YLF: 071 Chat with Tonya
Where’s the best place for listeners to connect with you?: Instagram @twidhalm
Describe your weight loss journey.: Started really gaining weight in 2016 when I was 36. I gained 50 to 60 pounds. I didn’t understand why my weight had gone up so much in about a year and half. Started dieting and exercising. Was unable to lose any weight unless I was eating under 1200 cals plus working out. If I ate around 1500 calories I’d maintain my weight but anything over that and I’d start gaining again. I’d go to doctors and tell them what a difficult time I was having but they never believed me. They’d tell me I must be not counting calories correctly or not working out as hard as I thought. So I thought I needed to work harder. I would push myself past my point. It was common for me to vomit during or after a workout. I started 75 hard and had to restart several times. (Dang water requirement) Until one day it hurt my hip to walk. I tried resting it a few weeks but it didn’t get better. Started the process of being bounced through doctors until I got the right specialist and found out I had hip bursitis. Spent about 6 months in physical therapy. During this hiatus I went to a hormone specialist and found out my weight gain and difficulty losing weight was due to my thyroid and an excess of estrogen. The validation that I wasn’t doing anything wrong was amazing! Started medication, eating right and working out again (nothing crazy this time) lost 20 pounds. Sometime during 2020 I started getting chest pain after working out or eating. It would interfere with my workouts and they started to slide. I didn’t go to the doctor until 2021 because of covid. Again started the process of being bounced to different specialist and tests. Found out I had a paraesophageal hiatal hernia with 80% of my stomach resting above my diaphragm in my chest cavity. I had surgery and it’s been 3 months of recovery which I’m on the tail end of now. Ready to start back on my road. Phew! That was a mouthful.
What’s a skill you developed as a result of working through your weight loss process?: Patience, that was really the big one. Starting over so many times and not seeing progress required me to develop patience. But self love and self acceptance, which I count as skills since they are learned were also some important skills I developed.
What has that skill led to outside of weight loss?: A happier marriage. I joke but in all honesty that’s a little true. Getting everything done now. Stressing out and not relaxing until every project is completed wasn’t just how I treated my weight loss it’s how I tackled everything. I’d make an impossible to do list and feel like a failure if I didn’t get everything done. Drove my husband crazy. I still at times have to remind myself to have patience but overall I have so much more love and peace in my life then before.
What advice would you give to someone working through their weight loss journey?: Be your own strongest advocate. If you think something isn’t working or wrong don’t take no for an answer. You know your body best. Also it’s okay to take it slowly. Doing all the changes at once can lead to injury or failure. Break it off into small bits of change instead of changing all your habits and patterns at once for a better chance of success.
What's something most people don't know about you that has nothing to do with weight loss?: This one was kind of tough for me cause I feel like I notoriously share too much about myself but not many people know, I used to be the manager of a garden nursery. In my case the advice “find a job doing what you love” did not work for me. It caused me to hate taking care of plants. Took me about 4 years after I left the job ti find my love of gardening again.
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