About me and my struggle with my weight
My name is Aleisha. I am 43 years old. I am from Saint George, Utah. I am a wife to Jason and we have four wonderful kids together. Jake is 22. Jaycee is 19. Kaleb is 17 and Ethan is 11. I was born and raised here in Southern Utah . I have wonderful parents and I am number 5 of 7 siblings. I graduated from Dixie High School and I have been married to my high school sweetheart Jason for 25 years.
(Fun fact: I married my first and only boyfriend. We started dating when I was 16 and married at 18!)
I started to gain weight during my senior year of high school but it was most noticeable after I got married in 1996. I weighed over 200 pounds most of my adult life and my highest weight was 321 pounds and currently I weigh close to 311 pounds. All of my adult life I have been either trying to lose weight, pregnant, or feeling like I’m not enough because of what I look like and wishing I could just lose weight so that I could finally start living the life I want to live.
Why am I blogging about my weight loss struggles?
Honestly I ask myself this question all the time. But there is something driving me to continue to look deeper into my issues. Since getting married in 1996 I have tried all sorts of diets. I have tried weight watchers, slim fast, Metabolife, take shape for life or meta-fast, HCG, Weight loss doctors with vitamin B shots, isagenix, herbal life, body for life, keto, personal trainers, Beach body, crossFit, juicing, fasting not to mention all of the weight loss books I have bought that have collected dust on my shelves. The list goes on and on. Every time I would really dedicate myself to a weight loss plan I would lose weight. But then I would get pregnant or start eating again and gain it all back plus some.
How and Why I Started Documenting my Journey:
In 2018 I started to document my weight loss journey on YouTube. I decided to start a channel and commit to figuring out how to lose weight once and for all. I posted this video on Feb 21, 2018. Here is the video if you want to watch.
My first Youtube video on my Healthy Momma Journey channel
I promised the world that I was going to figure it out and I did. I documented my weight loss journey almost every day for quite a few months. After about nine months I lost 85 pounds. My goal was to lose 150 pounds by the time my son came home from his LDS mission on July 23, 2019! I honestly felt like I was a changed woman. I didn’t think I would ever go back to being heavy again. I was on the path to becoming a life coach and helping other women take better care of their health. I had so many dreams of where this new healthy life would take me!
EVERYTHING WAS GOING SO GOOD UNTIL IT WASN’T
But as I got thinner and happier my husband was becoming more depressed. He has been struggling for quite a while and everything got really bad for him. In January of 2019 He became very depressed and started having suicidal thoughts. We went to the therapist and got on medication.
The problem was that he was prescribed a medication that he was previously addicted to. We had been through years of Adderall addiction in the past and it was such a nightmare. I knew what was going to happen and I didn’t want to feel it again.
I was in so much fear that I would literally buy and eat at least two huge CRUMBLE cookies every single day after going almost a year without eating sugar. I remember thinking that there is no way I could get through these moments without the food. It was as if the food was my only way to survive it all.
I couldn’t tell anyone what was really happening and it was killing me inside. If only everyone knew the truth… then they would understand why i am eating again. I tried to start over again and again and I just couldn’t get myself to stick with anything long enough to see any results. Eventually I posted less and less and I gained all of that weight back more. Click on video below to see my weight gain.
Because of the fact that I documented my weight loss on social media everybody knew that I was doing so good. All of the sudden I was filled with so much shame and embarrassment. I didn’t want to go out of my house anymore I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want to go to church. I didn’t want to be noticed. I wanted to be invisible.
The problem with that is that I am a really social person. I need people around me and every day that I isolated myself I was dying a little more inside.
I got to the point where I didn’t want to even take care of my kids anymore which is the one thing that I felt good about in my life. I love being a mother more than anything. But through my depression I would cry every single day and my 11 year old son Ethan would ask me, “Mom, why are you always so sad?” I would tell him, “I’m sorry son I don’t want you to see me this way but I can’t pretend anymore. I’m just not OK.”
That was so hard to face. This was the first true depression that I had ever felt in my life. But I finally understood more about what my husband was feeling. So I was grateful for that. I could feel more empathy for him now.
I continued to try and post updates once in a while on my YouTube channel and social media outlets but I never had any consistency. I would do good for a minute and then I would crash again. But I would never be able to have the courage to start eating healthy again. I have a huge fear about losing weight again just to gain it back. I never wanted to feel that hope just to have it taken away from me again. I remember feeling like i wish I never even lost weight in the first place because the feeling of shame and embarrassment was so strong.
I was stuck in my shame and hiding thru 2019 and 2020. I was constantly signing up for courses and reading books and trying to learn what I need to do to fix myself. I even went to a Tony Robbins live event and it was amazing while I was doing it but when it was over I would go back to my old ways.
A TURNING POINT
Fast forward to January of 2021. I was scrolling through Facebook and I came across this lady named Cathy Heller who was doing a free course about making money doing something you love. I signed up right away because that sounded amazing. But keep in mind I signed up for a lot of things. When it came to the day that the online course started I didn’t even show up for it. Later I did get an email reminding me that I could watch the replay. I was on a drive and i happened to turn the replay on and I am so glad I did. One of the first things Cathy shared was a story about her own mother who was a talented singer had wasted her life being depressed on the couch. That was the first thing that stood out to me because I didn’t want to become that mother and that is EXACTLY the road I was going down. I am also a singer and I had been struggling to get out of bed. So I needed to make some changes. I am grateful that she shared that story at the first of her course. It really grabbed my curiosity and I started to be more interested in the content she was sharing.
Cathy Heller is something else. It is hard to put words of it but when she speaks you can feel love oosing from her somehow. She is a true pillar of light and love. She speaks the truth and she speaks right to my heart. I do not think Cathy has any idea how much she has impacted my life. If any of you want to listen to her content… I highly recommend it. She has a podcast called “Quit your day job”. She helps women find their true calling and learn how to make a living doing what they love to do. Amazing. The community that she built was so supportive.
For the first time since 2018…. I didn’t feel alone anymore. I shared my story and so many people were there for me and were encouraging to me. I felt understood and I also felt inspired that there was more to my life. I knew that God wanted me to do more. My story wasn’t over yet.
I still had some stumbling blocks that I had to get through but her course helped me see more clear about the path that I wanted to go on. I knew I wanted to sing more. I knew I wanted to help other women start to live again even if they struggle with their weight. I was inspired to start living and not wait for weight loss to love my life. I still wanted to be a life coach someday too. I wanted to start a community of women who can help support each other through our weight loss struggles. I didn’t want anyone to feel alone in this like i did.
FIRST STEP START TO DO WHAT YOU LOVE AGAIN AND BE MORE CREATIVE:
The first step that I took was just started to sing again. I created a TikTok account and I started to sing and share my voice. It really did make me feel alive again. Here is my first tiktok video.
As you can see I wasn’t great at making sure the captions were in the right place but nonetheless this is where I started. I posted this TIKTOK on January 30, 2021.
I did really good for a while. Singing really helped me a lot but I still couldn’t get myself to get healthy again. Something was holding me back. I tried to embrace the no diet mentality and the beautiful at every size movement. But that didn’t feel right to me either because I didn’t want to be heavy. I didn’t want to accept that this is me and I am 320 pounds and I had to live like this forever.
I didn’t know exactly what direction I was going but I knew that I wanted to share my journey. I wanted to have a membership to support women who feel like me so they don’t feel alone. I wanted to become a coach eventually. But I felt like I needed to learn more before I could help others.
ANOTHER SET BACK:
While I was starting to get momentum my husband had another mental health crisis. In May 2021 we thought we were going to lose my husband. He was in a dark place again. And I went straight into panic mode and wanted to save him like I always do.
We decided shut down our landscaping business that he had been working so hard to make successful for over 20 years and he started to drive a truck so that he could work on his mental health and figure out what’s going on so that he can be happy.
Every time something like this happened I would be kicked back down to feeling like things were hopeless. But I believe that God does work in mysterious ways. My husband and I have had a very toxic marriage. I have been very codependent on him and he is also codependent on me. The time he had on the road I was alone with my own feelings and thoughts. It was exactly what I needed to get to the bottom of what’s going on with me. Because I want to focus on fixing everyone else so I don’t have to think about myself. Maybe all these things I’ve been through really were happening for me after all.
LEARNING THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE:
I had another miracle happen. I was invited to participate in a class that was taught by an amazing lady named Angel. One of my best friends has been telling me that I need to get connected with Angel. Because of all this that has been happening we didn’t have money to sign up for this class. It was $400 I think. So I told Angel that I was so grateful that she invited me and that I definitely wanted to do her class next time but this time I don’t have the money.
She responded to me that she has a strong feeling I needed to be in this class and that if I would help her with my musical talents I could participate for free. I was so excited. I had no idea what I would learn and how much it would change my life.
Angel calls herself a soul mentor. She helps us connect with ourselves. It was a 12 week course and I am currently on week eight and my life will never be the same. I will do more blog posts all about what I’m learning with Angel and she is also going to be one of my first guests on my podcast. She has the most incredible insight and has taught me some of the most important lessons that I HAD to learn in order to move forward. I can’t wait to continue this story and share as I learn more but until then. Thank you for reading.
LAST WORDS UNTIL NEXT TIME:
As hard as it is to be open about my weight struggles AND also my husband being open for me to share his truth too …. I know that we are going through this to learn a lesson we could never learn in any other way. I am feeling called to learn how to truly love and accept myself. To learn to let go of the emotional weight I have been carrying for so long and to share what I learn with you. If i could help even one person who is feeling stuck because of their weight to see their value…. this will all be worth it.