Desiree: At my heaviest
I was 275 pounds.
I liked to party,
I like to drink
I worked at McDonald's for years
I didn't feel good
I was ...
miserable,
the deep
dark depression.
the feelings I had about being over weight
I definitely kept to my self.
I knew
that I needed to make a change.
Over the course of 18 months
I lost 150 pounds.
and for the last six years
I've maintained.
Kevin and I met
about six months ago,
Do I think that our fitness
led to us
finding each other?
Yeah.
Growing up, my family didn't really have
specific knowledge on nutrition
We just kind of ate whatever we had,
It was a lot of breads
a lot of packaged,
easy meals
a lot of the cheaper foods.
aren't the healthy ones.
and
we didn't have a lot of money.
In my teenage years
I liked to party
I worked at McDonald's for years
and, I was just like,
I wasn't mindful
of food or nutrition,
or exercise
so as I took those
traits with me
and was
just eating whatever I wanted
I had a couple of kids,
and
everything
they ate is what I ate.
And
kids like sugar
kids like carbs,
kids like sweets
All the stuff that tasted good
that's not good for you
I didn't feel good at that point.
I was depressed
but I kept telling myself
that it was okay.
it was like I was giving myself excuses.
that being a mom it was okay
but
but I wasn't happy at all.
So 275 pounds
I was miserable
there's no questions asked
and
my weight held me back
big time.
Over the years
the more weight that I gained
I would stop
visiting my friends
I would avoid certain people
I didn't want to go to amusement parks with my kids
I didn't want to wear anything less
than a big navy sweater
because I wanted to hide.
the deep dark depression
the feelings I had about being over weight
I definitely kept them to myself.
Prior to my weight loss
I was actually a pretty big eater
So a typical day would be
get up have a cup of coffee
have lots of cream, lots of sugar
bacon and eggs
toast and hash browns
snacks in between
whatever I could get my hands on
cookies, crackers
chips.
I had no idea what I was putting in my mouth
I just ate
There's days where I'm sure
that I ate over 5,000 calories
easily.
I had excuse after excuse.
I used to tell people
that, "I don't understand why."
"I'm over weight."
"I don't actually eat that bad."
I was lying to everybody
around me,
and I was lying to myself.
I knew
that I needed to make a change.
I definitely did a lot of yo-yo dieting.
I had tried
everything in the book.
I have done every wrap
every cream, every pill
soup diets, shakes
programs
I've done it all
I wanted to loose weight,
So,
it's funny, I actually googled
"What's the right way to loosed weight?"
I decided to look into macro counting
and I learned about nutrition,
that was my one big turning point.
I figured that what my body needed
and I applied that
in my nutrition
that's what just worked for me.
So first of all is the
that I personally use
they have helped me reach
or helped me along my journey.
when I started this journey
I was definitely
completely fitness illiterate
I didn't know anything about exercise
So I would just do
half an hour to 45 minutes of cardio a day
I do some weights,
and that's how my journey started
I've never looked back
Not only was I now loosing weight
but I wasn't restricting anything from my diet
I was happy I felt great,
I can still eat bread, I can still eat carbs,
I can still go have that slice of cake right?
At my heaviest I was 275 pounds,
over the course of 18 months
I lost 150 pounds.
for the last six years I've maintained
and I'm currently 130 pounds.
Of course I look better
than I did at 275 pounds
but mentally
I am not fighting depression anymore
I have completely gone away from having
extreme anxiety
and I think that all plays back to the fact
that I was constantly down
down on my [inaudible]
now that I am physically fit
I have become more mentally fit
and for me that
that is something that I didn't know
that would happen in the beginning.
I'm five two,
and at 275 pounds
when you loose 150 pounds
there's no way you can get away from loose skin.
unfortunately I was
left with eight
[inaudible]
of loose skin.
You end up getting like a pocket
on your belly, it looks like an apron
I've got loose skin underneath my arms
I've got loose skin in my butt
in between my thighs
the loose skin is uncomfortable at times
but being 275 pounds is much more
uncomfortable.
Three years into my weight loss journey
I got a skin removal
Kevin and I met about six months ago
at a wedding
Do I think our fitness journeys
led to us finding each other?
Yeah I definitely
100%
believe that
for some reason
everything that's happened for me in the last eight years
led me to find him
Kevin: That's a good answer.
Desiree: I think the biggest thing
right off the bat was our personalities
super similar
We both have a lot of
ambition and drive and motivation
Kevin: At my heaviest I think that was
246 pounds.
and right now I'm about 195
growing up I was actually in really good shape
and then got into an office job in my early 20s
and I got to sit behind the desk
Doritos and chocolate milk for breakfast,
You slide real quick.
Real motivation I would say is
I mean when you're sick and tired of looking in the mirror
and seeing some fat dude staring back at you.
You've got to change something.
After going through something like that after the transformation
it's more of a mental game than anything
it's doing the things that you don't want to do,
it's going to the gym on those days
when you don't want to go to the gym.
and I think that applies to pretty much everything,
and now I think for both of us
it's just trying to set the example
and say
if we can do it
there's no reason everybody else can't
we want to help other people do the same thing.
Getting in shape is hard
being over weight is hard
Desiree: You need to pick and choose your hard
Right?