1 year ago, July 17, 2018, my husband and I officially decided to join WW and this has been such an important date to us because we would have never thought this was going to be our answer to a healthier and better us. I had a pretty bad attitude starting. This was the one photo I took of myself the moment I came back from signing up. I went to an actual WW studio and signed up there. My first impression was, this is for older people. I want to say weekday mornings, you’ll be seeing mostly retired women and the set up felt very uncomfortable. It didn’t matter, my attitude going in, I thought to myself, this isn’t going to work anyway. I quickly learned what it was about and we tried our best the first week losing about 6 lbs but I figured, it’s been a while since we tried at all being healthy so it was obvious, it was going to work just in the beginning like every diet I tried and failed. Finally by the time I reached 10lbs, I was obsessed with the idea of making sure I reach my initial goal for myself which was 20lbs. I changed it a few times because I felt 20 was impossible, I think I put 15 and then by the time I reached 15, I changed it 20. Little did I know, I would be losing 43 lbs altogether, reaching their goal for me at -38lbs.

I want to say most of my adult life, I was always self conscious and wore a size large. Coming from an Asian background, this is forbidden. Every adult, even the ones you don’t know, won’t hesitate to let you know that you would look better if you lost some weight. I embraced it and told myself it’s genetics. After giving birth, I never imagined I would be taking before and after photos of it. Now I wish I had a real photo of my first day belly because these images right above was already once I started losing weight and was hopeful.

It wasn’t just the number on the scale but it was truly how healthier I was physically and emotionally then and now. There are so many things that I want to say about then and now but honestly what it came down to was- picture on the left, it was in the hottest summer day at an event, I wore pants with 2 layers, with my hair down. This was me trying to hide behind layers and my hair while sweating and frustrated at everyone but mostly my husband and didn’t want to do anything but just sit because it would make me even sweatier. This struggle of being self conscious and being frustrated because of the heat wasn’t all solved magically because I lost some weight but I’m being really honest, it is better!!! I think it’s crazy to think being a little less sweaty actually makes a bunch of things better!

Speaking of my husband, here he is. I’m so proud of him. He always struggled with weight but really he struggled with saying no to burritos. The beauty of WW, we’re able to eat plenty of Mexican food as long as we cooked it. There are obviously so many things with him that has changed for the better but the best change we saw in him was his blood pressure. It has naturally lowered and now consistently in the healthy range.

This was a year where we said so many things were impossible to now we could do anything.