The transformation I’ve experienced would not have been possible if I had approached it looking for a quick fix. It was about unlearning, rebuilding, and reclaiming the body and life I desired – and deserved. Like so many people, I had to navigate the stigma around using medical weight loss tools while also learning how to use them effectively—not as a crutch, but as a jumpstart toward lasting change.
I understood that once weight gain surpasses a certain point, around 40 pounds or so, the metabolic shifts that occur make the traditional “eat less, move more” advice inadequate. However, many people feel forced between two mindsets: rejecting medical interventions out of shame or depending on them entirely without addressing the root causes of weight gain. I have seen both extremes play out – people starving themselves on weight loss injections and damaging their health, while others feel too ashamed to seek medical support for fear that it would make them a failure. There’s another way.
As for myself, I was always an athlete, playing basketball, tennis, lifting weights – I even ran marathons. In 1996, I got married in a body I felt proud of. My then-husband and I started a medical practice in 2000, and shortly thereafter I became pregnant. My pregnancy did not necessarily contribute to my weight gain, but the stress of starting the medical practice and all the other life things did, and my weight climbed to 150 pounds. In 2003 I became pregnant with my second child, and my weight jumped to 180 pounds before steadily climbing to 225 pounds before having my last child in 2006. As the stress in my life continued to accumulate, so did the pounds, and in 2016, I found myself feeling completely out of control of my own life and in the process of divorce. I watched the number on the scale hit 300 pounds.
I was desperate to take back control of my life. I had tried EVERYTHING up to this point. I read all the books on clean eating. I ate less and moved more. I did Weight Watchers, South Beach, Atkins, paleo, keto, intermittent fasting, carb cycling, hCG, Lipo B shots, phentermine – you name it. I might have lost 30 lbs, only to quickly regain 40. I would engage in internal negotiations with myself, promising more time at the gym tomorrow in exchange for eating my favorite foods tonight. I was desperate to take back control of my life, but most people discouraged me from even setting my goals so high, and I was told over and over again that I would never achieve the athletic body I desired.
Finally, I was introduced to a trainer who truly saw me, understood what I wanted, and knew the path I would need to take to get me where I wanted to go. We started by working on mobility and strength training. Seeing the improvements that I was making in my physical strength and endurance was motivating – but just as importantly, my ability to keep the routine of physical exercise proved to me that I could prioritize showing up five times a week for myself, to work toward the better life I desired. Building that self-trust readied me to start truly doing my emotional work. It has been said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and that is exactly how I would describe how my therapist came into my life. She identified my eating disorder and I was able to see how this coping mechanism was no longer serving me, and I felt empowered with new thought patterns from which I made different choices. I can only describe what I experienced as “waking up,” like going through a death and rebirth process.
I know for sure that unless we make continual conscious choices toward the new life that we want, the repetitive thoughts of the old person will keep coming back to take us over again – just because it’s more comfortable. I had to embark on a process of unlearning all of my old habits, all my old ways of thinking that I thought were “just who I am,” when they were actually learned survival patterns. All these little changes I was making taught me that I was stronger than my old patterns, and I could feel safe in my new way of navigating the world from a place of trust in myself to do hard things. I was forced to choose to either tread water in the fear of change, or embody the joy of transformation, and allow that to take me where I want to go.
I was absolutely determined to live my life in the athletic body I once knew. In February 2017, with the guidance of my trainer and therapist, I added a new member to my support team – my surgeon, and I made the very personal decision to have the procedure for a gastric sleeve. At the time, Tirzepatide and Semaglutide were not available. I knew this procedure would get me about 60-80 pounds down, and even though I understood that I would still have 100 pounds to lose, I valued that jump-start. I continued my training and new habits, and by the end of 2018, I was 180 lbs. Under 200 pounds!! I felt so much more at home in my body, and able to continually step up my training – amazing myself at what I was able to do. By 2020, I could not have been prouder to have reached 150 pounds of solid muscle. It felt sooo good to prove the doubters wrong, and I was happy to send them free tickets to the gun show via my social media!
I have taken everything I have learned on my journey to advise my patients that putting your health first requires you to be brave enough to keep stepping out in new ways. You’re not just “on a diet” to lose weight, you are doing the hard work to change all of the maladaptive coping mechanisms that you’ve learned to help you survive childhood trauma. Many of us were so young when we formed these coping mechanisms that we don’t even recognize them as things we do to survive, our way of living becomes so comfortable that we think it’s “just the way we are.“ While these behaviors are common, they are not normal. The same coping mechanisms that helped you to survive when you were younger can become a prison cell when they no longer serve you. YOU have the power to create a happy life for yourself – but it takes work, just like everything else that’s worth having.
It’s difficult for most people to accept that knowledge alone will not fix everything. Injections alone will not fix everything. Procedures alone will not fix everything. As a doctor – and a very good one at that, I had all the knowledge and tools at my disposal, but by themselves, they could not get me the body (and the life!) that I have now. It wasn’t until I assembled a team of supporters who truly understood how to help me propel my life in the direction I wanted to go that I was able to let go of all that was holding me back and achieve the body that I dreamed of.
I left out the best part! All of the energetic shifts that were necessary to help me achieve my weight-related goals have continued to work their magic in other areas of my life as well. I experience the delight of watching my young adult children go into the world with confidence, building joyful lives for themselves. I just married a wonderful man I’ve known for 25 years – who would have thought he’d become my best friend and the sunshine of my life? It was so worth the wait. And now here’s where you come in – I now have a business and a team that I love, walking others down the same path I’ve traveled, empowering them with the tools, knowledge, and support they deserve to step fully into the lives they were meant to live. All you have to do is believe that your best is yet to come and watch how you surprise yourself!