TransforMATTion 2.0 II MATTamorphasis

Hello World,

Happy Birthday to me! It’s my 38th birthday, and I wanted to share a few things with you all!

It has been quite some time since I have posted in this space. Actually, this space ceased to exist because I let the domain expire and then I never committed to the project. For a long time, that is what this space was, and weight loss and fitness was to me: a project. Perhaps that is why I find myself where I am today, writing what I am writing right now.

Of course, life happens. We move from day 1 to day 2 and we have 24 hours to fit in all of the things we need to do, but as our lives become busier and busier, our priorities change, our lives shift, responsibilities increase, and focus finds itself in other places.

I started a Tumblr years and years ago to catalog my weight loss so I could document the process, remember my progress, and hopefully, inspire others. The last part came with ambition; starting a YouTube channel, a ‘brand’ and other content to share what I had learned with others. The goal was to provide foundational stories, inspiration, understanding about what it takes to commit to losing weight and becoming healthy. Ultimately, life happened, as it often does. In the time since I last posted, I created a wonderful family, became a parent moved homes, changed jobs several times, experienced COVID, and gained 100 lbs. There is a part of me that feels shame, regret, sadness in writing the last part, and as I have tried to find balance in my own mental health over the years, I also feel a sense of loss surrounding it.

I can rationalize, make excuses, but at the end of the day, the last 2,000 days, give or take, have been about choices.

• Not to give myself too much of an excuse: having the same focus I did over the 7 years of my fitness journey was just not the same, as life changed, priorities changed, it became easier to fall back into the habits of my ‘former’ self.
• Not to be too hard on myself: all those changes mentioned above can make it hard to focus on yet another thing. At a certain point, fitness stopped becoming a passion, so it became a chore and difficult to engage in that space, and thus I lost the determination because I relied on that passion vs. building discipline of it.

So, here I am… Over the last 5 years, I have tried losing weight yet again, and I see my experience as a pendulum, I swing back into a good space, good habits, then it swings back, but like a pendulum, the momentum builds higher and higher, and the weight gain has been increasing, so I find myself here again, where I was back in 2013, and just about at the same weight.

I am posting this photo of me from a few weeks ago at my highest: 272 lbs. Higher than I have been in over a decade. It feels vulnerable to post this because when I shared my journey before, it gave me great pride to show my progress.

This isn’t the kind of before and after I want to share; for obvious reasons, but also because I know how much work it took to get to the place I was before.

It feels harder this time though because I know exactly how I got here and the choices I made, the workouts I skipped, the time I didn’t make. When I was overweight before, a curtain opened and a realization happened, and over the last 5+ years, there has been a slow denial and so now I stand here, on my 38th birthday, feeling the need to start anew.

So, how do I break the pendulum this time around? Although it isn’t the way I would’ve ever thought I would, I am relying, partially, on medication to help me out. After a very frustrating month with talking to doctor’s, insurance, and pharmacies, my prescription for Wegovy came yesterday. There is a bit of shame in admitting that I am taking it, but the reason I created this space was to share with others the true nature of transformation, in all it’s forms. I will share more about this in a different post.

I remember when the below photo was taken, I was still not completely satisfied with where I was. I had been reaching new PRs and feeling good about progress, but I still felt a bit amiss with something. It goes to show that the reflection of ourselves can be complicated.

A lot has changed in the last decade since I started talking about weight loss. The body positivity movement has made strides, the body neutrality movement has pushed back, 1,007 different weight loss programs have come and gone, and I am just here, yet again, to find my way to a tomorrow that is healthier for me.

I want to open this space back up for a few reasons

• Keep some accountability to myself to check in
• Share with others how Wegovy works for me & keep a timeline / progress bar for it’s effects
• Inspire myself and hopefully a few others to keep on the path ahead.

Lastly, in an effort to grow a branch on this new effort, I am changing the name of this space from TransforMATTion to MATTamorphasis; for several reasons: I need to put myself first as a priority to make changes, I need to grow into something different, not just what I was before, and I know it will take stages.

I wrote the majority of this yesterday and today, when it came time to post, I needed to make some changes to the site and do some extra steps, and I immediately got hit with a lack of desire to do any of it… and I pushed through, and know that I will need to continue to do that. So here is to digging deep and finding that over and over again until it comes back naturally!

Thank you to those who have supported me along the way, cheered me on throughout the years and here’s to stepping back into positive space.