By now, you may have seen my
transformation from when I was overweight and unhealthy. Now, for the first time since I began this
phase of my journey to reclaim my health, I am sharing with you my way back
before transformation.
Back when I was a young, and I mean
young mother, I was in a bad place. I
had this precious baby girl, but was in an abusive marriage. Although he made great money in the oil
field, we lived in poverty like conditions, because most of his paycheck went
to drugs and alcohol. I had to scrounge
for ways to feed our daughter, which included getting government commodities…
cheese, powdered milk and anything else they would give me. These items I had
to haul home, hung on the back of an umbrella stroller. If it weren’t for the generosity of his
mother, father and extended family, things would have ironically been worse. Most of the clothes I wore, were hand me downs
from his cousin.
It is with pleading to him for some
money and help from his family that I was able to host two parties (one for family only and one for neighborhood
children) for my daughter’s first birthday. When I look at pictures from
then, I only smile because of how happy my baby girl was. I also feel a mix of sadness and anger, because of the condition we lived in. Due to
our situation, I made sure that my daughter was fed before I was. Plus anything that I did eat, was soon
transferred to her as I nursed her until she was 18 months old. I was her main source of nourishment. With nursing, not eating enough and walking
everywhere, the result was me being underweight and unhealthy. I felt awful!
Some people are naturally thin and
healthy. For me, being that thin was
unnatural and unhealthy and I couldn’t keep living like that either. Perhaps that is why for a while, I accepted
being overweight as better than how I was way back then. The reality is, that neither was healthy. Both ways put a lot of stress on my body. Today I am at a “normal” weight and healthier
than I have ever been. Now I determine
how healthy I am, not because of what the scale says, but how I feel. I feel great!
When I say I want to help you
reclaim your health, I mean that I want to help you take charge of your health
and how you will feel when you do. To you
it could mean losing weight and replacing fat loss with muscle, or gaining
weight by increasing your muscle mass. Whatever it means to you, I will help
you with it.
Be well.
