You know, sometimes we fall off the wagon
during our weight loss journey. I mean
life happens, and those
old habits that are really not
good for us sometimes creep back in.
And we really don't want to step on that
scale, because that scale
is not going to lie to us
about how badly we fell off that wagon.
And what my scale showed me was truly horrifying.
(SCARY PULSATING SCREECHING NOISE)
(UPBEAT INTRO MUSIC)
Hey everyone, welcome back to my weight
loss vlog.
If you are new to this channel, welcome.
Thank you so much for clicking on this
video, I hope you
stick around till the end.
And for those of you who have subscribed
to my channel, and have been following my
journeys, you know very well
I've had two substantial tries during
this weight loss journey. And this third
go at it is my
third and final. Three is the charm when
it comes to my weight loss journey.
For those of you who want to see my past
journeys in this
weight loss realm,
you can go click on the iCard
up there, or i'll put the playlist link
down below,
and you can check them all out. But my
first weight loss journey started back
in 2014. And at that time
I was I believe 294 pounds.
And that was the first time I met my
amazing trainer and now
dear dear friend Christy. She is a
miracle worker and in 2014 to 2015,
she helped me lose 80 pounds.
And I have a photo of the before and
after. I think I took it
when I had lost 70 pounds, but I lost an
additional 10 pounds after that photo. So
we worked out all the way through 2015.
And health-wise after losing 80 pounds,
I felt amazing! But in late 2015,
things in my life had started to change
and I made a business decision
that, in hindsight, wasn't
the best for me and and in 2016
I had started working what was
equivalent to two full-time jobs.
And because I was working 80-90 hours a
week, that didn't leave any time for me
to work out with Christy which I had
been working out twice a week with her.
I barely got a chance to talk to her, and
I fell back into a lot of my old habits...
BAD habits. Bad eating habits,
not exercising,
And I quickly in 2016
gained 50 of those 80 pounds back.
Towards the end of 2016, I realized my
mistake. I quit one of the jobs I had
to bring my hours back
down to a normal level.
But even after backing down my hours, I
didn't go immediately back to Christy,
which was another mistake.
Because I let those habits
set in while I was working the two jobs.
Man those habits came back
full force and strong.
And I continued those
bad habits and gained I think another
oh... I not only gained all the 80 pounds
back that I lost but I think I gained
another 13 on top of that.
So in I think it was
like June of 2017,
I reached back out to Christy, because at
that time, I was 306 pounds!
I had never been that heavy in my life.
And I was really starting to feel
all the bad health end of it. Because
trust me you're at that weight, you feel
lousy. And I started back with Christy
in the summer of 2017. And again,
she knocked 30 pounds off of me right
away. I think actually we got to
almost 40 we were like at 39 pounds. So I
worked out with her from summer 2017.
But, there was other things happening, and
I wasn't balancing my business very well.
And basically I stopped sleeping
very much. I was sleeping like three to
four hours a night.
I wasn't taking my water.
So even with Christy's help, I was more
maintaining after I lost those initial
39 pounds. And I stayed working out with Christy
until the summer of 2019.
Had I not been working out with Christy,
and her constant reminding me
of what I should be doing, I tell you my
weight would have
ballooned right back over the 300s.
But I was able to maintain it
up until the summer of 2019.
So in the summer of 2019, I had
actually developed like a psoriasis on
my arms. And it was severely aggravated by
sweat and heat. Well if you're exercising...
especially if you're exercising at this size,
uh, you sweat a lot.
And the heat... and I live in Arizona, okay?
And it got to the point where I could
not exercise
or be outside at all without having just
horrible horrible itching. And this
condition would go away, but you were
supposed to
stay cool and dry to get it to go away.
Well by the time that
happened, Christy had actually retired
from training.
And those bad habits I had, came back
like a tidal wa...
a tsunami just overtook me, and I went on
eating binges like I have never eaten
before. I was
out of control. And from the time I
stopped working out with Christy in that
summer,
until December of 2019... I had not only
gained the 39 pounds back, but even
gained more. Then last December something
happened that was really like
a light bulb moment for me, and I wanted
to talk a little bit about that, because
it has been life-changing for me,
and really inspiring me to restart this
journey and be successful
this time around.
Now before I tell you what happened in
December that really was
the "aha" moment for me, I want to talk
about people that have really
inspired me in this journey. And first
and foremost, I want to talk about my
family. They have been
extremely supportive. My parents have
been wonderfully supportive, even all the
way back to 2014. It was my parents who
offered to pay for me
to seek out a trainer
and help me find Christy.
And even most recently they have
provided me with a source of nutritious
dinners, healthy dinners, low calorie
dinners that actually my trainer Christy
(who happens to be a personal chef too)
she is cooking them for me.
So they have financially helped me do that,
which has been a game changer for
me. So my parents have been
wonderfully supportive.
Next, I have my three children.
My kids have been so
unbelievably supportive through this,
always encouraging me,
partnering up with me to do whether it
be exercises, or whatever they help me in
my business. My oldest son has provided a
lot of the music you hear
on my channel. He is a wonderfully
talented music composer. And then my
youngest son, he is an amazingly talented
3-D artist, and he has been
helping me create
graphics for not only my channel, but
other things in my business too. And he
is always very supportive and provides
humor when I need it the most.
And then there's my daughter. She is my
right-hand person that I will... (voice tightens)
I'm gonna try not to get emotional so...
She's behind the camera right now.
She's always been there. She's been a
partner in my business, just an amazing woman.
And she has encouraged me every step of
the way. She has talked me
off the cliff, so to speak, when I was at
my wit's end,  and she has
brought me back down to earth.
She encouraged me to restart this
journey, and she wanted to document it
from the start. And I gotta just put
something out there for you guys...
When you're overweight, and you have
someone videotaping you exercising...
umm...(laughing) it's not easy,
oh my God, uh to see yourself in those videos.
But she kept telling me
when I'd say I don't want to see
what I look like, she's like... "Mom, your
future self is gonna thank you for this."
And here I am, my future self,
and I'm not thanking me for it.
I am thanking Emily for that
(my daughter).
Because I am so thankful to see where
I've come. If she hadn't insisted on
documenting this journey,
I wouldn't have been able to see
the progress number one, and I wouldn't
be able to share it with you, and
hopefully inspire someone else. Because
like I said, it's not pretty when you're
this size and you're exercising. I'm just
gonna put it out there right now, okay. (laughing)
And it is really taking a lot for me to
show this footage, and I will show you
some footage of my exercises.
But again, you know in your head you're
thinking, when you're really working out
hard, and you're sweating... You're like,
"Oh yeah, I'm doing it really well."
And then you see the footage, and you go,
"Oh my gosh!"
That is a scary sight you know. I thought
I was doing these deep squats, and it
looked like I was going down two inches
on the video. (laughing)
A real eye-opener you know, you think
you're doing these great sit-ups, and
you're like no you're barely making it up.
But having that footage, and having her
join me on all the workouts I did with
Christy... And she is the next person I
want to talk about that's been in my
life supporting me.
My amazing trainer, and dear dear friend Christy.
She came out of retirement to help me
out, because she could see how out of
control I was getting.
And she's always been
there, not only when we're working out
together, but she's like,
"Text me your weight in the
morning. Text me when you have a problem,
or if you have a question."
I have been able to text her night and
day any time. And she's... BAM!
responding, helping me out, getting in my
head, getting my head on straight. I'm
going to share with you later in this
video, some of the things that she has
told me that have just been... (poof)
mind-blowing. I'm so thankful to have her
in my life. When you start a new journey
like this you often go to YouTube, or
you online, to get tips and hints and
strategies to do things. And there have
been five individuals,
where through their videos, it has been
truly inspiring. And so I wanted to share
that. The first one I want to talk about
is Michelle. She has a YouTube channel
"Michelle Makes Muscles", and I'll put the
link to her channel down below.
I happen to catch her "restart".
She had started a year before,
dropped off, and then she restarted her
journey at the beginning of this year as well.
And I just automatically felt a kinship
through her videos.
She... everything she talked about really
resonated with me... and inspired me...
and made me feel
like I really wasn't alone in this journey.
She's about the same weight I am. So it
really helps when you see
individuals... So go check out Michelle on
her channel. She really does have
relatable content. And knowing
how she helped me, and
in watching her,  I wanted to restart this
series. Because I'm hoping that if
there's anyone out there who's going
through this, please let me know in the
comments below. I'd love to hear
what your journey is like. You know if
you've had some of the similar
obstacles like I have, or that I'm
talking about in this video, okay...
So please don't be shy.
It is an "all positive" zone here.
The next person I want to talk about is
another YouTuber.
He's very very popular. His name is
John David Glaude, and he has a channel
"ObeseToBeast".
He's had his weight loss journey
where he lost 180 pounds,
and looks amazing! And he has kept it off
for many many years. I think he did his
first... he did a video in 2014, where he
was showing all the loose skin from that.
But I really love his content. He's
very inspirational. So
I will leave a link to his channel as
well. Go check out "ObeseToBeast". He has
wonderful content, 
and it's been inspiring to me as well.
Another YouTuber I came across
that I've really enjoyed listening to is
Alan Roberts of "Every Damn Day Fitness".
I'll put the link to his channel as well.
He has a lot of great content. I will
warn you...
he does use some pretty strong language.
Um... the "F" word is dropped quite a bit.
I mean the information he shares is solid.
I really enjoy watching his channel.
And a lot of what he says
has tremendously helped me, in that
I've had some fears, (that I will talk
about later) and I thought those fears
may have been
me just being too skittish or making
excuses,
and things like that. And in watching his
channel... I found that the fears and
concerns I had, were valad.
And he shared some good
information that would help me
get through those concerns. So go check
him out. And just cover your ears a
little bit for the uh... added "colorful" language,
Okay. (laughing). Another YouTuber
I've been watching a lot lately,
is April Lauren. She is on a
journey to lose 200 pounds, and um...
I just adore her channel. She is the
sweetest thing, and I
enjoy watching her videos. She brings a
lot of good content in.
Again all the links to these channels
are in the description below. So
go check them out. If you are on a weight
loss journey, they have wonderful content
for you to follow.
And then the last person I want to talk
about, is another YouTuber that I happen
to meet up through YouTube.
I haven't met her personally,
but we have corresponded
through Facebook and YouTube,
and that's Mrs Sonia Elaine.
She shares fitness and fashion and food
videos.
And it was in one of her fitness videos
that she happened to
recommend some products that she felt
was really helpful.
Two of the items she mentioned have been
game changers in my journey,
and I will share those with you as well.
So I wanted to bring all these people
up, because I might be referring to them
later on in this video so I wanted you
to kind of know who I was talking about, okay.
So let's talk about what happened
last December for me, that was the
"AHA" moment that
really changed everything for me.
Now if you've been with this channel, you
know I'm a Professional Organizer. When I
started my first weight loss journey, I
was always talking about how the path to
organization, and the path to weight loss,
are often parallel journeys. Because the
concepts in each one
are very similar. And
as with organizing and hoarding,
the psychological concepts that bring
you to hoarding are the same...
often the same ones that happen when you
overeat. It's an unhealthy
relationship with stuff,
or an unhealthy relationship with food.
They are very much identical. In my very
first video, I basically titled it,
"I'm a Professional Organizer and I'm a Hoarder".
I didn't hoard stuff...
I was perfectly organized
in that area. I hoarded pounds... and food. 
So in December,
I had a revelation that
really made me rethink my relationship
with food. And I always tried to figure out
why I always turned to food you know.
If I'm sad I would eat. If I was stressed,
I would eat. If I was happy, guess what...
I ate! No surprise if you look at me.
But I couldn't figure out WHY???
Why did I need that? Why did I feel such
a strong compulsion to
go grab food? For me, what I
discovered in December,
kind of connected with my personality.
Now a lot of people who know me...
I'm a control freak, and I am a perfectionist.
So when something goes out of control
for me, my perfectionism and my control
"freak-ness" kind of goes out of whack.
I was able to look back
in December and realize that my weight
gains over the years, my "huge" weight gains...
always correlated with some type of loss
in my life. And it's interesting because
oftentimes, hoarders
are triggered by a loss... a loss of
a loved one or something like that. And
that's when they start grabbing stuff in.
I didn't grab stuff, I grabbed food. So in
December, my parents reached out to me.
They were getting
very concerned about how "large" I was
becoming, and asked
what could they do to help. And I
mentioned that dinner times were
my trigger for eating through the whole
night, and I needed a healthier
alternative. So they reached out...
they said, "You know what? We will provide
you dinners through this journey." So they
reached out to Christy who makes
healthy meals, (she's a personal chef), and
they purchased every single
night's meal for me.
And they have been since December.
Now you would think that
once I started receiving these delicious
meals that Christy makes, that I would
just be gobbling them up. Right?
No! I found in December that I stored all
of them in my freezer, and I only ate two
that whole month! Why??? It was my fear that
someday I might not
have these meals. So I must
hoard and save them for that event.
I was gearing myself up for the loss.
I had a long history of anything that
was really great was often accompanied
by a loss. So I conditioned
myself to think that
all these meals are great! I must save
them, because the other shoe is going to drop.
Huge revelation for me.
That is my relationship with food.
I had to get over that.
You know when Chr..
When my parents and Christy found out
that I had been hoarding her food...
I wish I would have taken a picture of
their faces. They couldn't believe!...
And I know it may
not make sense to a lot of people, but I was
so worried about losing her food, that I
was going to hoard and not use it.
So I realized that my
overeating with food
is really tied in with when I feel I
lose something that is out of my control.
When life happens some of
those things are out of
my control. And the fact that I can't
control them is what triggers me to eat.
It took me realizing that I cannot
control what's going to happen to me in
this world. But I CAN control
how I respond to it.
So that was the revelation.
I had to control how I responded to it.
And that was the revelation I had been
looking for for years. I am a psychology major.
You'd think I could have come up
with this sooner. But NO!
So what I have done now
is I face those "what-ifs". I have said,
"What if this goes away? How am I going to
handle it?" And having a plan in place...
Again... this is how it matches, and what
I've preached to all my organizing clients is,
having a plan in place is crucial.
You cannot go without a plan
if you want to organize a room.
You have to have some kind of idea of where you
want to go so you know how to get there.
Same thing with my eating disorder. I had
to figure out a different
way if that event happened. And having a
plan in place for those eventual bad
things that happen, it allowed me to stop
those bad behaviors and using food to
get through those bad times.
So that very unhealthy relationship with
food is what helped me
balloon all the way up to 319 pounds!
319 pounds is what I weighed at
the beginning of this year.
Now let me tell you what you feel when
your body is 319 pounds,
and you are five feet four
and a half inches tall. Well we'll say
five-five. Give me that extra half. (laughs)
Anyway... let's talk pain. Now I have
experienced physical pain in my life.
I have sprained ankles, I have
sprained my wrist, I have
broken my fingers, I have broken my toes,
I have gone through labor three times!
The pain I felt when I was 319 pounds...
and I felt that pain daily. Every second,
every minute, I felt pain
somewhere in my body.
I felt excruciating pain
in my knees, and in my feet.
I was constantly out of breath. I mean, my
gosh! I took two steps, and you'd hear me
huffing and puffing. I could be sitting,
and I would be huffing and puffing.
My blood pressure...
Oh, that was healthy too..150 over 100.
Mmm... Not good!
My feet and my ankles?... Constantly swollen.
I felt like Aunt Marge, in the Harry
Potter movies. You know where my feet and
my ankles would just keep getting
bigger and bigger and bigger.
And the skin stretching that much...
it constantly... the tops of my feet
would constantly itch because
they would be so swollen.
It was horrible!
My shoes didn't fit right.
I couldn't even sleep very easily
it is so hard to roll over
when you are overweight in bed.
So you can only sleep in certain
positions. And those positions you
constantly have to shift,
otherwise you're in more pain.
So you're not getting good sleep!
And then when I tried to get out of the bed...
I'd have to set my feet down gently,
get them used to the floor, just sitting.
Then I'd go to stand...
And then I'd have to feel the immense
weight just go from the top,
all the way down to my knees and feet.
And the pain... while I just stood there...
And then I'd have to get used to that pain.
Then I'd take the first step and feel that pain.
And then I'd take the next step,
and feel that horrible pain.
It is painful to be overweight like that. 
Especially morbidly obese like I am.
And I was having trouble even
like standing up from my desk...
getting out of the car...
It was horrible.
And then I want to talk about the fear. 
You know you live in a
state of fear about falling.
Here's the thing... You can fall
when you're 120, 130, 140 pounds,
and you might get a little bruise.
You fall when you are morbidly obese...
You are going to be hurt.
I did take a fall
when I was around 300 pounds,
and I have NEVER felt gravity
like I felt in that fall.
When you have 300 pounds
coming down on these bones and joints,
it is like you're taking
a sledgehammer to glass.
It feels like your body's going to
shatter, and that is a real possibility.
So I lived in fear of falling.
I felt out of balance,
because again, I had so much
fat here I'm walking different,
and you're waddling, and you feel like
you could just topple over. You can't see
things in front of you
because the stomach's way out.
It just seems like this potential for
injury was so high.
And... so I was always afraid of that.
So I stopped doing a lot of things, because
I was afraid of hurting myself if I got up
and walked. And I would fear if I had
any chest pains. You know it could just
be indigestion, most likely you know,
but you always think is this "the big one" 
that's going to take me out?
Everything around being overweight,
was just miserable
So that's kind of what
propelled me back into this journey.
And there have been things that I've heard
from whether it be YouTubers
or people around me, uh...
friends and family, that really helped out.
And I wanted to share them with you,
to see if they resonate with you too as well.
And you know when I just
talked about the fear of injury
I kind of felt...
I never told anybody about those fears.
And it wasn't until I was watching
one of Alan Robert's videos,
you know from Every Damn Day Fitness,
where he said...
[Alan]
Any type of injury like that, any
load-bearing injury to a morbidly obese person,
comes with its very realistic set of
dangers, that could be life-threatening.
[PAM] It made me feel better that
I wasn't being a wimp,
that I wasn't making excuses,
about this intense fear I had of injury,
of what could happen if I took a fall.
Or, when I would try to walk, the pain was
so bad and I had to pay
attention to every step I took.
Because if I landed wrong,
the pain would be unbearable,
and I'd almost fall over with the pain.
So it really helped me to
hear that and I thank him
for saying that. It just kind of validated, and
helped me understand that I was not
looking at it as an excuse. Again,
with the revelation I finally had in December,
I was on a path to...
"How can I make this work?"
And in my mind I had
decided to focus on the food,
as much as I could,
and let the exercise happen
as safely as possible when it happened.
And I was so happy when I came across
a video by John from ObeseToBeast,
where he shared a saying that
I think he said he had heard it,
but he had said...
"Weight loss happens in the kitchen
fitness happens in the gym."
And I'm like, okay we need
to focus on the weight loss.
So I am, in focusing on my food,
for me at 319 pounds...
I could maybe set a little bit of the
exercise back while I focused on the food.
And I also have to say,
something my awesome
friend Christy has told me in
all the times we've been exercising, she
would always remind me...
"You can't out exercise a bad diet."
So she says the starting thing always 
happens with the food you're putting in.
Because no matter how much you work out,
if you're putting crap in you,
and tons of calories of that crap in you,
you're never going to work it off.
So that really helped me be comfortable
with the decisions I was making
regarding watching my food,
and then going into exercise.
But I knew I had to get moving,
because one of the things Christy
has always told me is that
the more sedentary you are,
the higher the level of pain.
And that is so true.
When I have editing days for these videos, 
when I have to sit for hours on end,
the pain in the joints come back. 
So I know I need movement.
What's so wonderful about working out
with Christy is she has been with me since 2014.
She knows my injuries, she knows just
where she can push me
and where she lets it come back.
And she has modified countless exercises to
accommodate the weight and not put
any damage on my knees or my feet.
I'm so so blessed and grateful
to have her in my life.
She has made it possible for me to keep moving.
through all these times. And another thing
Christy has shared with me
that really has resonated, and I hope if
you are struggling with
food addiction and cravings at any time
of the day. Here's one thing that Christy
told me that really helps me,
and I remember it every time I get
that craving when I'm really not hungry.
She said when has eating crap ever made
your situation better in any way?
She says, "Does make you feel health-wise
better after you eat it?"
Well no, I actually feel very tired when I eat crap.
I usually want to take a nap after it.
She says, "Has it made the the problem
you're facing go away?"
No, it hasn't.
"Has it ever made it easier
for you to tackle that problem?"
And, actually no it hasn't.
Because when I've eaten crap,
I lose my motivation.
So I have no energy to tackle it.
So in no way does eating crap make a
situation better. Is it going to make you
feel better? Is it going to take away the
pain? Is it going to take away the problem?
How's it going to help? You know,
You know, so that really resonated with me. 
So I thank her for that. And then one
And then one other thing that has
really helped me a lot in this journey...
I need to lose 180 pounds.
I felt the strongest when I was
about 140 pounds. So that means,
when I started on my journey at 319,
I need to lose about 180 pounds to get
to my goal. So I was watching a
video of John's, from ObeseToBeast,
and he had mentioned a saying of...
[John]
One of my favorite sayings,
I didn't make this up, but I heard it
from someone. It was a guy that lost a
lot of weight. He's like I didn't lose
whatever, it was like 200 pounds, I lost
one pound 200 times.
(Pow) Mind blowing!
That helps so much!
And again, this goes....
Why I didn't think about that too?
I always tell my clients,
don't look at the overall
project that you have to organize. Take
it down to small manageable parts.
Like don't look at the whole room, or the
whole house that you have to organize.
Just look at a drawer, or a shelf.
And yet, it's the same thing with losing weight.
Don't look at 180 pounds!
Look at losing 1 pound 180 times. Ah!
That works for me! So I hope those things
that have meant a lot to me, will help you.
Okay, I want to talk about
some tools that I've used
that have helped me in this journey.
And again, if it helps you, I mean everyone's
going to be different on this journey.
And it's that again goes right along
with organizing. I always tell people
there's no one-size-fits-all organizing
plan for everyone, because everyone is
different. And I'm sure that's the same
with weight loss.
There's no one way to lose weight. It has
to work with you, so I'm hoping you know,
here and there, something resonates with
you. I'm just going to tell you what has
worked for me.
You can try it out and see.
One of the things that I noticed
in another video I watched of John Glaude's
which was his ObeseToBeast.
He talked about
this calculator that would calculate how
many calories you need
to maintain your weight.
And I think it's called TDEE.
Total Daily Energy Expenditure
calculator.
And I would put in my height, my weight,
my age,
uh... But it gives you how many calories
you need to maintain your weight.
Now as everybody knows, weight loss
happens from a deficit.
So having that maintenance calorie
level helped me determine where I wanted
to set my calories so that I would be
operating in the deficit to lose some
weight. But that helped me.
That was a tool that very
much helped me in planning my meals and
how many calories I was going to put
into each day's meals.
The next thing that is totally a tool
that has helped me is journaling.
I am a very visual person, and
so if I don't have it down on paper, I
can't see it. I can't say, "oh yeah, I kind
of lost a little sleep that time. Maybe
that's affecting my weight loss." Or,
I ate late that day, you know?
I need to see it.
And that way, in my mind, that's
proof. So what every day I do...
I put down on this little template... What
my starting weight was that day. How much
sleep I got the night before.
How many ounces of water... I literally
have little check boxes
for eight ounces. So every
time I drink eight ounces, I check a box
off. So I can see the total at the end of
the day. Did I hit my gallon goal?
And then, I have each meal and I also
have a spot where I put in what time I ate.
Because I wanted to see if the time
of day affected my weight loss.
And then I also calculated the calories.
But I also put on the bottom of the sheet,
non-scale victories. And then also just a
little area where I could put my side thoughts.
Did I have difficulties that
day? Did something happen?
Just so I have a kind of a guide of how
my life is going. Because life is too
busy for me to remember.
And at 55 years old,
my memory is not working so well either.
So having it down on paper can let me
refer back to it. It helped me
figure out what was going on
in my body. Is sleep affecting it? Is
water affecting it? Is it that I had
you know, too many calories? Did I eat
late? I can see when I ate. I could see if
I was skipping meals...
That sort of thing helped me out. So
having a little template,
or some kind of journal,
to put all those pieces
of information down,
helped me figure out what the heck was
going on with my body. Because I gotta
tell you... (laughing) Menopause...
Going through menopause, and
being postmenopausal... you realize that
every morning, getting up is a new
adventure in what's going to
snap, crackle, or pop off!
So you don't know what's going on with
your body after menopause.
So it just helps give me a guide, okay...
Okay! So now I want to
talk about my approach to exercising.
When you are at 319 pounds,
exercising is a very scary thing.
Any movement is scary.
And the fear of always injuring yourself...
very real. But I had to look for new ways
to exercise. Because even when I was
working with Christy, we primarily did a
lot of arm work.
And that was so I could support myself
in getting up and down too.
She still worked my the lower half, but I
was in a lot of pain, and so we were
constantly having to back off. I realized
that I needed to find a different
way to get some exercise and
movement in, that wasn't
so weight bearing. And the
first thing that came to my mind was
water... pools... I know every time I get into
a pool, that's the one time
I feel like I am as
physically fit as anyone else. Because
that water just takes all that weight
off, and my muscles can do what they were
meant to do. My joints can do what they
were meant to do. But the problem was,
I really wasn't at a place
where I felt comfortable being out in
public, at a public pool
trying to swim laps, or walk laps,
and get that exercise in there.
And I really... oh my gosh! I wanted to find a
place where I could just do
laps. And I thought one of those endless
pools would be great. I thought
that would be something I'd
really like to do. So when I
went online and searched, I happened
to find a local physical therapy place
there, called Harper Physical Therapy.
And they had a "facility use" fee that I could pay
a certain amount of month, and go in and
use their pool. It was like
the biggest gift in the world.
Their monthly fee was very easy on
the budget. It wasn't that much at all,
and it allowed me to set appointments to
reserve the pool so I could do
laps, and I could do all sorts of
physical therapy. They provided me with
some exercises to help the pain in my foot.
And anytime you can get
in the water that really helps.
Because also you're not pounding so hard
on those joints too. Again the water's
lifting you. So swimming was one
avenue I took to get some movement and
exercise, in addition to
what I was doing with Christy.
Another thing that has helped me get
back into other exercising
is I really love going for walks.
But like I said, it was
way too painful. And it was when I saw
Sonia on Mrs. Sonia Elaine... her channel,
she had a video where she was showing
her favorite fitness equipment. And in
that video she was talking about these
little compression socks to help with
that pain that you can get
from when your arch...
when you have like flat feet, and you're
hitting that nerve. And she showed me
these. These were available on Amazon,
and right away I thought, what have I got
to lose? I really want to start walking.
So I went ahead and bought one of these.
This part just holds the
area by my arch so nice and tight, that
when I go walking anymore...
I used to feel those like sharp stabbing
pains in my foot for every single step
of my walk. And by a quarter of a mile, I
was like done! With these
socks on the other day, I was
able to walk a mile,
and only had like three times that I
felt that little sharp stabby pain.
And I didn't feel the tremendous pain
after the walk.
Okay, so now we're at the point where I'm
going to talk about how much I have lost
since I started this journey. In January,
I weighed 319 pounds.
As of August 5th this year, I weighed
283.4 pounds. And I think that's a loss
of 35-ish pounds 36-ish pounds somewhere
in there. So that's a really
nice scale victory for me. So let's check
out the pictures and see
what it looks like physically... the
non-scale victory,
of this 35 pound weight loss.
So this side view of me, you can
definitely see there's a difference in
my upper stomach. That was really
sticking out a lot further.
on January 2nd. You can see how it's kind
of gone down. Looks like I lost some in
my chest. But I'm also noticing
at the bottom of my shirt. It looks a lot
less tight. Then, if you check out
this front picture of me,
I personally see a difference in
under my neck, my little turkey gobble
thing there. It's a little thinner, it's
not as full. You're actually seeing
shadows there. And again that
front view of my upper stomach.
I think that's a big difference. Now my
favorite, the back photo... ick, okay, uh...
In January you can definitely see
that big roll right underneath my bra strap.
It is really bulging out there and
it has come in
quite a bit with my 35 pound loss.
I can also see a difference in the space
between my arm
and my waist. If you look in the first
picture, there's just the tiniest little
color of the screen behind me. And in the
August 5th picture, you can see a lot
more space between there. There's also a
little less pulling, it
looks like, on my shirt
right at my "keister" level.
And then if you look at my back from the
side view, you can see
that roll that's right under
my bra strap. That has
really flattened out a lot. And then also
my butt doesn't look so... bubbly (laughing)
in the after shot. I also noticed that my
arms are starting to thin out too. I can
really see it in the front, right by my
armpit.
And then I can also see it just above my
elbow, and just below my elbow for that
matter. So now let's
take a look at the actual
inches lost, because that
is a huge non-scale victory I feel.
And one of the things I
really want to point out
is, you can see on my waist...
I was 54 inches.
Now I'm 50 inches.
I lost 5 inches around my hips.
I lost two inches in my chest so that,
there you go, that's why the pictures
showed what they did. Each thigh
lost three inches. And one of
the biggest telling things is... Remember
how I said my ankles and feet were
always swollen when I weighed 319 pounds? I was
shocked when I took the
measurements and I had lost
2 inches in my ankles.
That's a huge loss!
But it's so nice not to feel that
pressure anymore down there. So I lost a
total of 24-1/4 inches all
over my body.
I lost two feet of extra ME!
So that that's a good non-scale victory.
Also some other non-scale victories...
I am not huffing and puffing all the time.
I can walk across the room
without getting out of breath.
I can stand up now from bed
without pain. I can roll over in my bed!
All of these non-scale victories
far out"weigh" all the bad habits I was
doing before. So where I plan to go from
here is I want to incorporate more exercise.
I feel that the 35 pound weight loss has
enabled me to do other things, and I want
to start pursuing them a little bit
stronger. Taking it slow and steady.
Again, I don't want injury
so I want to walk more often
often, and maybe a little longer.
So what I have done is, I've started
incorporating a one mile walk. It's not a
fast walk, I do it in about 30 minutes.
When I am able to do that
mile walk in 20 minutes,
that's when I will up the length of that
walk to maybe a mile and a half...
Keeping it to a 1/2 hour walk. So
moving forward, that's what I'm going to do.
I also want to let you know that
all my weight loss vlogs
will be uploaded every Wednesday.
We're going to make it,
"Weight Loss Wednesday. If you're new to
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I hope that if you are struggling with
your weight, and on your own weight loss
journey, I hope some of the information I
shared is helpful. Please let me know in
the comments below.
I'd love to see what you're doing, and
what kind of progress you're making
on your weight loss journey. And don't
forget to like this video if things I
said resonated with you as well.
And if you know of anybody who might get
some benefit from the information I've
talked about on this video please go
ahead and share this video with them as well.
I'll see you Wednesday!
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