To tell you my story, I must first tell you that I am a regular person just like you. I don’t have a magic formula or a quick solution. What I can offer you is hope. I’ve lost nearly 90 pounds, and I’ve finally learned how to be at peace with food. If I can overcome my food issues, you can too!!! It’s never too late to start!
My name is Tanya. I am married and work full time as a Financial Analyst. I am fortunate to have a very supportive husband named Jimi. Thank God he has loved me at all my weights because I think I was overweight the majority of our first 8 years of marriage. We have an adorable little boy named Landon!
I struggled with my weight for YEARS. To help explain where I’m coming from, I need to tell you my history. I tried and failed to lose weight too many times to count. I even lost weight before my wedding by following Weight Watchers, but I didn’t keep it off!
Here’s me at my wedding in 2001. I felt like I was on top of the world. I had lost weight and only had about 10-15 pounds to go. I was able to wear a size 12 wedding dress, instead of a size 18!! I had been a size 14 all through college, so a size 12 felt AMAZING! I had every intention of continuing with Weight Watchers after the wedding.
I believe my poor coping skills were a huge reason I started gaining weight back. Things started getting tough in May of 2001 when my Mom had a stroke only two months after my wedding. How could I not feel like the stress of my wedding was her breaking point? That was a nice healthy dose of self-inflicted guilt for me. Have you ever heard anyone use the expression eating your feelings? Yep, that was me! I felt guilt, sadness, anger, frustration, fear, and happiness all at the same time. I didn’t really know how to handle it all.
Along with that, we were spending a great deal of time in the hospital and rehab center, so fast food became too easy again. I didn’t have healthy habits in place when this happened, so I reverted back to my old behaviors that were easy and comfortable. I guess I turned to food for comfort or reward or something. One thing I know with absolute certainty is that I did not get to be morbidly obese because I was just hungry. Clearly I was eating way too much food for all the wrong reasons.
When the stroke first happened, my mom couldn’t even talk or hold her head up. She had to be fed through a tube and had to re-learn how to swallow and walk and talk. Her left arm was permanently paralyzed, and her left leg was partially paralyzed. She improved dramatically over the next 4 or 5 months, but it was clear that things would never be the same.
While preparing for my Mom to come home in a wheelchair, we had a lot of work to do at my parent’s house. Most importantly, we had to build a ramp for the wheelchair. Thankfully my new husband’s family is handy because my family isn’t…at least not to that extent! We then decided that my husband and I should move into my parent’s basement so we could be there to help. None of us knew what to expect. This also allowed my husband to go to school full time, so it was a win win situation. In order for us to have a place to live, we had to re-organize the entire house. We moved furniture, cleaned out the basement, put up new walls in the basement, etc. It was a LOT of work!
We were thrilled when my mom came home. She had survived and we felt so lucky, but nothing was the same. As much as I wanted to be there to help, it was also very hard. I was worried about her a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things that had changed. Being there was a constant reminder. I didn’t feel right grieving about losing my old mom when my new mom was right there. I felt like I should be nothing but grateful and felt guilty ALL the time for feeling sad about the situation too.
By December 2001, you can tell that I was starting to gain. I wish I would have caught it right here. I could have stopped it before it got completely out of control, but I just couldn’t do it.
It was also hard that I was working while my husband wasn’t. He was in school and had the freedom of a full time student. I was working in a SUPER stressful job that I grew to hate. We were newlyweds living with my parents – in a basement. No matter how you look at it, that is a tough situation.
This is me on Memorial Day 2002. This is just one year after my mom’s stroke. I don’t know how much I weighed because I didn’t want to know. It is clear that I weigh more than I did last year at this time!
By September of 2002, it was even worse!! I just kept gaining. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I get it under control??
Here I am in July of 2003 in our “apartment” that we set up in my parent’s basement. Just two years after my wedding, I was completely unhappy with myself.
In the fall of 2003, I was a bridesmaid for one of my closest friends from college. I was mortified when we went dress shopping and found out that they didn’t have plus sizes. So I sat and watched the other girls try on dresses that I was too big to fit into. I hated to be the big girl in the wedding, especially since I had been so much smaller in my own wedding, just 2 1/2 years earlier. I really felt like I ruined her wedding photos by being so huge. Instead of motivating me to lose weight, it just made me feel worse, which caused me to turn to food again.
In 2004, I was battling some pretty major depression and started intense therapy to try to work through some things. While I definitely learned that I needed to open up about my feelings more, I was still not really ready or able to deal with my weight issues. My hubby had finished school and was working, and I started a new job in February 2005. Things were starting to look up, and I had hope that I would be happy again. Then my husband hurt his back. We had hoped it wasn’t serious, so we tried physical therapy for months.
We moved out of my parent’s basement and into our own place. We were still pretty close to my parents, just in case they needed us. Jim’s condition didn’t improve even with all the physical therapy, so he had to have surgery for a herniated disc in his low back in November of 2005. He was out of work (understandably) for a long time. Bring on the financial stress. Of course he and I were both also just stressed in general about him being in pain all the time and both of us being powerless to fix it.
He did improve quite a bit over the next year and started a new job in early 2007. I also changed jobs in early 2007 for what I thought was going to be a better opportunity, but it didn’t work out that way. I was travelling a lot and didn’t have a routine that I now know I really need.
Then we found out that my father had some type of mass on his colon. He had surgery in June of 2007. The surgery was supposed to be a small incision to remove the mass, but they ended up having to cut him from his chest to his waist to get it all. Of course he stayed in the hospital overnight and I stayed with my Mom. He is a quick healer and was looking pretty good by my brother’s wedding two weeks later.
At my brother’s wedding, I was the chunky bridesmaid again!!! After being so upset about my friend’s wedding (4 years earlier), I was fully intending to lose weight before my brother’s wedding so I didn’t feel that way again. Well, it didn’t happen. I didn’t lose the weight. My dress barely fit. I was sucking in the entire time just to wear it, and I changed out of it the second the photos were done at the reception. You can tell in the photo (below) that I was just SO uncomfortable! I feel like I didn’t enjoy the day like I could have, all because of my weight. I just felt gross.
In early July 2007, my Dad found out that he did in fact have cancer. While they had successfully removed the mass from his colon, they also found 3 or 4 lesions on his liver, one of them the size of a quarter. Just days after finding this out, I was in another wedding, this time for my brother-in-law. I didn’t know his fiance very well at that time, and I just thought she was so perfect. She was (and still is) beautiful and thin and I felt SO self conscious about being the big girl in the wedding party – AGAIN – FOR THE THIRD TIME. Why couldn’t I just get it together and lose the weight?? Like I said, I was planning to lose weight for my brother’s wedding and for this wedding.
I discovered a couple weeks before the wedding that my dress didn’t fit. Yes, you read that right. My dress didn’t fit.
I was so humiliated and worried about ruining their wedding. I didn’t tell them it didn’t fit. I called the store to try to find a bigger size, and the saleswoman made me feel even worse when I had to explain that I needed a new dress for a wedding that was less than 2 weeks away. Of course the store we bought the dresses from didn’t have any in stock. She searched the entire country and found ONE dress in a size 20 for me. It was in California, so I had to pay for rush shipping as well as paying for a SECOND dress! They wouldn’t let me return the first dress I bought, so I was stuck with both of them.
Thank God I was able to get a dress and be in the wedding without adding any stress to their day, but I still felt so humiliated and embarrassed about the whole thing. We also walked a few blocks to get some pretty outdoor wedding photos. I should have enjoyed that for them, but all I could think about was being the fat girl having a hard time walking and worrying about being sweaty and getting heat rash from the friction of my thighs rubbing together. It was awful!
With the weddings behind us and my dad going through chemo but stable, we were hoping to be able to find some new type of normal life. Apparently that was not in the cards for us just yet. After being at his new job for just 6 months, Jimi herniated another disc and had to have a 2nd surgery in November of 2007. Really? What else could go wrong?? I was so unhappy and stressed all the time that my health was totally at the bottom of my priority list. I had my mom, my dad, and my husband to take care of. I had bills to pay and chores to do that my husband could no longer help with. There was no time for me. You can tell in this next photo that we are both pretty unhappy.
After Jimi healed from his surgery, we realized that something still wasn’t right. He was still in pain all the time. We had test after test, but we couldn’t find anything fixable. He had permanent nerve damage and still had 5 or 6 other discs that were bulging. I lived in constant fear that another one would herniate at any time. Thankfully his last job had great disability insurance, so at least he had some money coming in. That helped with the financial stress. I also decided that at a minimum, I needed to find a job where I could be happier. I started a new job in April 2008, and my stress level was greatly reduced by having a job that I didn’t dread going to every day.
In June of 2008, I participated in the Relay for Life to celebrate that my father was a cancer survivor. It was SO hard just to walk around the track a couple times. My feet and back were killing me. This photo is me with my sister-in-law. She kept encouraging me to walk more, and I was embarrassed to admit how worn out I was so easily!! Of course I also felt gross. I didn’t feel comfortable wearing shorts but the capris I wore made me hot, which added to my discomfort. While I was there, I kept thinking that if so many people can beat cancer, why couldn’t I beat my weight and depression?
We had felt so trapped by all the medical issues, that it seemed as though our lives were on hold indefinitely. We decided to start house shopping so that we could stop wasting money on rent. In October 2008, we were VERY fortunate to be able to get our house through a sheriff’s sale, but there were major headaches along the way with that too. The realtor who was listing the house prior to the sheriff’s sale thought she had a contract on the house and that the sale was going to be cancelled. We had to pay the old homeowner’s water bill in order to get our water turned on just long enough for an inspection. We had to put down a deposit the day of the sale and come up with the balance within 30 days or be held in contempt of court! We didn’t think this would be a problem until the loan fell through at the last minute. The lender suddenly said they wouldn’t finance us because they would not consider Jim’s disability income as “income” since it wasn’t permanent social security disability. We had disclosed this up front but they must have missed it. Thankfully, we found a lender willing to allow a non-occupant co-borrower and thankfully my father-in-law was willing to do it!!! We finally closed on the loan in January 2009, and we had to move in the snow. Of course with Jim’s back, he couldn’t do much, and that was terrible for him.
We had to do a lot of work on the house that thankfully family and friends helped us with. All of the packing and moving and house projects just made me exhausted and cranky. Everything is so much harder when you are overweight!!!!!! Of course we wanted to document the progress with photos, but I dreaded being in them. Every time a camera came out, I was silently shooting daggers out of my eyes at the photographer. I didn’t want to remember looking like that!! Even though I knew that I had been heavy for years, I could live in denial more easily if there wasn’t photographic evidence!!
We finally got settled and started enjoying our new home. I was closer to work and also closer to shopping, restaurants, etc. Jimi wasn’t getting any better, but at least he wasn’t getting any worse. I found out very quickly how much I hated yard work. I never had to do that when we were renting, and he’s not really able to do it. Sigh. Every weekend that he would try to motivate me to go outside, I hated it. I would actually get angry….angry at his back, angry at my weight, angry about our finances….angry about everything.
Going to the grocery store was also a dreaded chore. He couldn’t go and walk around the store without being miserable, so I always went alone. By the time I would walk around the store, unload the car, and put the groceries away, I was spent. I had no energy left to do anything else. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice the grocery store issue before except that maybe we were eating a lot more fast food and carry out when we lived close to my parents. Maybe once we had a house, I felt like I had to be more budget conscious. I’m not sure exactly, but I just remember grocery shopping making me angry too!
And then there was another wedding. OH YES, I was a bridesmaid AGAIN. Wedding # 4 with me being huge.
At this point, I think I had just accepted that I was never going to feel attractive. I hate that on my friend’s most special day, I couldn’t stop thinking about how bad I thought I looked. I wondered if people were whispering and laughing about the big girl. I felt like my fingers were little sausages. I was embarrassed during the wedding party dance because I thought I looked so ridiculous.
How long was I going to be satisfied with just existing? How many more activities did I have to just survive when I should have been enjoying them? One day I decided I was sick of feeling bad and getting angry all the time. I knew that I would feel better if I lost weight, but I hadn’t committed to it. I had “tried” to lose weight many times over the course of 8 years with no success. So why would now be any different? It was so frustrating.
As much as I wanted things to be different, I hadn’t actually taken the first step. I finally started because of a weight loss contest at work. (Thanks Laurie!) I agreed to join and didn’t want to be embarrassed by not losing weight. I was not about to take diet pills or (gasp!) exercise, so I joined Weight Watchers – AGAIN. I knew the program worked and was healthy. It’s not a quick fix or fad diet. It was a turning point for me, even though I didn’t know it at the time!
So why was this time different? They say that change occurs when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of change. I guess it had just become too painful to stay the same. I had to do SOMETHING. This time I really made the commitment to myself. My mindset was different. I recognized that I truly had a problem. I decided what I wanted AND what I was willing to do to get it. And there’s the rub. You can want something all day long. If you aren’t willing to take the steps to get there, then you are just setting yourself up for disappointment! I made the decision that this time would be different. It all starts with a simple decision. It is not EASY, but it is simple.
I joined Weight Watchers in September of 2009, and I had lost 86.4 pounds by December 2010. I was committed. There were plenty of rough patches, but I stuck with it. It turned out that the hardest part was getting started. Once I started, I wanted to keep going. I was excited to see how much I would lose each week. It was great hearing compliments about my success. That success pushed me to want to keep having more success. I also believe the meetings helped me a lot. It was nice to know that I wasn’t alone in my struggles. It was inspiring to hear how others overcame their adversity. It was motivating to see other members hit their weight loss milestones.
At my lowest weight, I had lost 95 pounds. I managed to keep most of the weight off for about 5 years, but I never felt comfortable. I was always trying to lose my last 5 pounds, and I was ALWAYS afraid of going back to the old, plus-size version of myself.
During the years between 2010 and 2015, I was definitely much happier. I started running and even ran 2 half marathons. I was inspiring others and facing new challenges head on. I even worked for Weight Watchers for awhile. It always felt really hard to maintain my weight, but I thought that was normal. I really felt like I would just fight and claw my way through weight maintenance for the rest of my life. I didn’t realize then how much mental work was left to do.
May 2011 – My 1st Half Marathon! 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 17 minutes! 
September 2011 – 2nd Half Marathon – 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 29 minutes
In February 2013, we were told that it was unlikely that we would be able to get pregnant. We were devastated and totally turned to food for comfort. We left the doctor’s office and drove straight to a restaurant for burgers, fries, and beer. That was followed by a trip to the store for all my favorite candy and donuts and you name it. After I ate my way through my grief, I realized I had to create a new plan for my life.
We threw ourselves into our nieces and spent as much time with them as possible. I made my weight loss/maintenance a huge hobby to fill my time that wouldn’t be spent being a mom. We settled into our new version of life and made plans for fancy electronics and trips that we would never take because our money situation was still a mess.
Then in 2015, life was turned upside down with a miracle. I had been feeling nauseous for a few days but just thought I had a stomach bug. Then I started craving bread. And not bread on a sandwich, just straight up hamburger buns sounded delicious. I was eating saltines on the way to my nephew’s birthday dinner because I felt so sick. I didn’t think I’d eat anything until the food arrived and then I scarfed down almost the entire plate. On the way home, I felt much less nauseous but I could smell my husband’s deodorant. He wasn’t doing anything unusual. He was just driving and I was like “WHY CAN I SMELL THAT?!” And we went straight to Walgreens for a pregnancy test. SURPRISE – We were pregnant! Just when I thought you had life planned out, God had other plans.
We were not really sure how to feel about it because it was SUCH a shock. After that initial shock wore off, of course we got excited. We planned an elaborate reveal for our families and threw ourselves into everything baby related.
BUT, getting pregnant also meant that I could no longer attend Weight Watchers. It’s against their policy. So basically my entire support system for maintaining my weight was taken away. Everyone kept telling me to just continue to “eat normal” and I’d be fine. But most people didn’t understand what was happening in my head. I didn’t have “normal” eating. I had “on plan” eating where every single bite was weighed, measured, and tracked or I had “off plan” eating where I ate everything in sight because so much was off limits before.
Once I left Weight Watchers, I struggled A LOT with how to manage my eating. I tried to continue tracking but got frustrated because my body was craving higher point foods and salad made me nauseous. I went back and forth between two extremes. I would tell myself I shouldn’t “diet” while pregnant and then also tell myself that I shouldn’t gain too much weight either.
I was also terrified that something would go wrong during the pregnancy, so I stopped running. Logically I knew I could have continued, but emotionally I couldn’t shake the fear. If we only had a 1% chance of getting pregnant and WE DID, why wouldn’t I be the one anomaly that had issues related to exercise?
Needless to say, I gained quite a bit of weight. I had stopped exercising or tracking, I was eating more bread and pasta and less salad, and I had lost my support system. I think I put on about 70-75 pounds during the pregnancy.
I had to be on bed rest towards the end so I wasn’t even allowed out of my chair at my baby shower! Landon still ended up coming early and we had a few hours in the NICU and multiple follow ups his first few weeks but overall we were lucky he didn’t have any major health issues.
Being a new mom was EXHAUSTING and super emotional so I didn’t go back to WW right away. Eventually I did go and lost maybe 20 pounds of the pregnancy weight, but then it just became a burden. I didn’t want to take the extra time away from Landon. After working all day and feeling like I was missing EVERYTHING, I wasn’t going to give up even another 30 minutes for a meeting.
I certainly wasn’t willing to make weight loss my hobby anymore. I wasn’t willing to spend a ton of time planning and prepping and measuring and counting. I just couldn’t do it. At some point I just accepted that I was going to stay around 200 pounds. I would just be a plus size mom and I didn’t care because it was all about him.
But I actually did care. I tried several times to “get back on track” but it just felt too overwhelming. I tried counting points. I tried counting calories. I tried the Hungry Girl diet. I tried doing earlier versions of Weight Watchers. Nothing was clicking.
Then in 2019, I got turned on to podcasts. I found one podcast where the host talked about losing weight without counting calories and her main focus was pre-planning her food. It was like a light bulb turned on in my brain. I used to plan and pre-track my food ALL THE TIME when I was following WW, but I never really committed to sticking to my plan because it always felt restrictive.
Was is really possible that I had the answer all along? Could I really plan my food in advance and stick to the plan and lose weight without measuring or counting? It seemed too good to be true but I started doing it. And I continued to listen to all the podcasts I could find about weight loss, mindful eating, intuitive eating, and mindset change. I started reading books and listening to books about mindful eating.
And the weight starting coming off. And it felt SO much easier than anything I had done in the past. I told my husband a million times that I couldn’t believe it was actually working. I couldn’t believe I had finally found a way to lose weight AND be relaxed around food AND not have to struggle to measure and count every single bite.
My success on the scale motivated my husband to start losing too. He and I talked a lot about what worked and what didn’t, what felt hard and what felt easy, and how I could explain to others what I was doing now. It’s not very actionable when you hear “listen to your body,” right? I’ve heard people say that before and it was cause for some major eye rolling. I always felt like THOSE people couldn’t possibly understand the issues I had. But now I realize that it truly CAN work for anyone once we work through the mental crap that’s holding us back.
I started getting excited again and decided that I wanted to get back to blogging since I felt like I had something to share that could really help people. I went back to my Habits of a Loser posts that were the backbone of my original “system” and picked out the main four habits that I felt were essential to my success this time.
I created The Core Four method as a way to explain and teach what I am doing now. The method combines all of things I’ve learned through the years from WW, podcasts, blogs, books, etc. I took my favorite aspects of all of the things I’ve learned and rolled it together into a system that I can teach others to follow. You can jump in using the Quick Start Guide, and you can also purchase The Core Four Meal Planner or the Progress Not Perfection Journal as tools to help you on your journey.
I also started a podcast in 2019 because I knew what a difference podcasts made for me. I would listen for up to 2 hours some days between listening in the shower, on my commute, and during my lunch break. There’s no way I would have been able to devote that much time to reading, but I could listen! I just felt like I could really connect with and help others more with a podcast. I had considered it years ago but was too scared. This time I decided I didn’t care if I was scared. I was going to do it anyway.
In 2019, I started a new job, revived my blog, launched a podcast, introduced The Core Four, created The Core Four Meal Planner, created the Progress Not Perfection Journal, and lost nearly 50 pounds! This was all while working full time with a toddler.
Yes, I have an amazing support system from my family, but I didn’t do anything extraordinary. I worked on my mind and reconnected with my body. I do not count calories or points, and I rarely measure anything. I use my eyes and my stomach as my measuring devices now. I plan my food in advance. I still allow myself splurges but I eat mindfully and stop when I’m satisfied. EVERYTHING I do is something that you can do too!
Friends and family have told me that I have inspired them. I never imagined that I could inspire someone else when I couldn’t get my own butt off the couch for years! I am not done with my journey, but I have come a long way. If sharing my story can help even one person believe in themselves, my time and effort will be worth it.
I would never wish for anyone to feel the way I felt for so long. As I shed physical weight, I shed emotional weight too. I can’t hide behind food anymore. When I have a problem, I have to face it. I won’t eat my feelings anymore.
I hope that by sharing my journey with you, with all the ups and downs, you will realize that you can do it too. I hope that you will see that you don’t have to be perfect or even above average to succeed. You just have to believe and commit. I hope you are able to learn to Eat Mindfully, Lose Weight, and Change Your Life!
Please spread the word to anyone you think may find it helpful. Thanks for stopping by. Good luck on YOUR journey!
Ways to Connect:
- Email: tanya {at} notreallyhungry {dot} com
- Text message or leave Voicemail: 330-595-4662
- Connect on social media
