My last
#transformationtuesday post for the year, I know it's now Wednesday but I been working on this since I woke up Tuesday around 4 pm and I had to run a few errands also. So I am behind... But also the reason for the last one for the year is because I won't do one next week. I am making this a journal since it is going to be a long one. I hope I don't bore you with this long note but I wanted to finish this year with everything I been going through on this journey.
It's been a never-ending journey and changing your life to be healthy and lose weight and all that stuff is a journey but it's also a lifelong change. I hope you don't get scared off and actually take the time to read it, that way you better understand not just me and my journey but understanding everything that you see online related to similar things you see out there if that makes sense. I know some of you may have had read some of the similar things before or read some of the things I am writing again but again it's my journey.
Things started for me back in the years 1998-2000.
2000 is when I graduated from high school. Through high school years being active doing track/sports/weightlifting and being made fun of for it. I turned to food after I graduated and just ate. I got into a dead-end relationship for 5 years in the late 90s, where the guy I was dating his depression didn't help me any, I thought I could help him. He told me one day if we were together in 5 years we would get married & have kids, so I had hoped I could help him. I loved him enough at that point why not right?
But he was always lazy not wanting to go anywhere but stay home and play video games, he didn't have a job during this time either. He always blamed his crones. He finally got a desk job & I thought things would have gotten better, he got some testing done from the doctors finally and got put on some new meds to help his crones. Things didn't get any better if anything they started to get worse.
When I would want to go to friends to hang out he would moan and cry and not want me to leave. When I would go to work he would call me 15mins after I clocked in asking when I was coming home because he was hungry. So I would spend all my time eating and not going anywhere.
During these years is when I found Slayer in my friend's backyard. My ex-bf and I adopted 2 kitties together Sabbath and his sister Salem. I also adopted Scyko.
5 years down the line he finally admitted he didn't want kids or get married, I had to get out, I realized I was wasting my time and life and I really didn't feel the same towards him in the last year & a half to 2 years of our relationship, it's just his abusive nature in all ways plus threatening me when I thought about leaving him during our years together, Me being 18 to my early 20s, I really didn't have anywhere else to go so I thought, "c'est la vie" for all those 5 years.
So I would go about my days eating fast food, junk food just stopped caring, I lost my esteem, confidence, and self-worth the little I did have, was gone.
But after these shenanigans & him admitting what he did I knew I had to do something.
When I left/moved I took Slayer, Salem, and Scyko with me. Unfort I couldn't take Sabbath due to that poor kitty having seizures, he would have never made a 14hr car ride.
After those years past and in late
2004 I started talking to Joel online/phone as our friend that lived across the border from me introduced us playing an online game. I realized over the years I had got really fat. I honestly tried to shape up the best I could in the weeks before Joel and I planned on meeting. I felt the worst about myself and wanted to better myself, but I didn't know where to start since I was surrounded with crap in my cupboards and I couldn't afford to dump everything and get new stuff. But Joel accepted me 100% for who I was, weight and all. I mean he did drive to Canada (14hrs) and popped the question so, there was that!
2005 when we got married after talking online/phone for 5 months. I tried to start losing weight and bettering myself but I kept falling backward. Failing at everything I would try. I didn't understand why or how but I just kept giving up.
2007-2008 I had a doctor misdiagnosed me. Put me on metformin even though I wasn't diabetic, 2000mg a day. She also put me on an unlimited meat/eggs/cheese diet and I was only allowed 20 carbs a day from veggies, nothing more or nothing less. When I got my first set of blood work before I started this diet it was surprisingly normal for as fat as I was.
3 months later being on this diet my numbers were in the crapper. I lost about 40lbs in those 3 months because the metformin was making me sick most of the time so I couldn't eat. After another 3 months, I felt like I was dying, I was craving potatoes, rice, pasta so bad by this point. I was crying. Some nights when Joel and I would do a meat/cheese night and watch movies, we used to drink wine with it but I couldn't drink wine so I would just eat the meat/cheese and he would have crackers and there was times id just cry because I felt so awful. But the doctor wanted me to continue what I was doing.
During this time we also lost JR our one kitty, but we adopted another, Skeeter!
Fall 2008 - Joel got a job that had benefits, I could actually go to an actual doctor that knew their stuff instead of gear to income clinic from hell as I called it. My new doctor right away told me that I wasn't diabetic so he was unsure why this other doctor had me on metformin and esp that high of a dose, no diabetic even would take a dose that high!
Turns out when the bitch doctor at the clinic from hell gave me an insulin/sugar test with the sugar stuff you drink, she gave me enough for a pregnant woman!! She clearly didn't know what the fuck she was doing so that was why I was so white and ready to faint after the 4 hours and drawing blood every hour!
Jeebus!
So my new doctor cut me back slowly on doses. They also ran my blood-work and I was months shy of actual death due to the diet my previous doctor had me on. They told me to go to the store and pick up a box of whole grain pasta and eat it! Start adding grains and things back into my diet to get my cholesterol and other numbers down asap.
This was also during the time that if you started at a new doctor or got benefits they wanted to know pre-existing conditions. The doctor I had before this one claimed I was diabetic, had high blood pressure and had PCOS. So this caused a HUGE issue because all my doctors said I didn't have any of those. But the insurance wouldn't cover any of my appointments at 100% due to my previous doctor. So I had to spread out my appointments to what I could afford, thankfully my new doctors worked with me for that year making sure I was able to afford my meds and my appointments, after that year everything went to being covered 100%
2009-2010
I continued on the right path losing weight and getting on track, but something felt wrong to me yet again. I hit a plateau and got discouraged. My doctor helped me out by temporarily putting me on phentermine. It got me over the plateau but my blood pressure was now outta wack, so off the phentermine and on blood pressure meds. 2010 was the time we started getting on track with selling our old house to buy a new one. I was working out every morning after Joel left for work for 1-3hours, did the housework then spent the rest of my day either with some friends or playing online games till he got home. But I still didn't feel right, I felt like everything I wasn't doing wasn't enough.
My confidence/esteem/worth was still shot after all these years but I didn't realize it, how could I? I just kept working to please those around me and make them happy as I always did. By the fall we moved into our new house just before Halloween, I fell off the wagon and gave up losing weight even tho I had lost over 150lbs.
2011-2014
I gained all the weight I lost back, then probably some extra. I don't know. All I know is I was still on blood pressure meds, still feeling pretty crappy. Found out after almost 9 years of trying for a family I couldn't have kids. This sunk me into more of a depressed state. I stopped working in 2008 and I started to do my own thing, I was still doing my own thing at this point. Taking care of Joel making sure he's got everything he needed for himself and work and taking care of the house and of course all our fur babies. Joel would always try to lift my spirits and help me anyway I could to make me happy all these years, the thing was I was happy (and still am) happy with him, that was never the issue, I was just never happy with myself.
During
2011-2012 Joel and I sat down and started talking about adoption, part of me hated and despised the idea because I wanted to give birth to our own baby. With Joel and his brother Eric being the last 2 on his dad's line on the tree I didn't' want things to stop there with them, Joel and I when we talked about having kids we wrote out 4 girls and 4 boy names and talked about having a platoon of kids.
My dream was to have kids of our own and be better parents than mine ever were. I wanted to be the best parents possible like my grandparents. They were always there for me and taught me so much over the years when they were alive. They knew how to raise a child and love them and help them any way they could.
Well deep down I still wasn't wanting to adopt but I figured meh whatever. So we looked around and how expensive it was. There was no way we could afford to go through an agency. We were talking $10,000-20,000 if not more depending on where the child came from if we decided overseas.
So we decided to go with the state. Since state adoptions are free. But the thing they don't tell you is they expect you to be foster parents first and go through 10-20 classes FIRST. Then you can start going through the process to become adoptive parents by doing another 10-20 classes after you finish the fostering process. They expect you to also have a bed for each child stage and other things.
They got upset with us because the days their classes were held Joel wouldn't be able to make them due to his work schedule. They didn't understand with people who work in hospitals their hours are always pretty stable but very LONG and to change days or have days off they need to be requested so far in advanced. Even then they are not 100% guaranteed because of how hospitals work. Not to mention every single day they had a class he was working, so how could he tell his boss that? Esp since they are on weekends which working weekends are mandatory.
Well, after all, said and done with the meeting with that... we got told if we couldn't meet the requirements that they couldn't help us...
We then thanks to his stepmom Faith were able to go through her church to try to do an adoption through them since they allowed a pay as you go process and they take a certain percent of your yearly income for the placement costs.
So as much as I was still iffy on it, we started the process and got done the home study and everything else that was needed. Then we just waited for phone calls.
During the
2013 year, we also lost our furbaby Olivia due to her kidneys, which was a really sad time too.
We managed to get phone calls saying they found us a baby but then the baby got placed with someone else or the parents changed their minds and decided to keep their baby.
The process they had for this was you create a book saying who you are and your life and they give those booklets whom they think your best matched with and they pick through buncha books on whom they want to raise their child. So yeah...
But either way, I can't remember also if it was late 2013 or early 2014 Joel and I agreed to call the adoption off. We kept getting nibbles here and there but we would never get chosen.
Joel hated seeing me get my hopes so high then crashing and burning and crying to put out the fires. My depression got worse. So we both agreed it was time to call it off as much as I didn't want too at times, we just needed too. I could see it was killing him too but what could we do?
2015
Being married now 10 years at this point, me still struggling with confidence/esteem issues. I was just set in my ways. Joel sat me down and expressed his concerns with my weight, telling me that he wanted to grow old with me and enjoy retirement with me and he was concerned we would never be able to do that with my weight and how it was.
I realized he was right, I was now almost 35 and I haven't done much but take care of the house and game for the last many years. I mean in 2013 I did start working part-time to get a 2nd car for the adoption stuff and put all my pay to paying it off (which I had done in the first few months of working there).
So I realized that I needed to not just start working on my weight but myself too. But I wasn't ready to join a gym. Last time I joined a gym I remember I would walk in and have everyone just stare at me. So I decided to workout at home. I had my biggest loser DVDs from my previous journeys and I could walk outside. So off I went.
So from
Summer 2015 to Summer 2016, I did just cardio. Once it got to the hot super summertime in 2015 Joel bought me a treadmill so I could walk inside instead of dying in the heat outside. Same with the fall/winter didn't wanna freeze.
Late winter early spring in
2016 we lost Bubbles and Slayer. Bubbles had kidney issues and Slayer we think it was his heart murmur. I take all passing's of our babies hard but Slayer was extra hard because I found him during a super dark moment in my life back in 1998.
Summer 2016 came around and I joined a gym. I felt better at walking into one being over 100lbs lighter, they offered free personal trainers so I got with one. He gave me workout plans, started to do them. My eating was still okay, not the best but ok. Fall 2016 I started to plateau, the trainer told me I wasn't eating enough that I needed to eat more, so I did, tossed the scale aside and did what he said.
By Christmas, I didn't feel any different if anything I felt fatter then I was again, turns out when I jumped on the scale eating more was the wrong move. I gained 50-60lbs back, I was devastated. I almost wanted to give up but I didn't.
January 2017 I quit listening to the trainer I had and started doing Joel's old workout routine when he was in the army.
One day legs, one day chest, one day back, one-day triceps, one-day biceps and one-day cardio with one day rest.
Joel even joined me because he felt motivated to make some changes. He was still doing really well on quitting smoking. He had quit for almost 10 years but running into some old friends triggered wanting to smoke.
Joel was super mad at himself. I told him to just take steps to quit again that he did it before and I believed in him that he could do it again.
We couldn't stand coming home from visits smelling like smoke, we would toss our clothes in the wash and showering right away each and every time we came home.
Then working out the next day even tho we showered having the smoke smell coming outta our pours, I almost puked on many occasions trying to get through my workout because the smell of smoke was just that strong.
I quit smoking back in 2000 so it was a huge deal to me.
By April/May we joined a new gym, got with a trainer there and a food coach too. By the time I joined with them I had lost all the weight I gained from the other trainer. So I kept going.
6 weeks I stuck with the meal plan and trainer I got ... I lost another 15lbs. I then started to do my own workout thing again because I couldn't afford to keep a trainer and the food plan I had, I had to modify it because it was getting expensive.
I went through a serious of biopsy's and tests also this year due to checking to see if I had PCOS or not, making sure I didn't have cancer and other things.
The year and my workouts went on and I managed to lose about 90lbs that year.
Even with the unexpected setbacks throughout the year and unable to workout due to doctors orders. Losing Joel's brother it was a rough year but I still managed progress!
Joel and I would go to the gym on the days he was off work together and day of I would go by myself.
I also took this year off work to be with family and take care of things that needed to be done, the bosses told me it was fine so I wasn't worried.
2018
I kept on the same workout plan, my eating was so-so. But I kept moving forward.
January 2018 we lost Salem due to kidney issues, which really upset me also, but I kept trying to move forward.
April I had enough guts to join wrestling school, esp since they were having free tryouts for women. I was nervous as all hell going in there but thanks to Billy aka Sarge, it wasn't so bad lol. I was about 200lbs down by this point.
Even tho I was still struggling with my mindset of being even heavier sometimes it took learning moves pretty hard because I was scared to hurt people. I still struggle even now!
In May I got a letter from my 401k stating that my employment status changed and I needed to do something with my money. I was confused. Turns out management changed and what was agreed upon even with the new HR manager it meant bumpkiss. They fired everyone who wasn't around for 6 months or longer doctor notes or not they just up and fired all of us!
I was about to have my 6 years with them in 2019 but because I was only there for 5 years... guess what!? All the retirement funds that my job put in I won't ever see a dime, you have to be there over 6 years to see that money, but I paid out the ass in taxes on what I put in and only managed to get maybe $200. Thank you big jerks!
Anyway...
The year went on...
My workouts did too...
As did wrestling school...
Days I would go to school Joel was at work and I wouldn't go to the gym but on the days Joel was off I wouldn't go to school but I would go to the gym with him, even on some days we would go twice.
I made 3 wrestling show debuts which were enough to graduate wrestling manager. I was told to work 3 more shows to graduate referee. So waiting to hear back on my graduation for manager. I even got my Missouri wrestling license back in August!
There been setbacks this year, most recent was landing on the ring apron and being down and out for the last 2 weeks. But going to try back at cardio this week. So *fingers crossed* all goes well.
Since my doctor told me he was fine with me setting back my appointment till April for my weight loss stuff since I don't have much to show for right now being set back. Being a wrestling fan he understands.
So sitting here on December 19th, yes a day late for transformation Tuesday. But here it is none the less...
I gained about 15lbs in 1.5 weeks with all my being spoiled by wonderful friends and family, no complaints though! Just gonna get back on track! But the good news is in the last week I have actually lost 6lbs, so there is that, yay!
So still down over 70 inches in my waist
Over 20+ inches in my thighs and upper arms
over 30% body fat lost
210lbs lost
Still more to go but I am not done yet, hoping 2019 is the year I can finally hit my goal weight, guess we will see. But goal still stands to cosplay She-Hulk, hoping in 2020!
Thanks to everyone for reading all this for those that have, thank you all for the continued support. It means a lot!
Here is my most recent side by side.
Thank you!
Tina
ps... All my progress has been with workouts, eating right, sure I had some help with meds at some points, but no surgery what so ever!
