Judy's Story
Nutrition and Weight Loss
The saying is true, “You don’t know what you got until it’s gone.” I never accepted my body for what it was. I felt like if I wasn’t a certain weight then I wasn’t attractive. Even when I was that “magical” weight I would look in the mirror and critique my thighs, butt or my chest size. When I finally became aware that the problem was me and my thinking process it was too late. I had already gained 200lbs. You might wonder how I could let myself get that overweight. Well, that is what I want to tell people. The purpose for “My Story” isn’t just about losing weight, but it is also about becoming aware that I had developed a dependency on foods to make me feel good. This awareness is important because it is the reason I haven’t regressed back to old ways that are familiar. I have developed new behavior patterns that are self empowering instead of self sabotaging.
As I grew up I watched my parents work out and they were always physically active. We did a lot of family activities that were outside like playing football, throwing the Frisbee, softball, kickball, and having fun at the beach. My mother was always health conscience and watched how much sugar we took in. I loved to exercise when I was in my teens and early twenties. I played tennis, jogged, weight lifted, and swam. I had plenty of energy. I ate pretty healthy and only ate until I was full. I had no problem throwing away half of a Hagen Daaz’ ice cream sandwich if I was full. I enjoyed food but I didn’t view it as a form of entertainment. I ate when I was hungry and that was it. I was too preoccupied with having fun with my friends, religious activities I was involved with on a weekly basis, and I worked to have money to buy clothes. My parents had five children, four of which are girls, so if I wanted anything that wasn’t a necessity I paid for it with my own money. I am the youngest girl and I always admired my older sisters, and still do, for their great qualities and skills. Younger siblings tend to want to imitate their older siblings and I had a hard time identifying my own qualities and I always compared myself to my older siblings. This way of thinking led to feelings of inadequacy. These feelings contributed to an over sensitive critical viewpoint of myself. I would get nervous and/or embarrassed very easily. I always had cold clammy hands. What I realized later, when I was about 23 years old, was that I had an anxiety disorder.
As I got older and started a family I had real stress to deal with, but I didn’t know how to manage it properly. Before I got pregnant I went to the gym and worked out several times a week. I enjoyed doing social things with friends and family. I would eat whatever I wanted but usually never overate. I do remember my eating habits being affected by emotions but instead of eating when I was sad I couldn’t eat and would end up losing weight during stressful times. When I got pregnant with my first child I stopped working, which was one of my biggest mistakes and reasons for weight gain because I became very sedentary. I was very tired and nauseous all the time so I stopped exercising. I slept a lot and ate a lot. All the sudden I was always hungry and I had to eat right away or I wouldn’t be very nice. Another problem was I was eating high calorie and high fat meals and not moving around enough. My husband eats a lot. He is very tall and lean. I eventually started eating almost as much as him at meals. I started viewing food as entertainment. I put way too much importance on eating foods that tasted good and making every meal a gratifying event for my taste buds. The first five months of my pregnancy I gained about 40lbs. However my body’s thermogenesis was changing and my metabolism was slowing down. Thermogenesis is the process in which the body raises its temperature, or energy output. By increasing the thermogenesis within the body, the metabolism is raised and fat cells are then utilized as energy to support this metabolic increase. The thermogenesis process within the body can be triggered by nutrition and exercise. This can go both ways; so if someone who has an increased metabolism starts eating high fat and high calorie large meals and they stop exercising and continue with that kind of lifestyle then their metabolism will decrease and they will gain weight. This caused me to start gaining about 20lbs a month for the last four months of my pregnancy. I didn’t have Gestational Diabetes nor any other pregnancy related illnesses.
With my first child I gained 120lbs during pregnancy. My self esteem was affected and caused me to avoid people and places. I had no self confidence and was so upset with myself for letting my weight get that bad. It took a couple of years for me to get motivated to lose weight. I started working a full time job again. I began exercising and eating better. The first month I lost about 15lbs. My self esteem and self confidence rose with the weight loss. Exercising helped with my anxiety which helped me to have the will power to not give in to food cravings. I finally felt like I was getting back to the old me. I ended up losing about 55lbs over a 4 month period. I went from 240lbs to 185lbs. Then I got pregnant again!
This pregnancy I decided to do things differently. I kept working, exercising and for the most part eating right. That lasted until the 6th month of my pregnancy. My job became much more stressful and I was given more responsibility. I managed things pretty well but I did resort back to using food as a way to manage my stress. I was working about 55-60hours a week and doing a lot of driving so I didn’t feel like exercising. Sure enough I started gaining weight but I only gained back the 55lbs I lost. Things were different because I only gain 55lbs not 120lbs like my first pregnancy. Instead of being proud of myself for only gaining 55lbs this time I was focused on the fact that I was back where I started.
I felt overwhelmed and unmotivated. I decided to take some time off work and moved back to Gainesville where most of my family lived. My weight slowly rose to 265lbs after the birth of my second child. In 2006 I went to a primary care doctor because I felt anxious and depressed and needed help. I was starting to suffer from panic attacks again and I felt overwhelmed all the time. I just couldn’t focus and losing weight seemed like a huge obstacle that I would never be able to conquer. I decided to ask my doctor to help me get healthy. I had high blood pressure and started having chest pains. The doctor put me on antidepressant medication that she said would help me lose weight and help with my depression and lack of motivation. Unfortunately this specific antidepressant stimulated my nervous system too much and caused me to be irritable and I couldn’t sleep at night. When I went in for my one month check up I told the doctor that my anxiety was worse and I was having mood swings. She prescribed an anti- anxiety drug for me to take with the antidepressant to help “take the edge off.” Over the next 6 months I gained 55lbs. Desperate to understand why this was happening I did some research on the medications. I found out that the anti-anxiety prescription I was put on to “take the edge off” had a couple of surprising side effects. One was strong food cravings and the other was rapid weight gain. So, I asked to be weaned off the medications because they were not helping me but only making things worse. I still wouldn’t admit to myself that I had food addictions.
Ok so now here I am 320lbs and completely miserable. I feel horrible. I am having regular chest pains that wake me up at night; which causes anxiety because I think I’m dying. The reality was that I was dying. I was slowly killing myself. I had high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Every time I stood up I would get dizzy. I couldn’t get comfortable at night. I had to constantly change positions when lying in bed because my body ached and a leg or an arm would start to fall asleep if I slept on them for too long. I snored very loud and at times I would wake up gasping for air.
I noticed also that I was careful to conserve energy. I would plan the shortest route when doing most tasks. I would grab as many items as I could when cleaning up or putting away laundry to lessen how many trips back and forth I would need to take. I knew that grocery shopping was an exhausting ordeal. I would get drenched from sweat from just pushing the cart around the store. I noticed how people would look to see what kind of groceries I had in my grocery cart. The funny thing was that a lot of what was in the cart were foods that I didn’t even eat. People would assume that all I did all day is sit around and eat, but I would go all day without eating and then eat a large dinner and then get tired and go to bed. The majority of my caloric intake was consumed after 7pm. So I would starve my body all day long and then gorge it.
I thought about starting to exercise, just walking at first, and I would drive the route I thought about taking to see how far it was. It took me almost a year of thinking about doing it before I actually did it. I doubted whether I would be able to walk the whole way. I was still finding excuses to not lose the weight. The bottom line was that I had a lot of weight to lose and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it. I didn’t want to fail. I was SCARED of losing weight. My weight was my identity. I made decisions all day long based on how heavy I was. My turning point came when I realized that my health condition affected my family. My children and my husband were watching me kill myself. They would try and encourage me to go outside and play with them and I would but not for any extended period of time. Little things like seeing a family in the yard doing yard work together made me aware of the things I was missing out on.
My final kick in the butt that made me TAKE ACTION and responsibility for how I got this way was my oldest son. I went to his school to volunteer one day and a classmate asked him if I was his mother and he said no I was his aunt. The classmate said, “Good because she is fat.” My son didn’t know I heard what they were saying. I left the classroom and went to the bathroom and cried. I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “This is it. No more!” I went back to the classroom and finished the day. Later on I let my son know that I heard him and apologized to him. He was put under more peer pressure than he needed to be because of my choices. I decided to see a weight loss specialist and I’ve never looked back. I wasn’t SCARED OF LOSING WEIGHT ANYMORE! Whether I “failed” or not I was determined to take action and control of my life. I was done feeling sorry for myself and making excuses for myself.
I have lost 120lbs and am still losing. After I started a regular exercise program my blood pressure went down. All of the aches and pains I had and issues with sleep are gone. I don’t snore anymore, unless I have a stuffed up nose. I have so much energy. I look back on all the years I wasted feeling trapped inside a big girl’s body. I didn’t like myself but that was one of my problems. If I loved myself then I probably wouldn’t have gained so much weight. I’ve learned that my body needs good clean energy to work properly and I don’t like the way I feel when I don’t take in good fuel.
The things that I discovered after educating myself helped me to start to understand why I gained the weight in the first place and I admitted to myself I have food addictions. I have learned to find contentment with myself and my life no matter what size I am. Anyone can go on a diet and lose some weight, but if a person finds themselves always needing to go on a diet then there are lifestyle and behavior changes that need to be made. Food addiction is real and is an epidemic in America, but not hopeless. I want to help people who are ready to “TAKE ACTION” and control over their lives in order to get healthy. The process is gradual. If weight loss happens too quickly then it won’t last. The point is to not gain the weight back and the way to do that is through Knowledge. Knowledge is power. I want to help empower you!