Guest Blogger - Kellie McClelland - How she lost 80lbs

When Losing Weight Isn’t About Losing Weight

Ok, that’s probably a lie.  It’s always about losing weight isn’t it?  Well, for some of us, the proverbial kick in the behind is needed to finally not only get motivated, but put into action the process of losing weight.  For me, it was a wake up call with my health.  The “I know I need to lose weight” mantra that I had repeatedly tried to deal with for 20 years, became an entirely different issue. The repeated attempts, part time success, and full time failures of 20 years of poor habits had finally caught up with me.  I was pre-diabetic and had spent a week in the hospital with a flare of ulcerative colitis.  The disease that I had been in denial about for countless years, the disease that I thought couldn’t possibly make me that sick again, had reared it’s ugly self.

Then came the second proverbial kick in the behind.  In the last three days, I have had as many people mention to me that I should start a blog.  It’s something that has been on my mind for quite a while, yet I felt like I wasn’t “there” with my health. I still struggle and have daily challenges. It seemed hypocritical to me to blog about health when I still struggled with it, but as one person said, that’s all part of it.  So that coupled with the several other people that have asked about a blog and a brief mention to Rosalie about starting one, well here I am.  Rosalie without even knowing it, was my second kick in the rear to get started when she asked me to guest post on her blog.  Hopefully this will be what gets me moving and I’ll have a blog of my own very soon.

Backing up into my past, I was always the tall, skinny kid growing up.  In spite of that, I can look back at poor eating habits and a recipe for disaster with my food relationship.  It didn’t seem to affect me though until my late teens.  By the time I was in my early 20’s, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and spent a week in the hospital.  That began a vicious cycle of my weight going all over the place.  I battled the disease off and on all through my 20’s, yet it never seemed to be too bad, I just dealt with it.  When I got pregnant with my first child, it went into total remission and stayed that way for 9 years. I made pregnancy my ticket to eat and I took it quite literally.  I gained way too much weight and never lost it prior to my second pregnancy, which I subsequently added on even more weight. Over the years, I did Weight Watchers and a variety of other diets to try and lose weight. I would be partially successful and then almost sabotage myself and just gain it all back and then some.

In 2009, the colitis symptoms returned.  Again, I figured it couldn’t possibly get that bad as it had in the past.  I was completely wrong and by the end of the summer that year, I spent a week in the hospital. While I was in the hospital a doctor mentioned my lab work showed I was in the pre-diabetic stage and that I should lose weight. See, I was not skinny by any means because of the colitis.  The symptoms presented themselves differently with me and I ate terrible. So in spite of what I knew deep down, it was a shock to actually hear it from a doctor and realize how unhealthy I was. Yes I needed to lose weight, but more importantly, I needed to get healthier and make some major changes.

After getting out of the hospital I started reading.  I read voraciously and found a lot of books and websites that all pointed to one thing; sugars and carbs. I read books that targeted intestinal diseases, I read books about the Paleo/Primal lifestyle, and I read the Belly Fat Cure.  There was a common denominator amongst everything I read and a light bulb went off for me.  I started with the Belly Fat Cure and saw results, but it just still wasn’t right.  Between the way I felt and the pace the weight was coming off, I knew there was another component.  I learned about Jorge’s Fast Track program and then read the Primal Blueprint.  I slowly started to adopt the principles and started seeing results.  I was feeling better and the weight was coming off. I can’t say that I lost weight at this magical, rapid pace.  Instead it slowly came off, yet I got stronger and healthier along the way. Sending in a success story to Jorge and being in the "Belly Fat Cure Quick Meals" book with Rosalie was a defining moment.  Talk about being honored and recognized for what I did, it was fantastic!

I wish I could say that my health is 100%.  I actually got sick enough for another hospitalization from the colitis this past December. To further complicate matters, there seems to be a debate about whether it’s Chrons disease or colitis.  Whatever it is, it has made me even more motivated to keep working at getting healthier and to not give up. I am no longer pre-diabetic and in spite of the disease, I am healthier and stronger than I have ever been. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t about the weight. But it didn’t start out being solely about weight. It became an ongoing journey towards health that ended up with losing 80 pounds. I feel more self confident and better about myself than I ever have. At the beginning, I never thought I’d lose so much. But the health component is definitely the biggest part. I can only imagine how much sicker I would have been these last few years if I had that 80 pounds back. It was also about Jorge calling me tiny when I met him at the photo shoot for the “Belly Fat Cure Quick Meals” book, I’m 5’10”, tiny is not a description I ever thought of about myself. And, it was also about going from busting out of a size 16-18 to a size 6. But most importantly, it was about getting healthy and strong in spite of dealing with a chronic disease, and making health a priority over everything else.

Thank you Rosalie for giving me the opportunity to share a little about how I got to this point. Now talk about accountability, I need to get busy and get that blog going!