Feminine 101

In January 2024, I began a “health journey.” This is to share where I came from, what I’ve achieved, and how I got from point A to point B. Please note, I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, or any other sort of health professional. I’m just a woman who took her health in hand and made some changes. If you wish to start at the beginning of my story, you can click here.

There are drawbacks to losing weight, but there are obvious advantages. 

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Eleven pounds down, I stopped having heartburn almost entirely. I’ve had tiny flares but nothing that makes me think I need even something as weak as Tums. I have not had a single reflux experience in months! And I had them bad. Sometimes, before, I would wake in the middle of the night with the taste of bile in my mouth and a raw, burning in the back of my throat and nose. I would go down to the kitchen to take baking soda slurried in water. Then I’d chase it with water to wash the bitterness away and soothe the burning sensation. That is now gone.

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Eleven pounds. That’s all it took. When my doctor advised that I lose weight, I thought she meant a lot…not eleven pounds. 

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By the fifteen pound mark, my husband got a lot more handsy. Now, he has never said a word about my weight. He never complained about my body, and it seemed not to have impaired our intimacy on any level. I would still maintain that it has not.

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Aaaand…by the time I’d shed the first fifteen pounds, he couldn’t keep his hands off me. He did not notice this, but I sure did and it was exceptionally gratifying. I remember the first time he came to the kitchen and lifted me up on the counter because he could. Don’t worry, no children were traumatized during that little make-out session. 

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Somewhere around the twenty pound mark, my kids started carrying around their own water bottles and drinking a ton of water. My teenage son started buying chocolate milk occasionally instead of soda all the time and eating my fruit and nuts instead of candy and chips constantly. There is no leadership like that of example. Telling my kids to watch out so they don’t get overweight when they’re older is not the same as taking charge and showing them the effort it takes to create change. Dave Ramsey likes to talk about changing your family tree and I’d like to think that this undertaking will have an impact on future generations. Maybe it will equip them so that they don’t have the same problems later on, or, if they do, they know how to handle them.

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This summer, my family and I were out in the country, walking the hills. Everyone went to run up the last hill and so did I. Folks, it was easy! It turns out that running after you’ve lost a quarter of your weight is much easier. I mean, duh, but I was so excited and not even winded! Me at forty is better off than me at thirty-five. I mean, my foot still hurts (pretty sure I have an injury), but I can walk a lot longer than before so much so that I’m trying to get my husband to do a rigorous eight mile hike up a mountain next summer. Wish me luck!

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A few months later I was purchasing new jeans and wearing sizes small and medium after always being in large and extra large before. When my husband bought me a motorcycle, I felt like I could actually fit the biker babe profile. Also, I am forty years old and my legs have never been this great! They’re legitimately hot! It makes me wish that I had known how to care for them back when I was younger. Alas, I know now, and Mr. Right is appropriately admiring of them. 

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So do it. The benefits are worth it! All the way down the line, from my body image and confidence, to my physical wellness, to that of my family gives me a host of reasons to forge ahead.

To continue reading about my weight loss journey, click here.