Lindsey W.
Lifestyle Change
Jun 08, 2013
I’m so ecstatic that June 2013 is my Lifestyle Change month. I’m in a good place and am feeling better than ever, mentally, as I embark on this new journey! Everything is just falling into place and I know that God surely has His hand in all of this!
My life as a “fat girl” started in tenth grade when I hit puberty. I was never overweight growing up so I knew there was something going on behind the scenes that was the culprit. I wouldn’t find out what that culprit would be until 8 years later. Growing up, I was active in dance, cheer, ballet and gymnastics. In junior high, I was captain of dance team but still weighed in well over my friends. In my mind, I was “that” friend and eventually noticed that as all of my former popular friends grew up and into their bodies nicely, I was pushed out of the circle. I know, I know…not true friends but to go from always being in the group up until ninth grade to being the outsider, it was no fun. It made me sad but I didn’t let it hold me back. We moved to another school and I was much happier. I can honestly say that even though I wasn’t in the “popular crowd” and never had any boyfriends, I did have great friends and great high school memories!!
Onto graduation – I left home and started my new journey at a university several hours from home. I went through rush, pledged a great sorority, and started transitioning from feeling like “that girl” to part of the group! It was a good feeling to feel accepted and I started dieting and exercising successfully with the help of my new friend, Adipex. I dropped down to the 160’s and felt amazing….then a few boyfriends later, I found a great guy who I felt really comfortable with. Over the course of my last 2 years in college and our relationship, I got up to 220 lbs. That was the biggest I had been up to that date and I was just 22 years old. I graduated college and a few months later, my relationship had ended. I got back on Adipex, this time with a Dr’s prescription and monthly visits which held me accountable. I dropped back down to 180 and started dating again.
The next relationship I would have would become my husband. Years into our relationship and several deployments later, I became comfortable again and slowly my weight crept back on me, as was so often in the past. When I realized that I had, yet again, gotten back to a place where I didn’t want to be, I started dieting again and successfully lost around 20 lbs before we decided to try for a baby. After a year and a half, we realized I was having some trouble with infertility and that’s when my Doctor told me I had a condition called PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. She put me on a high dose of Clomid, knowing that my husband had orders for an upcoming deployment, and within our second round, we were pregnant. Despite my prior weight loss success through WW, I had to get stop the program due to my pregnancy. Dr's orders required that I gain as little weight as possible for the health of our child and myself. I believe I was around 250 by that time. I only gained 25-30 lbs during the course of my pregnancy but on an already overweight 25 year old, that makes for a large woman and an uncomfortable 3rd trimester. I went into the hospital at a whopping 275 lbs and after a few hrs of labor and a stubborn baby causing a last minute c-section, we welcomed our son into the world. 3 months later, my husband deployed and I used that year that he was gone to focus on myself and my weight loss, yet again. This time I got hot and heavy (no pun intended, ha!) in the gym and had a personal trainer 2 days a week. I was doing so well and had dropped a lot of weight! I was eating healthy, working out and even picked up running. I got a Bodybugg armband that the contestants on the Biggest Loser used. It measures calories and came with a subscription where I could log daily intake of calories and activities to see just how much I was burning vs what I was bringing in. It was a daily routine and I even wore it sleeping to have as accurate of a count as possible. It became an obsession and I was doing better than ever on my weight loss journey. I dropped back down from a 20-22 to a 16. I looked great, felt awesome and surprised my husband when he got back from Iraq! All was well in my world….and then again like every other time, I got complacent and comfortable.
Earlier, I mentioned I have PCOS and my body has quite of few of its terrible symptoms, many actually--two of those being easy to gain and trouble to lose. So, while I haven’t been as diligent in my weight loss journey with my clean eating and exercise as I would have liked to have been, I have had an unwelcomed visitor in my PCOS conditions that has made it terribly easy to gain – and fast. My husband has been back home for almost 2 years now and I’m back up to 250. I’ve left many diets out of this timeframe of my life and many of them were unsuccessful. I’ve tried it all – diet pills, Weight Watchers, Ideal Proteins, Lean Cuisines, Healthy Choice, Advocare, Isagenix, Juice Plus…you name it, I’ve tried it! On the diets where I couldn’t eat for the first few days because of a cleanse, I always broke, mentally and physically, because the hunger was just too much! So that brings us to June 2013. The start of my new life! I’m welcoming my lifestyle change and fully embracing the road ahead of me!
