About Me

January 2016

This is me - 1981ish - college swimmer.  I was never "super" thin, but I was very "fit" here.  This would be my goal, to get my weight down enough that I am not embarrassed to be seen in a swim suit and to get back in the pool.

I am now 54 years old and about 130 pounds overweight.  I wouldn't say that having three kids did that to me.  I would say that getting too busy to exercise did that to me.  I actually did okay until turning about 45 - since then it's been challenging.  Out of the blue, five years ago I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.  With the treatment plan came prednisone, which tends to work against any weight loss goals.  I also developed high blood pressure and things were not looking good for me.  I now have the arthritis under control by way of medicine, but the blood pressure was still high.  I have had an under active thyroid since the age of 17 - and yes medicine for that.  I am off the prednisone which is a great thing.

I have been an "In and Out" Weight Watcher for years.  I know every plan.  I know the "how" of eating correctly, counting "points," exercising, drinking water, etc.

Weight Watcher Journals over the Years

I have tried Nutri Systems.  I have tried Dr. Furhman's Eat to Live.  I have tried juicing.  These were all great, but with no weight loss results.  I have tried the Plexus products (which were great) and more recently my rheumatologist suggested The Metabolic Center as it worked well for one of her previous patients.

I began the Metabolic Center in June of 2014.  I was beginning to feel hopeless and I knew my health was greatly suffering.  About this same time, I quit my 2nd full time job and stepped down for one year from our ministry responsibilities.  The Metabolic Center worked well at first.  I lost about 20 pounds, but I was restricted to about 1100 calories a day and as you can see from the picture below, they all said I needed ALL of those supplements several times a day to lose weight.

In May of 2015, my 16 year old son and I headed back to Gold's Gym because he was six months out from having had spinal surgery for scoliosis and he wanted to work on getting strong again.  We paid for about $1000.00 worth of one-on-one training sessions for him.  He was wanting to go to the gym three times a week and this was about $50.00 a session.  By August we were talking to the head trainer at Gold's asking if there were any other options (more affordable) available for him.  That is when we were told about the NLP program which stands for Next Level Performance.  For the cost of about 3 trainer sessions we could have access to trainers but in a group setting.  We signed Joe up for this on the spot.

A few days later, I signed up.  About one month later my husband signed up.  After having so many failed attempts at weight loss, I still firmly believed that diet and exercise should be enough.