My Journey - the beginning

Left pic 8/2011, right pic 6/2013

Can we talk about these pictures for a moment? Yes, it is the same person in both photos. In the picture on the left, I was having dinner with my future MIL circa August 2011. The pic on the right was the day after my wedding in June 2013 as I was packing for my honeymoon. There is a 70 pound difference in these pictures!

70. Freaking. Pounds. You know, the weight of an average ten year old. That is literally what I was carrying around. Figuratively it was much, much more but that is for another post.

I chose these two picture as a comparison because they were at incredibly significant times in my life. The picture of me where I am heavier was at a pivotal point. I was so unhappy with myself. I had been dating my boyfriend (now husband) for a year and we had just moved in together. I saw my life with him and how happy it could be. I saw how much he loved me for who I was and I wanted to be able to love myself as much.

I was terrified because I didn’t know how I was going to transform myself into a better person but I knew I had to in order to continue in our relationship. All of the binge eating and closet drinking (and smoking) had to stop but I had no idea where to begin. I was basically just white knuckling it through each day. I’d promise myself that I would try to eat better and drink less but most of the time would just fall back into my old habits. I would tell myself that this one time didn’t matter, I would try again the next day. The problem was, the next day never came because I was consistently repeating the same pattern. Hindsight has revealed to me that I was just on a carousel of shame but I wouldn’t come to that realization for a long time.

So how did I make such and incredible change, you ask? I was working in financial services at the time and I had a client who was turned down for life insurance at the age of 34. He was obese, smoked, and enjoyed a cocktail after work. I sat in my office and broke the news to him. The news, no matter how I tried to sugar coat it, said that the company he had applied with basically thought he would be dead in 10 years. They would not insure him. I realized as I was sitting across from him that I was looking in the mirror. I panicked. I was him. I was obese, I smoked, and I drank heavily to mask insecurities, other deeply buried issues, and shame. I felt my own mortality for the first time in my life.

I didn’t want to live this way anymore. I wanted to feel free; to be unencumbered by the negative self-talk in my head. I wanted to be able to walk up a flight of stairs without losing my breath. I wanted to be healthy in every way possible. I naively thought that my weight was the answer. I sincerely believed that if I lost weight, the other problems would go away. Although I was wrong, the changes that I started making were ultimately healthier and have lead me to the whole body/ whole person health that I enjoy now in my life.

I started by changing my diet. I started eating better and tracking what I ate each day. The weight started to drop off. I concentrated on eating more fruits, veggies, and lean protein. I also started drinking water as opposed to drinking coffee all day until it was a respectable hour to pour a martini or glass of wine. Like I said, it was a long journey made up of small, incremental, and most importantly, sustainable changes.

Each week I would start a new habit or drop a bad one. Sometimes I was successful and lost two to three pounds in a week. Other times I treated myself a little too much, had salty food, or PMS and gained a pound back. I don’t want to tell you that the gains weren’t discouraging and disappointing when I felt like I had eaten low fat salad and diet water all week, they were, but I didn’t let them derail me.

If I had a bad week I would simply look at it as a lesson learned and move on. I didn’t get hung up on what had gone wrong, I focused on what was going right in the moment and how great my upcoming week would be. I talked about everything in the present tense: I am losing a lot of weight, I eat clean, I do not eat processed foods, etc.

Positive self talk is so, so, SO, sosososososo, important. I cannot stress this enough. Your subconscious does not have a personality. If you tell yourself you are an idiot, fat, unlikable...well, guess what? That is what your subconscious will start believing! And that is EXACTLY what I had been doing for so many years. As time went on, I saw changes in the scale which helped build my self-efficacy and confidence. These changes sustained me through the crappy weeks where I would have a small gain. I knew that if I did it one week I could do it the next.

I planned every meal, every day. Every Thursday night I would sit on the couch and plan out every calorie that I would be consuming over the next week. I would save each meal plan so that I could refer back to them when I had a good week or needed some inspiration. I want you to understand that I did all of this BEFORE PINTEREST. It was hard!!! (Well, maybe not, Pinterest does make me pretty hungry…)

I left room for treats along the way and I think that was part of my success. If I ate healthy all week, I would treat myself when we went out to dinner on Friday night and have dessert.

I was happier than I could remember being in years! Although I didn’t know how much I had yet to learn, I was well on my way to being healthier. This was the very beginning of my journey. I can’t wait to share more with you and to be a part of your journey.