Hey Y'all, My Journey

My name is Ashley, I’m a 28 year old wife & mother of two from Mississippi. I was born and raised here and am very proud of my state!

I come from a very loud and proud southern family which is rather large. I also married into a very large southern family. Needless to say, we like our food! Being raised in the south we ate all of the yummy, but not healthy, southern food full of fat and grease. I was never taught to eat healthy because well, that wasn’t the way of life around here. I was lucky enough to have a very active lifestyle growing up and what had to be a ridiculously kick ass metabolism because I never had to worry about my weight, I was just naturally skinny. When I graduated from high school I weighed in at a whopping 115 and thought that I would just always be small despite the fact that when I looked at my family I was surrounded by overweight, unhealthy people! For goodness sake, we had no clue about portion sizes and if we did have a clue, nobody actually paid attention to them. You simply filled your plate and ate, that’s all there was to it. Obviously now that I’m a grown woman and have taken an interest in my health and my body and want to set a good example for my children I know I was naïve and uneducated about diet and nutrition growing up.

When my children, who are now 4 and 6, were born, I was 21 and 23. I suffered from severe post-partum depression after I had my oldest so I was strictly in survival mode at that point and was naïve enough to think I’d just bounce back. After all, I was still young and clueless! When my oldest was 9 months old we found out we were expecting again. My second pregnancy was so different and not in a positive way. I had a partial placenta abruption followed by preterm labor and spent the first 11 weeks of my pregnancy on pelvic rest and the majority of the last 19 weeks of my pregnancy on bedrest. Obviously there was absolutely no exercising happening in my life during this time. It wasn’t until I delivered my baby and started getting into our daily routine that I realized my lack of even being able to walk around had not worn well on my body. I shrugged it off, it took me 9 months to gain this weight, and it’d take at least that long to get it off. At that point I had been pregnant for 18 out of the last 27 months so I gave myself a break.

Guess what, life happened people! My little one was very sick in his first 3-1/2 years of life and I was focused on him rather than myself and my body. January 2014 my husband and I went on our first vacation without kids since the kids were born. After we got back, I looked at pictures of myself and all I could say was WOW! I knew I had gained weight over the past few years but I had never taken the time to actually look at myself and reflect on it until then. I knew at that point that if I wanted things to change, I would have to put in the work and effort to make it happen. I also knew that there were some major changes that needed to take place in my life in order for this to be successful. The only person I had to blame for my failure was myself so I was finally going to hold myself accountable.

The first day that the 21 Day Fix came out in February of 2014, I believe it was the 2^nd or 3^rd of February, I jumped online and ordered it. Thankfully I was able to get my order in in time since they completely sold out and the program went on backorder for a while. I was so excited to get started and immediately started reading up and preparing for my lifestyle change. The day that I went home and found that Beachbody box on my doorstep I was like a kid in a candy store! I tore it open and I’m pretty sure I just stared at it for about 10 minutes before I even touched anything. This box contained all of the tools that I needed for my big transformation and I was excited to get going.

I unpacked everything and set the containers next to the sink to wash and started reading the book that contains the meal plan and all of the dos and don’ts of the 21 Day fix. I had prepared myself to be completely overwhelmed by the program and not know where to start but I wasn’t. It seemed so simple and straight forward and it was, that’s why I love this program so much. I decided that I had two choices, jump right in and tackle both the daily workouts and the complete diet change at the same time or take baby steps and make all of these changes slowly. I kind of did both to an extent. It was a Monday when I got the goodies so I decided I wanted to see what these workouts were about. We were at home and I asked my husband to take the kids outside so that I could get a workout in. I started with Total Body Cardio Fix and let me just tell y’all, I still loathe surrenders to this day. Let me just take a minute to be real here…I couldn’t get off of the toilet without moaning, groaning, and using a handrail for at least a week! At the time it was terrible but looking back on it it’s pretty hilarious! I’m sure my coworkers who were in the restroom at the same time as me thought I was dying…poor things! Bless their hearts. I realized at that point that even though the workouts were only 30 minutes or less they were intense.

Baseball and softball season was starting so I tried to figure out the best way to incorporate these workouts into my day. I finally decided that if I put the workouts off until I got home in the afternoons it wasn’t going to happen, we had too much going on. I’m not a morning person as far as workouts are concerned so I knew that wasn’t a wise decision either. In the end, I decided that I would have to get my workout in during the day. How in the world would I pull that off considering I work a full time job? I would have to make sacrifices if I wanted to see results, I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too. Luckily I work for a company that allows us to have 3 hours of “wellness leave” every week in order to promote a healthy lifestyle. We can spend this time at the gym, walking outside, playing basketball, playing tennis, jogging, however we choose to use it in order to maintain a healthy life. It was pretty obvious how I would use my wellness leave from here on out, I just had to figure out when. It turns out that the best time for me to start my workout is between 11:00 and 11:15 every morning. It’s the perfect time because everyone is headed out of the office for lunch, my boss actually hits the gym during this time, and for the most part people know it is lunch time so they don’t bother you (unless their crazy enough to get between a southern girl and her food and that is a big no no).

The next day, Tuesday, I started incorporating these short, 30 minute workouts into my schedule in the allotted time frame every day. Saturday, I decided I needed to make a plan, a meal plan of course! I am the kind of person that needs to write stuff down, if that makes any sense. If I have a goal, I need to write it down, if I see it on paper I’m more likely to accomplish it. I printed out a calendar, went through the book and decided what foods I would like from each color container and made a list. From there, I decided what might work well together and made my meal plan for the week. After church on Sunday we went to the fabulous place that I love to spend time at *insert sarcastic emoji here*…Wal-Mart and did some grocery shopping.

I tried to keep things as simple as possible the first few weeks which was pretty boring but oh well. I would have 2 scrambled eggs with bacon (yes it’s supposed to be turkey bacon but small steps here people) for breakfast. My morning snack would be a piece of fruit, usually a ½ banana or some grapes. Lunch was always the same, baked chicken, broccoli and a green salad. Afternoon snack would be my second helping of fruit along with some whole almonds…yummy! Dinner was a biggie for me, with us being at the ball fields 4 out of 5 weekday nights if I didn’t plan and prep for dinner I would end up eating concession stand food and it would not end well. So, it would be baked chicken and another green salad for dinner. This was my routine for 2 months, nothing ever changed! My husband and kids were tired of looking at chicken and they might have even grown a few feathers of their own.

From February through April of 2014 I ate the same stuff every single day and worked out at 11:00 every morning while my coworkers went to lunch. It worked though, in the span of right at 2 months, I lost 18 pounds and felt great. I was feeling more positive about myself than I had felt since before I had children. I knew I was on the right track and I had found the right program for me. At the end of April I went on a month long business trip overseas and everything fell apart. I was able to maintain my weight loss while I was gone but we didn’t have much control over what we ate due to where we were. We worked 10 hour days, sometimes longer, and by the time we got back to our hotel I was ready to crash. The time difference made it difficult to stay in touch with my husband and young kids which wreaked havoc on my emotions. I didn’t do a single workout at all during my time away, I physically and emotionally could not do it. At least that’s what I told myself in my head…excuses excuses, I only have myself to blame though. On a side note, I did end up getting sick and still, almost a year later, have no clue why or what caused it but I was miserable.

When I returned at the end of May I was completely out of whack and just focused on spending time with my family and getting over whatever made me sick over there. The summer was uneventful but I still didn’t force myself to get 100% back on track. I would work out at work and try to eat healthy during the week but on the weekends my “plan” was shot to hell. One night in August I started having severe back pain and ended up in the ER. I had a kidney stone, fun stuff, and needed surgery. That was a Saturday; I saw my urologist on Monday, surgery on Tuesday with a stint placed. The stint was removed on Thursday and I’ve never been in so much pain in my life. Over the weekend I noticed that I was still in a lot of pain in my back. On Monday I called my doctor and was told that the stint had probably caused some inflammation that caused trauma to my kidney and when the inflammation went down the pain would go away. The pain continued and I called again on Thursday, at this point he was confident that I shouldn’t be having any more pain so he sent me for a CT. I was at the lab for my CT on Friday at 8 am, took the scan to his office at 9 am, and by 12 pm I was on the operating table again because I had developed more stones. Two surgeries in 10 days wreaked havoc on my body. The second surgery was Lithotripsy which was a much less painful recovery but my back was black and blue and bruised for weeks. I was finally released to exercise a month later. I got right back into the routine I was in from February to April and it felt great but I noticed I wasn’t losing any weight for some reason.

When I went to the doctor in December for my check-up I mentioned to her that I hadn’t lost any weight and we both kind of shrugged it off, it was the holidays after all. By the end of February I was getting worried, why is the scale not budging even though I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing? I focused on inches lost rather than pounds for a few weeks but nothing was significant. At the end of March when I stepped on the scale and there was a gain instead of a loss I was very frustrated. I made an appointment with my GP and went in. I told her everything that was going on, why I was frustrated, and just laid it all out on the table. She was just as puzzled as I was. She said, “You’re doing everything right, I don’t understand.” Neither did I! I cannot believe I’m even going to say this because in the south there are two things you never ask a lady…1) her age 2) her weight…you just don’t do it! It’s rude! But here I am putting this crap out there! Okay, I’m not going to put the actual number out there but it’s still the same concept! Based on her scale I have gained 8 pounds in 2 months, 35 pounds in 9 months…I’m running to hide in the corner out of embarrassment now. I cannot believe I said that out loud, seriously, what is wrong with me? Moving right along, you’ll forget that number soon right? Obviously we both were shocked. She ordered blood work for the next day to check my thyroid and some other stuff but she also acknowledged that it could be an interaction between my medications that is causing the gain. Remember how I told you I had severe PPD after having my oldest child? It came back with a vengeance during my second pregnancy accompanied with a lovely bout of anxiety and never went away. The anxiety has actually gotten worst and wasn’t being controlled by one medication so they added another to the mix to take care of that. Blood work was done on Thursday and Monday I got a call that my thyroid is normal and everything looks okay so they’re lowering dosages of medication and playing with combinations and maybe that will do the trick. However, I completely, 100% know that while the medications might play a part in this lovely weight gain, I am to blame as well. I’m human and have made mistakes along my journey and I know I will continue to make mistakes, but as long as I learn from them I am perfectly fine with it.

So, even though my journey started over a year ago, I am starting this blog to keep myself accountable and maybe even help someone else along the way. I have had, and am still having to, learn how to eat healthy and cook healthy. It’s a process; it isn’t going to happen overnight as we are all aware. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could dream we were skinny and fit and just wake up and be that way? Sure, but what would we learn from that? I’m planning on sharing my journey along the way as well as some recipes (they will not all be mine and I will give credit where credit is due) and who knows what else.

If you have any questions, comments, tips, etc. please contact me.