My journey really began in February 2013. The night I almost lost my husband.
At the time my husband and I had two toddlers ages 16 months and 2.5. By the time our second son was born I was up to 260lbs but was eating in a way that by my 6 weeks postpartum visit when lots of women have lost 20lbs or more of that weight, I was stuck at 255lbs. I couldn't stop eating my feelings and I did it secret (and in shame). My husband, Josh, on the other hand was physically fit. He lifted weight every 2-3 days and did not have a problem with overeating. Because I did my first big weight gain early in our marriage (30lbs in 6 months) my weight had been something between us since that very first year. He'd never struggled so he didn't understand how hard it was to lose weigth to begin with. I felt he shouldn't care how big I had gotten, but that he should just love me. To his defense, at this point I was up 80lbs from our wedding day in August of 2008.
Well, like I said, my journey began in February. And not because I finally had a breakthrough, personal moment on my own accord. The story played out quite differently.
It was roughly 2am. I was sound asleep when I heard the loudest crash in our master bedroom. I quickly shot up and looked to find my kids both asleep in our bed but Josh missing. I quickly peeled back the covers and ran into the bathroom only to find my husband passed out on the floor, hand and arm stuck in the toilet. He had, it seemed, collapsed when going to the bathroom and was unconcious. In my mind I remembered something about getting an unconcious person wet and felt panicked that he had an arm submerged in water and yet was not cognitive.
I raced for my cell phone and dialed 911. I was cold, terrified, and my heart was racing.
My husband came to before I was off the phone and insisted they didn't need to come, but help was already on the way and I insisted they come.
When they arrived his resting heartrate was over 190BPM. My heart never goes that fast even when I'm sprinting. His was resting there. They said he was in A Fib. We knew this term from Grey's Anatomy but I had no idea what it actually meant! He said he was ok and didn't need to go to the hospital (he's tough like that), but they told him he basically didn't have a choice after they administered a shot of something that should have slowed his heart down and it didn't.
Once at the hospital we learned after awhile his heart would need to be shocked to attempt to get it back into a normal rhythm. I signed a lot of papers saying this could kill my husband and I was giving my consent and then was asked to leave the room.
I went to the abandoned waiting room and cried for the first time all night. I sat alone in the dark of the night and all I could think about was, "Oh my gosh. Why couldn't I just lose weight? Why couldn't I have been a better wife in that way? We could have saved so much time having not argued about that and I could have been better. WHY didn't I just do it?"
The shocking worked! He was ok! We learned he's pre-disposed to AFib for some reason and now he takes heart medicine to keep his resting heart rate a little slower. The best news out of it for him has always been that he should never run a marathon (he hates running) and the most paralyzing news out of it for both of us was that had he not woken up to use the restroom and continued sleeping with his heart rate so high, he would have died.
Died.
We went home and adjusted and calmed down, but the fire inside me regarding my weight? It kindled. I knew enough was enough and I found my motivation. And then I got really brave.
I told my husband the big secret I'd kept for almost 5 years of marriage. It sounded something like this.
"I have a really big problem I never told you about and I want to confess it. It sounds weird and strange and I don't think you'll understand but I think something is wrong with my brain. I think I'm mentally unwell. I think I have binge eating disorder. It's basically this thing where you eat all your feelings and usually do it in secret and hide the evidence of what you've done."
"Well, I don't see you eating outside of meals, when and how do you do that?"
"All the time. If you go to bed early. When you're at work. Just lately you went to bed early and I ate 3 bowls of cereal, 2 pieces of toast, several handfuls of carrots and finished the Doritos. I washed the bowls and put them away, and threw out the Doritos bag inside other trash so you wouldn't see the empty bag in the morning and know I had done that."
"Have you been doing this long?"
"Yes. Remember before kids when we both worked? I'd get off at 4 and pick you up at 5? I'd usually leave work and drive to Taco Bell. I'd eat a whole meal and put it on the credit card I paid every month so you wouldn't see the transaction. I'd drive to a gas station to throw out the wrappers and bags. Sometimes I'd get ice cream at Braums too because you can eat a whole cone without having to throw away a wrapper. Then we'd go home, I'd eat a full dinner and seconds and have a snack or dessert with you this evening. I think I need help. I don't want to live this way anymore."
So we talked a long time. At the time we were in debt and on a tight budget. But Josh figured out how to make some room for me to choose either a nutritionist or a pyschologist. I chose nutritionist. Then I confessed to a few more trusted people about binge eating disorder and asked them to help me. My mom gave me a book called "Made to Crave" by Lysa Terkhurst and I commited to journaling while I saw my nutritionist and lost weight the next 14 weeks. I'd always loved writing my feelings.
It was hard, hard work. I ate lean protein, fruit and veggies in certain portions every day for 14 weeks. I started at 223lbs and ended at 171lbs. The first week I sobbed hysterically about not eating biscuits for breakfast with my family. By the last week I had taken up a running habbit and my whole mindset had shifted.
In the meantime I worked through a lot of demons to try to figure out what had gotten me to the place of eating my feelings (but that's a whole different story for another day).
I spent the next year maintaining before we got pregnant again. I wanted to know I could maintain as if that would indidicate I had beaten the disorder. I ran a half marathon on my 1 year anniversary of changing my life and we got pregnant a few weeks later. This was 2014.
And then my father-in-law's cancer became terminal. Then we rang in a new year and January 2015 brought a new baby. One we were all so excited for and who my FIL had been willing himself to live to meet. And when I pushed him out he was silent. And in seconds he was taken from my arms and the world went cold again and I was horrified.
He ended up being okay. My placenta slid out behind him black and dead so it's likely it had stopped working toward the end of my pregnancy and during his quick labor I'd had a placenta abruption depriving him of oxygen as he drowned in blood. The blood caused an infection and he spent 7 days in NICU. I was devastated for him and for us but ultimately he was ok. I ate my feelings a lot. Then I got on track and started losing my baby weight. I'd gained 40lbs again but this time I'd started lower.
In July my father-in-law died. Our world completely turned upside down that day. I mean, it'd been shaken for awhile, but once he was gone, we celebrated his victory in Jesus but the missing kicked in. The anger kicked in. The sorrow and the mourning kicked in. I didn't eat my feelings, but I definitely stopped losing weight. I stayed strong for my husband and did my best to hold our family together in the fragile months that followed.
2015 ended with another hardship for our family. This story isn't mine to tell, but I can say by the end of 2015 we were absolutely crushed. The year had beaten my husband and me to a pulp and nothing felt safe in our world. I continued to maintain my weight into and through 2016 going up and down the same 10lbs, but never losing to where I'd been before baby 3, Caleb.
By August we knew we wanted another baby and I wasn't going to get my weight down before we wanted to try again. So we tried and got pregnant with our 4th son, Sam. I was 195lbs. He would be our last baby. And in my brain something flipped, "He's the last! It's ok to go crazy one more time!" So I gained another 50lbs. I ended his pregnancy May 2017 at 245lbs... Just 10lbs less than I'd been from my heaviest post baby weight.
I buckled down just a month after he was born committed to lose weight. I had way farther to go than I'd wanted to, but I could do it; I'd done it before. I chose Weight Watchers because I was breastfeeding and it worked until about September. I was about 205lbs when Freestyle came into play and I lost up and down but ultimately stayed around 200-205lbs from September to February.
I love Weight Watchers, I do. I think it's fantastic! But here's the problem I had with freestyle. My brain which was broken beacuse of binge eating disorder saw "0 point foods" and "FREEstyle" and thought "FREE FOOD?" So I ate 2-4 bananas a day. I ate 0 point chili and then had 2 more bowls. I ate too much fruit or chicken or anything good because here's the truth about binge eating disorder: You don't just binge on bad foods; anything can be a binge trigger food.
In February 2018 I had a come to Jesus and I realized not only did I still suffer from binge eatind disorder, I also couldn't do Weight Watchers anymore because the openness of the diet was triggering me. I also realized I'd spent my entire pregnancy eating my feelings from 2015 so I'd been "sick again" for awhile. I was so upset, but also determined.
My Internet friend Ashley had had a baby 4 months prior, so her little girl is about 5 months younger than my baby boy. I've loved watching her succeed for years! I've also watched her sell Beachbody and use their programs over and over again for years. I did T25 after I lost my weight in 2013 and again in 2015 after Caleb was born and love that program, but I didn't ever want to spend the money to try other new interesting programs they developed (like 21 Day Fix). But here she was crushing Beachbody's newest program 80 Day Obsession. I talked to Josh about wether or not we could afford it and then approached Ashley.
I'm currently doing 80 Day Obsession at the time of this writing. I've finished Phase 1. It was everything I needed this time. It gave me rigid structure which helped my brain not find ways to "cheat the system." It challenged me in my exercise and is constantly changing so I'm never growing bored with my exercise (although I am missing running, it's always waiting for me). And to my great delight, Josh as done this program with me too and is also losing weight and toning us and learning how to eat cleaner and better.
I feel like I'm back to my truest self. I care again not just about how my body looks or the number on the scale, but about how strong I am, how well I'm eating and who I can inspire along the way. Without transparency, how the heck can we learn from each other? And isn't that the joy of pain and struggle? That the Lord is in it with us, but also as we walk through it or away from it we have a story to tell someone else can identify with. The words "me too" carry more power now than ever before, but no matter what the context hearing you're not alone in your struggles or pain or disease is so uplifting.
Thank you for reading my story. Thank you for being interested in my journey. I turn 30 in January 2019 and I am absolutely determined to reach my current goal weight (165lbs) by that day but I'm even more determined to love myself and get even better at consistency: working out, eating well, motivating, and EVERY day making the choice to not eat my feelings because they do not define me or my circumstance. I can be stronger than them. I choose to be stronger than this addiction. I believe I am set free. I'm not a slave to the fear of relapse. I am free from the bondage of that life but ask for help every single day to never go back.
I'd love to hear your story. No matter where you are: beginning, middle, or past your finish line but sprinting on with life. Thanks for sharing.
At the time my husband and I had two toddlers ages 16 months and 2.5. By the time our second son was born I was up to 260lbs but was eating in a way that by my 6 weeks postpartum visit when lots of women have lost 20lbs or more of that weight, I was stuck at 255lbs. I couldn't stop eating my feelings and I did it secret (and in shame). My husband, Josh, on the other hand was physically fit. He lifted weight every 2-3 days and did not have a problem with overeating. Because I did my first big weight gain early in our marriage (30lbs in 6 months) my weight had been something between us since that very first year. He'd never struggled so he didn't understand how hard it was to lose weigth to begin with. I felt he shouldn't care how big I had gotten, but that he should just love me. To his defense, at this point I was up 80lbs from our wedding day in August of 2008.
Well, like I said, my journey began in February. And not because I finally had a breakthrough, personal moment on my own accord. The story played out quite differently.
It was roughly 2am. I was sound asleep when I heard the loudest crash in our master bedroom. I quickly shot up and looked to find my kids both asleep in our bed but Josh missing. I quickly peeled back the covers and ran into the bathroom only to find my husband passed out on the floor, hand and arm stuck in the toilet. He had, it seemed, collapsed when going to the bathroom and was unconcious. In my mind I remembered something about getting an unconcious person wet and felt panicked that he had an arm submerged in water and yet was not cognitive.
I raced for my cell phone and dialed 911. I was cold, terrified, and my heart was racing.
My husband came to before I was off the phone and insisted they didn't need to come, but help was already on the way and I insisted they come.
When they arrived his resting heartrate was over 190BPM. My heart never goes that fast even when I'm sprinting. His was resting there. They said he was in A Fib. We knew this term from Grey's Anatomy but I had no idea what it actually meant! He said he was ok and didn't need to go to the hospital (he's tough like that), but they told him he basically didn't have a choice after they administered a shot of something that should have slowed his heart down and it didn't.
Once at the hospital we learned after awhile his heart would need to be shocked to attempt to get it back into a normal rhythm. I signed a lot of papers saying this could kill my husband and I was giving my consent and then was asked to leave the room.
I went to the abandoned waiting room and cried for the first time all night. I sat alone in the dark of the night and all I could think about was, "Oh my gosh. Why couldn't I just lose weight? Why couldn't I have been a better wife in that way? We could have saved so much time having not argued about that and I could have been better. WHY didn't I just do it?"
The shocking worked! He was ok! We learned he's pre-disposed to AFib for some reason and now he takes heart medicine to keep his resting heart rate a little slower. The best news out of it for him has always been that he should never run a marathon (he hates running) and the most paralyzing news out of it for both of us was that had he not woken up to use the restroom and continued sleeping with his heart rate so high, he would have died.
Died.
We went home and adjusted and calmed down, but the fire inside me regarding my weight? It kindled. I knew enough was enough and I found my motivation. And then I got really brave.
I told my husband the big secret I'd kept for almost 5 years of marriage. It sounded something like this.
"I have a really big problem I never told you about and I want to confess it. It sounds weird and strange and I don't think you'll understand but I think something is wrong with my brain. I think I'm mentally unwell. I think I have binge eating disorder. It's basically this thing where you eat all your feelings and usually do it in secret and hide the evidence of what you've done."
"Well, I don't see you eating outside of meals, when and how do you do that?"
"All the time. If you go to bed early. When you're at work. Just lately you went to bed early and I ate 3 bowls of cereal, 2 pieces of toast, several handfuls of carrots and finished the Doritos. I washed the bowls and put them away, and threw out the Doritos bag inside other trash so you wouldn't see the empty bag in the morning and know I had done that."
"Have you been doing this long?"
 |
| April 2009, up at around 30-35lbs since our wedding day in August of 2008. |
"Yes. Remember before kids when we both worked? I'd get off at 4 and pick you up at 5? I'd usually leave work and drive to Taco Bell. I'd eat a whole meal and put it on the credit card I paid every month so you wouldn't see the transaction. I'd drive to a gas station to throw out the wrappers and bags. Sometimes I'd get ice cream at Braums too because you can eat a whole cone without having to throw away a wrapper. Then we'd go home, I'd eat a full dinner and seconds and have a snack or dessert with you this evening. I think I need help. I don't want to live this way anymore."
So we talked a long time. At the time we were in debt and on a tight budget. But Josh figured out how to make some room for me to choose either a nutritionist or a pyschologist. I chose nutritionist. Then I confessed to a few more trusted people about binge eating disorder and asked them to help me. My mom gave me a book called "Made to Crave" by Lysa Terkhurst and I commited to journaling while I saw my nutritionist and lost weight the next 14 weeks. I'd always loved writing my feelings.
 |
| I have no pics at my largest weight, but this is around 240-245lbs. This was about a year before Josh's AFib incident. |
It was hard, hard work. I ate lean protein, fruit and veggies in certain portions every day for 14 weeks. I started at 223lbs and ended at 171lbs. The first week I sobbed hysterically about not eating biscuits for breakfast with my family. By the last week I had taken up a running habbit and my whole mindset had shifted.
In the meantime I worked through a lot of demons to try to figure out what had gotten me to the place of eating my feelings (but that's a whole different story for another day).
 |
| After a year of hardwork! |
I spent the next year maintaining before we got pregnant again. I wanted to know I could maintain as if that would indidicate I had beaten the disorder. I ran a half marathon on my 1 year anniversary of changing my life and we got pregnant a few weeks later. This was 2014.
And then my father-in-law's cancer became terminal. Then we rang in a new year and January 2015 brought a new baby. One we were all so excited for and who my FIL had been willing himself to live to meet. And when I pushed him out he was silent. And in seconds he was taken from my arms and the world went cold again and I was horrified.
 |
| pregnant with 3rd son on a trip to WDW with my in-laws in 2014 |
He ended up being okay. My placenta slid out behind him black and dead so it's likely it had stopped working toward the end of my pregnancy and during his quick labor I'd had a placenta abruption depriving him of oxygen as he drowned in blood. The blood caused an infection and he spent 7 days in NICU. I was devastated for him and for us but ultimately he was ok. I ate my feelings a lot. Then I got on track and started losing my baby weight. I'd gained 40lbs again but this time I'd started lower.
In July my father-in-law died. Our world completely turned upside down that day. I mean, it'd been shaken for awhile, but once he was gone, we celebrated his victory in Jesus but the missing kicked in. The anger kicked in. The sorrow and the mourning kicked in. I didn't eat my feelings, but I definitely stopped losing weight. I stayed strong for my husband and did my best to hold our family together in the fragile months that followed.
2015 ended with another hardship for our family. This story isn't mine to tell, but I can say by the end of 2015 we were absolutely crushed. The year had beaten my husband and me to a pulp and nothing felt safe in our world. I continued to maintain my weight into and through 2016 going up and down the same 10lbs, but never losing to where I'd been before baby 3, Caleb.
By August we knew we wanted another baby and I wasn't going to get my weight down before we wanted to try again. So we tried and got pregnant with our 4th son, Sam. I was 195lbs. He would be our last baby. And in my brain something flipped, "He's the last! It's ok to go crazy one more time!" So I gained another 50lbs. I ended his pregnancy May 2017 at 245lbs... Just 10lbs less than I'd been from my heaviest post baby weight.
I buckled down just a month after he was born committed to lose weight. I had way farther to go than I'd wanted to, but I could do it; I'd done it before. I chose Weight Watchers because I was breastfeeding and it worked until about September. I was about 205lbs when Freestyle came into play and I lost up and down but ultimately stayed around 200-205lbs from September to February.
I love Weight Watchers, I do. I think it's fantastic! But here's the problem I had with freestyle. My brain which was broken beacuse of binge eating disorder saw "0 point foods" and "FREEstyle" and thought "FREE FOOD?" So I ate 2-4 bananas a day. I ate 0 point chili and then had 2 more bowls. I ate too much fruit or chicken or anything good because here's the truth about binge eating disorder: You don't just binge on bad foods; anything can be a binge trigger food.
In February 2018 I had a come to Jesus and I realized not only did I still suffer from binge eatind disorder, I also couldn't do Weight Watchers anymore because the openness of the diet was triggering me. I also realized I'd spent my entire pregnancy eating my feelings from 2015 so I'd been "sick again" for awhile. I was so upset, but also determined.
 |
| Right before starting 80 Day Obsession after being stuck at 205ish since September |
My Internet friend Ashley had had a baby 4 months prior, so her little girl is about 5 months younger than my baby boy. I've loved watching her succeed for years! I've also watched her sell Beachbody and use their programs over and over again for years. I did T25 after I lost my weight in 2013 and again in 2015 after Caleb was born and love that program, but I didn't ever want to spend the money to try other new interesting programs they developed (like 21 Day Fix). But here she was crushing Beachbody's newest program 80 Day Obsession. I talked to Josh about wether or not we could afford it and then approached Ashley.
I'm currently doing 80 Day Obsession at the time of this writing. I've finished Phase 1. It was everything I needed this time. It gave me rigid structure which helped my brain not find ways to "cheat the system." It challenged me in my exercise and is constantly changing so I'm never growing bored with my exercise (although I am missing running, it's always waiting for me). And to my great delight, Josh as done this program with me too and is also losing weight and toning us and learning how to eat cleaner and better.
 |
| Taken last week after almost completing phase 1! Down 14lbs at this point. |
I feel like I'm back to my truest self. I care again not just about how my body looks or the number on the scale, but about how strong I am, how well I'm eating and who I can inspire along the way. Without transparency, how the heck can we learn from each other? And isn't that the joy of pain and struggle? That the Lord is in it with us, but also as we walk through it or away from it we have a story to tell someone else can identify with. The words "me too" carry more power now than ever before, but no matter what the context hearing you're not alone in your struggles or pain or disease is so uplifting.
Thank you for reading my story. Thank you for being interested in my journey. I turn 30 in January 2019 and I am absolutely determined to reach my current goal weight (165lbs) by that day but I'm even more determined to love myself and get even better at consistency: working out, eating well, motivating, and EVERY day making the choice to not eat my feelings because they do not define me or my circumstance. I can be stronger than them. I choose to be stronger than this addiction. I believe I am set free. I'm not a slave to the fear of relapse. I am free from the bondage of that life but ask for help every single day to never go back.
I'd love to hear your story. No matter where you are: beginning, middle, or past your finish line but sprinting on with life. Thanks for sharing.
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