My weight struggles began with my marriage and first pregnancy. It was the first time in my life I had to lose a lot of weight. I learned to be mindful of what I ate and started to exercise on a regular basis. The weight naturally fell off and health became a passion of mine. I became a group fitness instructor and trainer.

Almost 11 years later I started noticing that I was struggling to keep my weight down. After the birth of my last baby (I have 4) I gained as much as I had during my first pregnancy and found I needed to start over on my journey. However, what came next was not the outcome I had hoped or expected. I joined a fellow trainer’s program that got participants ready for body fit competitions. I wasn’t going to compete, I just wanted to, not only lose weight, but become very toned. The diet portion was extreme and I was shamed anytime I slipped up and ate something that was off my macros. Something snapped and I began to lose control of my eating. I couldn’t stop. I fought it with exercise (we know that doesn’t work) and some days I was working out for 3 hours. I started getting super tired and not sleeping well.

My weight started to creep up. I went to my doctor distraught. I knew I was out of control. I had constant food noise even when I wasn’t necessarily hungry. I had never experienced that before and I was terrified. He told me that my weight was fine and to not worry. Several years went by and life changes and I found myself the same weight as I was at the height of my pregnancy but I wasn’t pregnant. I felt horrible about myself. I couldn’t move like I use to and I was well within the obese category. I was pre-diabetic, couldn’t run anymore, and everything started to hurt. I had gone from a very healthy 130 lbs to 199 lbs and knew at the rate I was going it was only going to get worse. I had tried almost every program I could find to lose weight.

I finally went to Monarch Medical. We tried putting me on a variety of medicine that kept losing its effectiveness. I finally started to have success with semaglutide. The food noise was finely muffled enough that I could manage. For the first time in a long time I started to see my weight trends going down. However I had to go off of it because the side effects were really bas for me. I wanted to try tirzepatide but the prices at Monarch were too much for my budget. The weight started to come back on. The food noise was back. I gained almost all of my weight back and in desperation I looked for other alternative means of being able to go on tirzepatide.

I researched a lot. Cost mattered to me but so did making sure any compound I was injecting into my body was from a reputable pharmacy. In September my research lead me to Emerge. I started in mid September and am starting to see the weight come off. I am down about 18 lbs. and look forward to getting my life back.

I am no longer pre-diabetic. I have started to run very short distances. I still deal with some food noise but it does not roar like it use to. My clothes are fitting better. I am so grateful for the Emerge community. To be honest, I had no idea when I signed up with Emerge that this part of the program existed and I was thrilled! I knew that I needed more than medicine. I needed a community and an education to help me change my mindset. I am finding it here with Emerge. The people within the community inspire me and I am grateful to them.