A Fit Body Begins In The Brain
My human story, like many people’s stories, involves biology and peanut butter.
It includes a physical system gone rogue and the steadfast belief that I could find a way back to real health.
It required self-coaching - a lot of it! - that was necessary every step of the way to follow my own path even when the chorus of voices all around me was LOUD and STRONG telling me that what I was trying to do could not be done and that I was crazy to try.
This story also involves love. Love for self, love for family, love for life… and love for food.
I love food. These days it’s a healthy love, not a furtive one. I love to cook. I am a foodie with an open mind when it comes to trying new things. I eat and enjoy food at least three times a day, and I feel so much gratitude when I do.
Food has not always been a genuine friend to me though; or rather I wasn’t a friend to myself. There were a lot of years when I ate for comfort and as a reward for getting through stress and sorrow. I didn’t know the words ‘emotional eating’ in my 20s or ‘buffering’ but I definitely could have explained to you that part of my strategy for dealing with a long, frustrating day at work or going on a less-than-stellar date included ending the night with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and a family size bag of Kettle Chips.
For a long time, my metabolism served me just fine… and I didn’t think twice about what I put into my body. I stayed skinny and fit. Until suddenly, I didn’t! For nearly four years my weight became almost all I thought about. You see, I’d gained 60 lbs!
Have you ever looked into the mirror and felt that the inside of you and the outside of you did not match? This happened to me at the age of 28. It started with my first pregnancy, lasted for nearly four years, and was totally bewildering at first.
I felt like I’d fallen dramatically into a ‘90s movie where some kind of alien creature had taken over my body from the inside… and that even though the world still looked the same through my eyes, I no longer looked like myself to the world.
Then came a stream of diets… so many diets! Between pregnancies I tried everything I could think of and read everything I could get my hands on about dieting. There were South Beach diets and Hormone diets and low-fat diets and many more. I worked out religiously.
“I’m going to the gym!” I’d announce every day when my husband got home from work, tying my sneakers and pulling on the blue-green workout shorts that I’d grown almost to hate. And off I’d go, leaving him to be the world’s best dad with our baby boy while I threw myself like a drowning person onto the treadmill, the elliptical, weight training and the swimming pool to somehow re-sculpt my body back into what it had once been.
No matter what I did, I could not get the scale to budge more than a single pound. I went from feeling resolute to frustrated to demoralized. “I guess this is how women become larger when they are middle-aged,” I rationalized glumly. “They get pregnant and then they just can’t lose the weight.”
I thought of all of the plus-sized women I’d ever known and felt a new solidarity with them - plus so much compassion. These were my people. How had I not known it before?
The hardest part of this was not the extra weight. I’d been pregnant when all of this started and soon I would be pregnant again. I wanted my babies to be healthy and I decided not to restrict calories obsessively while pregnant; I was committed to eating lots of fruit, vegetables and high quality protein... everything that “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” and “The Girlfriend’s Guide To Pregnancy” suggested could nurture the baby’s growing bones and brain. I took my iron and prenatal vitamins and followed all of my OB-GYN’s advice about proper nutrition. I was not going to starve either of my growing baby boys in utero.
I could deal with the weight. The brutal part was what carrying these extra pounds was doing to my mind. My thoughts about myself ravaged my joy. My confidence tanked. I compared myself constantly with other women my age. Looking at magazine covers in the grocery line became an exercise in self-torture. The hardest part about being overweight was what I imagined others were thinking when they saw me.
“Wow, Andrea has really let herself go!”
“Ooof, that’s too bad. She used to look better.”
“Yikes - time has NOT been kind.”
My husband loved me with unwavering sincerity and kindness throughout every iteration and incarnation of this unfamiliar body during the years from 2004 - 2008. Every time I’d moan about my new weight, he’d remind me that the only thing that mattered was having good health… and then he’d tell me that he found me super attractive.
The problem was, I did not agree. I no longer found me attractive. I hated going shopping for new clothes and I hated trying them on. I hated that I was now a size 10 when for most of my adult life I’d been a size 0-2.
A friend we’d just made, at our house for a party, looked at a framed photo of us from before my husband and I were married. “Wow, you were a little thing back then, weren’t you?” he exclaimed to me with a smile… and although I smiled politely and said thank you, I wanted to shout at him, “I AM STILL ME. YOU JUST CAN’T SEE ME! I’VE GOTTEN LOST IN THIS BODY... BUT I’M STILL HERE!”
I went in cycles where I’d:
eat next to nothing for weeks to try to drop the weight (which I later learned never works because your body goes into fight-flight-freeze and hangs onto all of its extra weight... just in case you’ve encountered an unexpected famine)
get sick of all of the dieting, utter some kind of profanity like a war cry and eat an entire cake in one sitting. Because, @#%^ it!
And on and on.
I never gave up though… even though there were times when it got pretty darn discouraging. When I gave birth to my second son in June 2007 I weighed in at 186 lbs. This was 70 lbs heavier than I had been when I graduated from high school… and 60 lbs heavier than I had been at any time in my 20s. The weight did not come off after my pregnancies. I did not ‘bounce back’ like a movie star.
Would you like a sneak peek of the ending of this story? It’s a truly happy one; but maybe not the same kind of happy that you’re thinking.
After 3 years I figured my own weight puzzle out. I saw doctors and nutritionists, I read and read and studied and researched and experimented and I did create a health protocol that works for me.
I dropped the weight - all of it - and I have kept it off since 2008. My bloodwork is now outstanding. For twelve years I have again enjoyed the body of my early 20s. It has become strong. I can hike, climb, swim and run… plus keep up with those beautiful (now teenage) sons of mine and their little sister.
And, while I vacillate between wearing size 2-4, I have managed to create excellent and consistent health in a body that turned out not only to be overweight but riddled with autoimmune disease… high cholesterol; borderline diabetic. Thyroid issues and a poorly functioning esophagus.
They are all well-controlled now. I am a healthy 44 year old woman.
I take no medication. I use no diet pills. There is no wonder drug. I created a life protocol based solely on nutrition and exercise, and for me, it has worked. I am blessed now with vibrant, consistent health.
This is NOT my happy ending though.
My real happy ending isn’t what I did to heal my body; although it’s truly great to recognize myself in the mirror again. My happy ending is what I created inside of my mind!!!
The hardest and most important work a person will ever do in creating their future health and joy is the work they will do within their brain.
This work makes the difference between losing extra weight over and over again (just to yo-yo right back) and keeping it off long-term.
It’s the difference between frantic dieting and self-loathing... vs. intentional eating and self-love.
It’s the difference between crying and wondering, “What’s wrong with me?” versus moving forward skillfully with the confidence that your body is like a ship and you know how to sail it through a storm.
Here are just a few of the things I learned, and that I now teach others:
I know how to love myself in all bodies and all incarnations.
I know the difference between eating because I am hungry and eating because I am sad-stressed-embarrassed-frustrated-overwhelmed.
I know my triggers, and how to address the REAL problems in my life rather than buffering with food and drinks.
I know how to embrace discomfort.
I know how to make decisions ahead of time and stand by them.
I know how to create my own protocol by listening to my own body, my own good sense, and my own evaluation of the research that exists about health and nutrition.
I know how to let EVERYONE around me have their own opinion about what I eat and drink, and how not to let their thoughts or feelings affect mine!
I know how to alleviate feelings of deprivation and scarcity and I understand how not to overdesire food.
I know my WHY.
I have done all of this work on myself. It made such a profound difference in my own life that I realized I had to share it! So, I’ve trained intensively and become professionally certified to help others do it too as a life and weight coach.
My clients who are working on creating their own strong, healthy bodies are excitedly seeing the benefits of this work! Each of their protocols are unique and individualized; yet they are all firmly back in the driver’s seat of their own health again.
“I’m losing weight,” they tell me, “But that’s the easy part. There are a hundred ways to lose weight! The best part is that I finally understand myself and my triggers. I feel truly in control of my health again. I know that this time the extra weight is really going to stay off… because it isn’t just my body that has healed. I am finally healing my brain.”
If you have ever felt like an alien in your own body, yet have the desire and motivation to get back to health and fitness, I can help with coaching and accountability! Send me a message at: hello@thinktothrivecoaching.com or click here and let’s talk!