Julie's Story

After an adolescence filled with starvation, binging and every diet known to man and the mood swings that accompany a poor diet, I was hospitalized at the age of 17 with bulimia and began my life-long process of learning about food, nutrition, modifying behaviors and making healthier choices. From that experience I learned to ask myself every time I opened the refrigerator door if I was depressed, bored or anxious and was that why I was choosing to eat. If so, I closed the door. Then in my early 20’s I went to a well-known weight loss center and began my plight to gain knowledge and lose pounds. I was motivated more to learn how to eat for life and become healthier, not necessarily to lose a lot of weight. I was determined to not only lose the weight, but to be in that small percentile of people that kept it off passed five years. I learned so much about why people eat. When I started this process I couldn’t define or describe physical hunger. I had no idea how to determine if I was physically hungry; and it was a very long and difficult process to discover how to recognize physical hunger as opposed to emotional hunger or wanting to eat because of the time of the day, because the food was available, because my friends were eating, because I saw an advertisement on TV, because I was anxious or bored, etc. I began journaling and recording every bite I put in my mouth and the reason I was eating. I, for the first time in my life, turned eating into a positive experience instead of a negative, guilt-ridden one. I was eating in response to my body telling me it needed “fuel” and I furnished what it needed and then stopped eating not when I was full or stuffed, but when I was no longer physically hungry. I took a year and a half to lose 24 lbs. I reached my goal of maintaining that weight loss for longer than five years and then in the middle of the sixth year I began to gain weight. I wasn’t eating any differently and was still exercising, but the weight kept coming on. By the time I went to the doctor and they discovered I had hypothyroidism, I had gained 30 lbs. I remember the doctor telling me that I wasn’t fat, I was just overweight. I went home and cried. I was so depressed and discouraged. I even went to another doctor to try and get on phen-fen, but I wasn’t heavy enough for that. So, I made a choice to eat just because I wanted to and with that decision came the 55-pound consequence.

Later in my thirties following my divorce after a 17-year marriage, I moved to Houston and met someone that in my mind was heavy never realizing that I was too. Denial is a wonderful thing. Even though I had looked in the mirror, I didn’t see what I didn’t want to. I went on vacation and had my picture taken while standing near Niagara Falls. When I saw that picture I couldn’t believe how fat I was. I blocked out all of the Falls. Then I accompanied my friend to a Christmas Party for work. Co-workers asked who I was and said that even though I was big, I was beautiful. That was it! I couldn’t believe people perceived me as a big person. Boy, reality hurts. I set out to lower my fat intake and started exercising, but after a year had not attained the results I was hoping for. Then I decided to jump on the low-carb bandwagon and join a gym. I lost about 12 pounds the first two weeks and then the weight loss stopped. Very discouraged and about to accept that I may just be meant to be this weight the rest of my life, I met my friend’s personal trainer. He asked me if I was taking any supplements, which I was, but asked me to try the supplements that he and many professional athletes take. I did and it was all down hill (or pounds) from there. I’ve lost 40 pounds and have 15 to go.

Before now, I learned information about nutrition and metabolism, but needed to realize that every individual may have a different variation of diet, exercise and supplements that work for them, but the bottom line is if you consume more calories than you use, you will gain weight. The other lessons for me through trial and error were that what you eat, when you eat makes a difference as well as changing the formula either daily or weekly to keep your body responding to your efforts.

I always knew I wanted to help people, but didn’t know in what capacity I would do that. Now I know. I have obtained my AFPA certification for Nutrition and Wellness Counseling and and have become a distributor of the supplements that made all the difference in the world to me. If you are ready to accept that the only time success comes before work is in the dictionary and are ready to help yourself, I would love to work with you to help you reach your goals whatever they may be.