Someone very close to me made a statement that may very well change the whole trajectory of my life. It’s definitely going to stick with me longer than he/she would probably think.
What was said was that once I stopped my fitness journey, I would gain my weight back. I was told not to give my bigger sized dress clothes away because I might need them again when I gain my weight back. That this is temporary. That I will eventually stop.
At first, I thought it was a joke because of how the conversation started, but I quickly realized he/she was actually quite serious and genuinely concerned… and almost anxiously awaiting that day.
Needless to say, it struck a nerve. My immediate reaction — if I’m being honest — was wanting to be defensive. In that moment, the last 2–3 years of my life flashed before my eyes.
And the strange thing about comments like that is they don’t just land in the moment. They land on top of every early morning workout, every hard conversation with myself, every therapy session, every time I chose growth when it would have been easier to fall back into old habits. When you’ve quietly rebuilt parts of your life piece by piece, a sentence like that can feel like someone looking at the finished house and saying, “It probably won’t last.
What they didn’t realize is that what I am doing isn’t something I would even classify as “stoppable.” To me, this is my life.
I’ve spent the last several years changing my mindset, working on myself in therapy, through books and podcasts, and investing time in myself as a whole person. Maybe 17-year-old me, who didn’t know any better, would have stopped. And in some people’s eyes, I think I’m still that little girl.
Maybe they don’t see the shifts I’ve had in my identity, my lifestyle, my mental health, my self-respect, or the discipline it takes to show up for my stinking self.
Two hours later, I was telling my coach at the CrossFit gym about the conversation. She could relate — and I knew she would.
While talking to her, I was able to pinpoint the exact moment when I decided real change was about to happen.
It was November 2, 2023.
I was sitting at a bar — not one of the ones I usually went to. This one was a little further from my house. I used to rotate places so I could hide drinking. That day I especially didn’t want my husband, Earl, to find me.
Not that he ever really had to look very hard — the man can read me like a children’s picture book.
That was the day I called him and said, “I’m on my way home, and when I get there, I need to talk to you.”
The talk went a little like this: I was drinking again, thinking that hiding in a new place with people I didn’t really know would somehow fix or bury my feelings.
But that night I said it out loud:
“I think I have a real problem, and I need to start dealing with it now.”
Of course his response was, “How can I help? What do you need from me?”
My husband is incredibly supportive like that — something I was still getting used to at the time.
That moment started the journey that I now simply call life.
If I had to name the moment my life truly started, that was it. That was when I gave myself permission to start taking up space in this world — without apologizing for it.
I didn’t realize at the time that I had been starting and stopping living for a very long time before that day.
Recently, I also got a message from an old friend from high school. She’s a little older than me, and we knew each other outside of school, but that’s beside the point.
Her message said:
“Hi! I was wondering how you’re losing all the weight? I want to jump on your diet!”
My first thought was honestly, Oh cool… people do notice that I’m trying.
I was happy to be an inspiration to someone, even if it was just one person. I wished I had someone I could have messaged at the beginning of my journey to make things a little smoother.
We talked for about 20 minutes on Facebook Messenger. I told her about my dietitian, how you have to consider everything — not just quick fixes. I told her how important accountability was for me to get moving, and how different everything feels now that I have real momentum.
We talked about pairing the right foods together, hormones, protein, losing muscle as we age, and mindset work.
Mindset work is the most important part, friend.
But back to my point.
When the comment was made that I would soon stop this “fitness kick,” I realized something important.
When people haven’t changed their lives themselves, they often assume change is temporary.
They can’t see the things they can’t see.
When someone hasn’t done the inner work, they think everything is just willpower.
The biggest change wasn’t the weight I lost — it was the life I built.
It was how I felt when I woke up in the morning.
How it suddenly became easier to fall asleep at night.
How I started to feel like a completely different person.
Honestly, I barely recognize my old self.
Well… I do recognize her, and sometimes I feel sad for her — but that’s probably a whole other post.
Here’s what I learned, and what I hope you take from this.
If you’re still reading this, I’m guessing you can relate in some way. Maybe you were raised in the 90s or early 2000s too — when nobody really talked about anything and everything was supposedly “fine.”
It wasn’t fine.
But we didn’t talk about it, which meant we never learned how to cope with things properly in the first place. And that’s how many of us ended up in situations we didn’t know how to get out of.
But anyway…
Here’s what I know now:
- Not everyone will understand your growth — and that’s okay.
- Some people will project their fears onto you.
- Your life doesn’t need outside validation.
- What happens inside of you is far more important than what you can physically see you accomplished that day.
If you know someone who is working on themselves — which honestly, we all are whether we admit it or not — someone who is struggling with their health, mindset, or life in general, they might hear comments like this too.
And they might not be far enough along in their journey yet to brush it off.
Encourage them.
Be the coach you wish you had. Be the support you’re learning to be for yourself right now.
Don’t be the naysayer that keeps people stuck in the same old song.
Let’s break some generational negativity right now.