Hi! Jet here. I wanted to share with you a bit of my own health story, and my journey back into fitness and better health. Giving you my back story as context because, like most of you reading this, a LOT has happened in my life in the last few years, and especially the last 18 months. I feel like giving you this information can help anyone see that we all struggle, and I know what it’s like to struggle.
There have been plot twists, and obstacles, false starts and side roads that led to dead ends. Sometimes I lost motivation and felt completely stuck, and some bad days where I felt like a complete failure. But we’ll get back to that in a bit…
Here is where you can read the story of where I’ve been, and where we’re going…together.
We’ll take this journey towards accomplishing our goals one step at a time, hand in hand. I feel it’s important to share my journey so you can see that other people on the internet have real life struggles too, and we have to work, sometimes pretty hard, to overcome them. Forward movement on any goal is never a simple process, as it takes time to make a lifestyle change.
One has to start making SMART goals (which means they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and done in a specific Time). It takes the willpower to stop and make sure if the thing you want to do aligns with what your goals and values truly are. It takes patience and forgiveness towards yourself, on the hard days. The days and weeks are not going to look the same. Which is why I am putting my personal struggles here for you. Because it’s nice to know that you are not alone. We can cheer each other on when we win, and support each other on the hard days.
In the beginning…
I have always been what most people would call… heavy. As a teen, I dreaded going to the doctor because it was always “you need to lose weight.” It was disheartening. In college, I did actually lose a bunch of weight. This is where I started to really learn about my health journey. I ate right and exercised. Getting up early before going to work so I could work out was manageable and exciting!! It was a part of my daily routine and I stuck with it.
But then, life got busy as it typically does. The job, the desire to be social, taking care of my apartment, and all the other life things. I started to care a bit less about what I ate and drank, and skipped doing the whole going to the gym thing a few days a week. After a while, not working out became the norm. Which was great for a while! I had moved, but was staying active enough throughout my weeks that I was mostly keeping the weight around an average.
But then, I started having some strange pains in my abdomen that really hurt, and I started to get sick a few times a week. I let this go for a while, but decided that it was time to get this checked out. I was tired of being in pain and sick. Found out that I had a gallbladder issue. No, not stones. It was working at a small fraction of its typical workload. Which is why I was having the pain and sickness issues.
So What Happened??
The gallbladder came out. Which I thought would solve everything. Nope, it didn’t. Between life stress and school stress, I was sick after every meal. It was beyond uncomfortable. It was not long after this that I also found out that I had hypothyroidism (thyroid hormones being too low). It caused me fatigue, sleepiness, and leaving me unable to utilize nutrients in my diet well.
Through all of this, I gained all of the weight back. I tried to go back to working out daily, and continue my journey for better health. But I was stuck. Either I couldn’t find the time or just didn’t have the energy for such things; especially between studying and the constant sleepiness. Did I mention that I stress bake as well as stress eat????? If you guessed that that didn’t help, either, you’d be quite right.
Finding my way back to less stress….
Since this time, I have graduated from college (with my Bachelor’s in Science in Exercise Physiology), and moved back home to the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Each moment has brought me back to myself and out of the overwhelming stress. Stress does still find me… The first 6 months of the Covid pandemic really did not do anything good for me, as I’m sure you can sympathize.
But, I have also come to know that it is time for me to change my relationship with myself, with exercise, and with food. It is time to put down the old ways of what I was doing, and find ways to allow my body to work better not only for its own good, but for my mental health as well.
Will you follow me in my health journey? I would love to have you along!!!
11/9/2021: Re-inventing my lifestyle!
1/12/2022: An update from the previous post
2/8/2022: Making a Lifestyle Change Isn’t Easy
10/19/2023: What’s Been Going On.. First Update
11/2/2023: What’s Been Going On.. Part Two
