So I am not going to lie. This is absolutely a post that I never in one million and one years thought I would share on my blog. What started as an interior design blog quickly became a “follow our journey” blog and now I just chat about anything and everything that I love or am going through or just feel like sharing. I’ll blame it on the fact that I get bored easily or maybe that there are only so many room reveals one can do each month. Whatever the case may be, I still never ever planned on sharing THIS. I mean who searches through bins and bins of old photo albums to hunt down the worst images taken of themselves in their entire life? Well that would be me. And then on my blogger girl’s trip several weeks ago, someone spotted the image on my driver’s license (yes it is forever old but who wants to wait in the DMV line to simply change their photo?!?) and so the weight loss conversation ensued. The story of how I once weighed about 100lbs more than I do today…
Let’s go back to the beginning. I was always thin-ish. From my skinny teenage years to “just a healthy weight” college years, I was always thin-ish. Like I maybe topped 130lbs by the age of 21. Like most of you may know, Mark and I started dating at 14, got married at 20, started a business at 22 and then graduated college by 23. By the time we graduated college, we had somehow managed to build a legit company. By our senior year, our company had grown just enough to afford for us to lease our own fabrication facility and that’s when life started to officially get CRAZY. It was amazing but it was absolutely INSANE. Once Mark graduated in December 2004, he was able to devote his full attention to the company and then I joined him when I graduated in May 2005. Upon my graduation in 2005, we had just moved to a much larger fabrication location, had approximately 11 additional employees and we were opening up a separate showroom location in downtown Monroe, GA. As exciting and wonderful as it all was, it was a stress that I cannot put into words. We had both worked so hard to grow the company yet didn’t quite realize what we were getting ourselves into. As two 23 year olds “self-thrust” into suddenly owning a company, we started to truly bring the phrase “Work Hard, Play Hard” to reality. Well as much fun as it was at times, the stress was intense. From managing employees to handling customers and issues and bills and everything in between, I got to a point where I started taking anxiety medication. Biggest mistake EVER.
Our Engagement May 2001…
UGA Graduation May 2005…
I am not a “medicine person” AT ALL. Still to this day, I avoid it like the plague. Yet I had been thrust, by our own doing, into this busy, crazy, stressful world so quickly that I didn’t know how to cope. And literally within months, I had gained 60lbs. And that 60 was on top of the weight I had already gained from just “playing” a little too hard. Not partying or drinking or anything, just indulging, traveling and being so busy that fast food was my best friend. By the end of 2006, I topped off around 200lbs. Yes, not the easiest thing to write on a public blog. So here’s the proof…
December 2006…
February 2007…
November 2007…
January 2008…
In proofreading this I decided to add a little side note. This is MY personal story and personal experience with anxiety medication. Maybe it just isn’t for me, maybe it just wasn’t the right one or maybe I just had a bad experience. Whatever the case may be, I completely understand that everyone has different situations and different stories. For me, anxiety was induced by our life situation and was something that I have been able to since manage on my own. But I completely understand and acknowledge that this might not be the case for everyone and I completely respect that.
I still remember the day that I visited my OBGYN in December 2006 and asked if it was “safe” to continue my medication while I tried to get pregnant. Without hesitation, she said “absolutely!”. Yet for some reason, I will call it God, I literally just woke up one day. In January 2007, I looked in the mirror and was like “holy crap”. Who is this person and what have I been thinking?!? That day I decided to quit cold turkey. Unfortunately the medication was so strong that I had intense withdrawal for several days. Everything on Earth told me to keep taking it but something inside of me told me to stop. And then March of that same year, I got pregnant! Having only lost maybe 10lbs that I had gained, I started gaining AGAIN with my pregnancy. Addison was born December 2007 and after several months of no sleep, no energy and zero motivation I decided that today was the day. I was literally OVER IT. I honestly cannot even remember how I heard of this book, but I bought it and I read it cover to cover (this is the newest version)…
YOU: On A Diet Revised Edition: The Owner’s Manual for Waist Management
I’ve always been one of those “all or nothing” kind of people. That combined with zero will power led to me taking every single item out of our pantry and refrigerator and giving it ALL away. I remember having boxes and boxes of food in our butler’s pantry. Following his “ingredient guidelines”, I loaded our house with only food in line with his program. I didn’t need to lose like ten pounds. I needed to lose one hundred. It wasn’t going to be one of those “let’s ease into this” kind of diet. I needed a complete overhaul.
So here’s where I have to say that I AM NOT a dieting or fitness professional. Even having to write that is humorous. I am absolutely NEITHER of those. And that is one huge reason that I was so reluctant to share my story. Yet as my sweet friends told me over our trip last month, my blog is to inspire and to them, my weight loss story could be inspiring. So once again, I am not a professional so please DO NOT take anything I say as advise. This is just my story and if it motivates one single person to change their lifestyle, I would be absolutely thrilled to have shared these glorious images 😉
With our pantry seemingly empty and our refrigerator busting at the seams with all things healthy and natural, I started my weight loss journey. Although I will not completely lay out the guidelines from his book I will share several things I learned that will stick with me forever. One major aspect of weight loss and overall health that I still honestly think about every time I go grocery shopping is to shop the perimeter of the store. If you think about it, the center is filled with boxes and cans and bottles of “food” filled with sugar, unhealthy oils and preservatives. It’s a great concept to remember and keep me in line. I took meal ideas from his book and would eat the same exact thing every single day (especially for breakfast and lunch) for a week or two at a time. It sounds incredibly boring but it made grocery shopping and meal planning so much easier. I can honestly say that for most all of my weight loss, I did not count calories. I ate when I was hungry and did not crash diet what so ever. I think that is HUGE in creating a weight loss journey and to changing your lifestyle. I learned the simplest things from how much sugar is in spaghetti sauce and how to make my own to what to look for in the ingredient list of boxed goods when you do want a quick and easy snack.
Several months in, I finally found the energy to start moving. I call it moving because it was hardly intense exercise. Addison was an extremely difficult baby from 0-15 months and I got very little sleep for as long as I can remember. She literally cried all night and all day. It was all I could do to get out the door and make myself move. But I did. I walked the 1.2 mile super hilly loop around our neighborhood pushing Addie in a stroller at least 4 days a week. I eventually graduated to two and then three continuous loops around the neighborhood but that was about the extent of my workout routine. Although it was super difficult at times, I stuck to this routine of eating good and walking the hood (hehe that rhymes) and in approximately eight months I had lost close to 80lbs.
When Addison was not even one year old, I saw this commercial one day. I still remember it like it was yesterday. She was taking a nap and it came on the television. It was about this anxiety medicine that had begun to be linked to so many birth defects. It was a commercial for a law firm asking you to call this number if you had taken the medicine and gave birth to a child with a defect. I was in shock. It was the medicine that I had literally gotten off of two months before Addison was conceived. I cried and cried at the thought of what could’ve happened to Addie had I not “woken up” that day in January 2007.
Fast forward several years later, I had another baby (Winter) and came out of that pregnancy about 40-50 lbs over my end goal weight. I had always had this dream to finally hit the big “100” in weight loss. By 2013 I had begun to take some classes at the gym and count calories a little more but I in NO WAY did anything extreme. And I honestly believe that is the key to weight loss and to keeping it off. It was NO quick journey to that final number but by July 2013, I hit 120 lbs and had officially lost 100 lbs…
July 2013…
November 2014…
July 2014…
These days I am definitely not a hard core eater like I was back then. I have determined that to stay sane and happy and thin-ish, I have to give myself realistic expectations. The empty pantry and laser focus was not something that I could personally keep up with forever and ever. I have also learned that controlling my stress and anxiety is crucial for me. I am such a stress eater that recognizing my weak point has helped me so much in maintaining my weight loss. I still try and shop the perimeter of the store, I do not keep treats or chips in the house if I can help it because I recognize the fact that I have zero will power and I try and move at least a little every day. I give myself a weight gain-loss range rather than a set weight that I need to maintain forever. That way if I get off track I don’t sink back into feeling like I have failed and just give up on staying thin. To be completely honest, I am not 120 lbs anymore. I have gained about 10lbs since 2013 but am hoping to get back down a little over the Summer. And one last SUPER honest confession, after getting down to my goal weight of 120 lbs, I did have a full abdominoplasty in August 2013. It was literally my only option given the amount of extra skin I had from the weight loss.
Although I am not tiny or super duper in shape, I feel that I am finally at a comfortable and healthy weight that I can maintain while being busy and always on the go. My routine over the last year has been to try and eat fairly healthy during the week and then cheat a little on the weekends. If I splurge at one meal, I try and drink a healthy shake or a plate of veggies at the next to “make up for” the last meal. As I said before this is NOT health advice, just how I maintain my weight without counting every calorie. I am not one of those people with a crazy metabolism who can eat whatever they want so I have to be conscious about it all the time. Boo to any of you who are that way. I am forever jealous. One thing that has really helped me to start losing some again recently has been an alkaline diet. I honestly FEEL so much better too!
I hope that if you are someone struggling to get motivated this will inspire you in some small way. It is no easy journey but it is SO worth it in the end. And I can promise you that if you focus on losing the weight in a healthy way, maintaining it is much easier than losing. Just stay focused and celebrate in little milestones.
XOXO, Brittany Hayes
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