Why gaining weight has nothing to do with failing, and everything to do with being honest with yourself

To the left, you’ll see me in 2016. I was the smallest I ever weighed, as far as I could remember. I had a history of obesity in my family, throughout my childhood and into high school and college. After graduating college, I was at my largest weight of 375lbs. I had lost a total of 160lbs in 3 years since 2013 making the right choices with food, health, nutrition and exercise.

My journey started with completing a 100 day juice fast in October 2013, and dropping 88lbs and it was the biggest accomplishment of my life. I continued on a plant based diet and working out daily to get to where I was in April 2016.

And this was me in January 2019 after an empowering workout at the gym feeling fantastic and learning to love and accept my progress. I had just got married to the love of my life, and the happiest I have ever been, after overcoming some of the hardest years of my life from July 2016 to now. Compared to my weight in April, I became 100lbs heavier than where I was in my first photo.

To be honest, I did go back up to my original heaviest weight of 375lbs in July of 2018 and after realizing I needed to change, I got the help I needed to get back on a diet plan and went on a strict ketogenic diet until the holidays. I dropped 50lbs from July to January. Leaving me back with 100lbs to go to be back at my weight from April 2016.

“How did this happen?

“Why did you give up?”

“Wow, I can’t believe she just ruined her progress for nothing.”

“She’s just lazy and stopped taking care of herself.”

I had my fair share of people wondering how I could have “lost myself” in my journey of weight loss and fitness and become obese again especially after I PROMISED myself I would never break 300lbs again.

But…

I did.

And it has been the most painful three years overcoming the struggles that led me back to being over 300lbs again.

I have felt shame not just from myself but from others around me. I felt I was treated differently from those who liked me better when I was smaller. I slowly became a ghost from being the center of attention for most people, and as an introvert, I definitely enjoyed being a ghost again.

Yet, it’s made people judge me unfairly.

I know I don’t have to explain myself to the world, but a good friend of mine told me that if I share my stories, I can help those who are struggling too, and that makes all the difference in the world to me.

I was triggered recently from a question someone asked me. I wish to keep their name/gender anonymous as to not bring any further judgement towards this question.

I was out to lunch with this “friend” of mine who asked me if they could ask me a personal question.

Me, being the open person I am welcomed it.

They asked this specific question:

When I first met you, I noticed you weighed less than where you are right now. Can you tell me what you did differently during that time to keep you motivated and committed to your health journey?

To be fair, I did welcome a “personal” question with an open mind. And it was honestly difficult to answer without wanting to break down and cry.

You see…

They knew that when they met me, I was training with my cousin to climb Grouse Mountain in Vancouver, Canada (Which I successfully did).

But let’s fast forward to when life started to hit me hard.

July 28, 2016, it was my birthday, and the day I lost my fur baby Zoey to cancer. This was the morning I was leaving to Canada to embark on climbing Grouse Mountain. I spent all morning with Zoey, knowing it would probably be the last. I asked her if she could just make it alive until my birthday, and as far as I knew, I didn’t sleep the morning of July 28th from 12am to 5am before I left for my flight. I spent every waking second next to her just being in her presence. I was grateful for that, yet in my heart I felt she died too young at only 7 years old for cat years.

It was the biggest heartbreak of my life, and coming close to the week before I climbed, I deviated from my diet a bit and gained 15lbs right before climbing the mountain.

I was proud to say at 245lbs, I climbed grouse mountain in 2 hours and 30 minutes!

It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life, because even though I trained DAILY, even twice a day at the gym, once I got to the base of the mountain, and started going up, that’s when the heart rate kicked in and I knew it wasn’t about physical strength anymore: it was all mental.

I had to keep telling myself, “You trained for this, you just gotta keep going no matter how difficult the challenge is”.

I did just that. Once I made it to the top of the mountain, I cried and told Zoey that I did this for her. She believed in me for 7 loving years, and she gave me the courage to believe in myself.

Losing her was difficult, but it was also difficult getting into an emotionally destructive relationship with someone who didn’t appreciate me.

At the time, I was looking for someone that I could just settle down and start my life with, and realized his behavior was toxic.

Me — being the compassionate individual I am didn’t judge his past of using drugs and drinking alcohol, because he was trying to change into a better man. Yet, with some people, they do good for a few months and then go back into their addictions.

I got on birth control to protect myself at the end of 2016 and in four months of just being on birth control, my body changed. I gained almost 60lbs even with working out and eating right — but I was still eating “more”. The hormones made me hungry, and completely messed with my mental health.

By April 2017, I made the decision to get off Nexplanon and I was 275lbs at the time. Yet, another terrible thing happened.

My eldest cat Ginger passed in April 2017 due to old age. She was getting sick for a few months at this point, but she lived to be 22 years old. It was difficult because while she may have been “just a cat” (the words from my emotionally toxic ex) she was my family. She was with me since Kindergarten, through grade school, high school, college and every major part of my life. She was with me through all the 5Ks I ran in between August 2016 to December 2016.

She was my first best friend in this life, and her death nearly killed a part of my soul. I resorted to drinking, which did NOT help with any of my weight loss goals at all.

At the time, I didn’t care.

So yes, I did stop caring about myself for a bit, but it didn’t mean I failed.

I just didn’t know how to cope.

I was mourning. I was still upset about losing Zoey and now losing Ginger.

I went back to binge eating and drinking my pain away, trying to understand why my boyfriend at the time couldn’t love me the way I wanted, and kept pushing me away.

I was naive.

I thought that if I bent over backwards for someone, they’d realize how lucky they were to have me.

But I learned later on that year I was just used. I became grossed out with drinking alcohol and realized I wanted to change and become healthy again.

I realized Ginger, nor Zoey would have wanted to see me throw my life away because of death and an emotionally abusive relationship. I had to change.

I struggled with losing weight months after the birth control wore off in my body. I kept trying so hard, and when I didn’t see results, it ended up in self-sabotage and didn’t care about how much I ate, I just ate to fill the void.

And yes.

Food addiction is a VERY real thing.

That emotionally abusive boyfriend left me in September 2017 without any reason, went ahead and ghosted me, and I did not know how to cope with that at all because I felt I sacrificed everything for a person who didn’t care about me. My friends and family were right about him but I had to learn the hard way.

During the past three years, I didn’t just go back on a junk food diet or stopped working out. I still went to the gym, took my supplements and ate healthy about 70% of the time. It was just on the days that I didn’t eat right, it slowed down my process and I didn’t know how to get back up again.

In November 2017, I climbed another mountain with my friend Mike at 285lbs and I was so proud that even after gaining back a good bit of weight, I was still able to accomplish these feats.

In December 2017, I ran the Viking 5K in 20 degree weather in Chicago at 300lbs.

I NEVER GAVE UP even when it looked like I gave up on my goals. I just gained weight in my journey of mine.

I stayed single for a few months to heal and recover and then met my best friend of 10 years in real life.

Fast forward to July 2018, I was at my heaviest and I made a pledge to my now husband that I was going to get back to being healthy again because I spent too long feeling sorry for myself and caring about what everyone was saying about me being obese.

I was tired of the stares, the comments, how cruel the world could be to someone they didn’t know, or understand.

Yet, I realized in my heart, I didn’t need to care about them. All I needed to do was re-shift the effort into CARING ABOUT MYSELF again.

It was difficult as I became my biggest enemy as well. I looked at the old pictures of myself and wanted to cry every time because I missed the “skinny me”.

Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to change things.

I had to learn to LOVE and ACCEPT myself on the journey I was on, and how it brought me back to a self-realization of what I needed to do to get back to being a healthier and happier me.

I got help at a weight loss clinic, went to see some weight loss counselors, got on a strict ketogenic diet, and went from 375lbs at July 2018 to 320lbs in July 2019.

I’ll leave the complications from a weight loss medication I was on for another story, but through the pain and suffering I endured over the past years, I had to gain my weight back to realize that I had body dysmorphic disorder.

That picture of me in 2016 from the very top of my article: would you believe I saw myself as the 375lb girl from 2013?

I did.

I did not see myself as being smaller even in my photos.

It wasn’t until I gained my weight back to realize just how HARSH and mean I was to myself in my weight loss process.

I would sometimes starve myself, work out 2–3 times a day just because I wanted to punish myself for being so fat all my life.

I was constantly hating myself while doing all the right things to my body because I couldn’t see myself.

I was OBSESSED with the scale and measuring myself.

I kept wanting to see numbers and measurements going down.

I couldn’t praise myself the way I wanted to because I kept worrying that people would keep telling me I was fat even when I worked so hard to get to be so small.

It wasn’t until I gained all my weight back that I realized I was missing the most important ingredient of weight loss:

Self love.

I had to learn to love myself in a world that couldn’t accept me as being obese without constant judgement being thrown my way. I had to learn to love myself and really get to know who I was and what I wanted out of life.

I had to learn that health was always going to be more important than my looks, and even with body dysmorphia, I was never satisfied. I wanted to keep looking better.

BUT WHAT ABOUT FEELING BETTER?

That’s why this journey of mine was never a failure.

And to answer this human’s question more accurately now:

What did I do differently then?

I hated myself. I hated myself at my absolute lowest weight until I reached my highest weight and decided that self-loathing wasn’t working anymore.

What am I doing differently now?

I am loving myself.

I am being patient with myself.

I have stopped rushing the process and enjoying what comes with being human in this life.

I have allowed myself to deviate from my diets and have cheat days and know that it’s okay to not be perfect all the time.

I started to focus on my health instead of a number on a scale, so my weight loss hasn’t been rushed.

My story is like the all time classic tale of the Tortoise and the Hare. I started out as the Hare, but I realized why the Tortoise won the race.

Not because he’s a slower species than the rabbit, but because slowness gives him time to analyze the process, set short term goals, walk in an awareness of self that the Rabbit did not have because all the Rabbit wanted was to win.

It’s not about “winning” anymore for me.

It’s about being happy.

And as you can see, I’m very happy. And that’s what is important. The weight will come off with my hard work and dedication but I’m not trying to race against the numbers anymore. I’m here to learn from my setbacks and become stronger.

This is why I didn’t fail. This is why I am stronger than where I was in 2016.

I have grown.

I have learned.

And I am overcoming the parts of myself I knew I had to love in order to move forward in peace.

Writing by: Cecilia J. Sanders