back in bed. Slowly, I did PT on separate areas and over the years I studied and took courses on herbal medicine and worked my way off ALL my medication, every single one. Then, I got myocarditis in 2019 from a flu that almost took my life. It was then, I decided to start hiking. I was going to die trying to live! By some miracle, I didn't die! My last hospitalization was 2021. I hiked 2-3 days a week and lost 15 pounds. I was intuitively eating 80% clean food but upon examination, I was only eating 900-1300 calories a day. I was stuck at 185 for almost 2 years and still struggling with my brain damage issues. I thought I was forever stuck because of menopause probably from my 2015 hysterectomy and just now had a slow metabolism.

I got COVID in Nov. 2021 and somehow it began to heal my brain after excruciating facial pain for 3 days. I started being able to do things I was supposed to never be able to do! (They're researching how this happened, evidently I'm the only case). I got so much better that I decided to try WW on May 26th, 2022 to see if maybe I could lose the rest of the weight. I started eating more food and I was so full!  I began to drop weight almost every single week on WW and NEVER had a gain the first few months. I went from a size 18 to a 6 in just 12 weeks! I still continued losing and never gaining until the new plan came out in November and I gained 4 pounds the first week on it. I then decided to take time off WW and track my calories and macros, as I was being told my dietician that I was consuming too much protein on the new plan and it was affecting my kidneys.

The past 3 months I ate 1800-1900 calories a day (double what I ate when I was 200 pounds!) and my body shrunk even more, especially my arms, face and neck! I gained muscle because I had also increased my weight training to 3 days a week on average but my weight stayed ultimately at 158 with ups and downs.

That's my very abbreviated story!  I'm the happiest and the fittest I've ever been in my life!