My Weight Loss and Anxiety Roller Coaster

[Katherine Jackson]

When I was in High School I stayed around 145 pounds, and looked
great! I was very self confident and could fit into the cutest
clothes.
I was 17 when I graduated and still looking good. I went off to a
college that was about 5 hours away to become a dental hygienist.
(That was the goal anyways). My mom had always made sure I ate healthy
and motivated me to exercise growing up. But, when I got to college I
went crazy and lost self control. I ate whatever I wanted and rarely
exercised. I packed on about 40 pounds. Ugh! I was not happy with
that, at all! It was depressing to look at myself in the mirror, and
see the fat suit I had put on. It wasn't me!
I ended up leaving that school and came to live at home for a little
while to go to a small dental assisting academy close to my home town.
I finished that and then not even a few months later, found out that I
was pregnant with my daughter. Well, I packed on some more pounds and
was over 200 once she was 6 months old. I felt even more horrible
about myself, so I decided to do something about it. I started
attending group meetings and counting points to lose weight. After
joining and dropping out about a dozen times, I had lost maybe 20
pounds total.
By the time my daughter was 18 months old, I was still over weight,
and decided to try something again. This time I realized that I had to
work on having the right mindset. I went to the doctor and asked for
some anti-depressants to help me feel good and get motivated. I
thought that some pills would help me get that boost I needed to start
feeling great. Well, I started getting anxiety and feeling jittery all
the time, so I stopped taking them cold turkey! That was the worst
move I could have ever made! I had a full blown panic attack and was
in the hospital, because I thought my heart was going to pound right
out of my chest. I had never experienced such a thing in my whole
life! I was scared out of my mind. Later, I found out that the type of
anti-depressant they put me on was meant to increase energy, and was
causing similar problems in other people! I was so frustrated. I was
continually having the panic attacks on a regular basis. I tried for
over a year to get rid of them on my own, but nothing worked.
I felt fine mentally most of the time, but those attacks just would
not go away! I ended losing 40 pounds over the course of about 1 year,
by controlling my portions, exercising, and working on my self
emotionally and spiritually.
By this time my daughter was 3 years old, and I became pregnant with
my son. I was still down to a weight I was happy with and didn't gain
a whole lot while pregnant with him. I had a few panic attacks while
pregnant with him, and then a huge one while giving birth. I looked
great after he was born, and loved the way I looked! But, post partum
depression set in a few weeks later, and I was feeling awful! I bared
through it for the first year, so that I could breast feed my baby
boy. After that I just couldn't take it anymore, so what did I do? I
went to the doctor and asked for help. They put me on a different anti-
depressant. One that doesn't cause panic attacks and is used to treat
people with anxiety. Well, it helped a lot! The only draw back was
that it made me sleepy and I constantly felt like I was in a cloud.
You know that feeling? Like when you take a nap in the middle of the
day, and just can't wake up. Well, that was how I felt. Guess what, I
also packed on 50 pounds! I was having panic attacks a lot less and
was thankful for that, but knew I had to wean myself off that stuff.
So, I started slowly going down on my dose, after talking with my
doctor. When I started out I was on 100mg and after while got myself
to 50mg. Wow, what I difference that made. At that point I really went
into motivation mode, and started helping myself mentally. I started
reading some really great books, and getting into chat rooms, with
people of similar problems.
Come to find out that the most common side effect of the new anti-
depressant I was on is WEIGHT GAIN!! So, did I really have to make the
choice of being happy and fat or depressed and skinny. Hmmmm, well
which one would you pick? If you think about it, being over weight and
happy, isn't really true happiness. How can you be happy when you
don't love how you look? So, I decided to get in gear and start trying
again to lose weight. I exercised, and watched everything I ate. I
went and weighed myself every week, and guess how much I was losing??
Not even a pound a week!!!! Ugh! Over the course of about 3 months I
had lost maybe 11 pounds!! That was so discouraging to me! I was
disappointed, and just gave up! I felt lost, and just ate what I
wanted. I gained more weight and got up to almost 227 pounds! People
started to ask if I was pregnant. That made me feel so bad inside.
I was still working on myself mentally at this point and knew that my
greatness was all inside of me, and I just had to bring it out. I knew
that I needed some support, and I knew that I needed to feel good
about myself again.
In April of 2008, I met a few new friends. All of them, in my eyes
were friends I had brought into my life by attracting what I wanted in
a friend. One of these friends was a teacher and a mentor to people
wanting to lose weight. He placed me on a weight loss program that
produced immediate weight loss results and I was astonished. I had
never lost weight so fast, and yet I was eating, and getting enough
calories! He was also teaching me so about how to have the right
mindset and how to get what I want.
You must first have a dream! After deciding what those dreams are, you
can now set goals to get to those dreams! Well, one of my dreams was
to lose weight, and he helped me set goals on how to achieve that. He
gave me an actual blue print on how to achieve this goal, and it is
working. Finally, for the first time in my life, I am having almost no
panic attacks, I am 100% motivated, I am losing weight at about 5
pounds per week and more, I am feeling more confident, and I am
excited to wake up every morning to start my new day. I am almost off
of the anti-depressants, and feel 90% less of the anxiety that I was
feeling. I am a new woman!
Another one of my new friends also had the same goal as me to lose
weight, so she was given the same blue print to success by my mentor.
She is losing just as fast as I am, and loving it! We keep each other
motivated and in check. I don't know what I would do without her! She
is a blessing in my life!
I am now 26 years old, feeling great, staying on track, and loving
life!