Carissa’s Health Journey| Part One

Carissa’s Health Journey

How and Why I lost 125+ pounds and found myself in process

Hey Friends!!

Welcome to my mini blog series of my health journey! There is so many layers and details of my story so I’m breaking it up! Here’s a foundation of where things started, I always say that I am a work in progress and I believe that to be true with every aspect of my life. Not just my health and weight loss.

The beginning of Carissa’s health journey:

I am the 3rd oldest of 8 girls, grew up in the 90s and like any large family we had to make a dollar stretch. There was a lot of processed food in our daily diet. Foods that came in a box, was frozen, CEREAL (was totally a main food group for us). As a kid if pop( that’s SODA for you southerners!), ice cream, or cereal came into the house it was surely gone within 12-24 hours. I had absolutely no concept of healthy/real food AT ALL growing up.

In second grade is when I realized I was chubby, bigger than most of my friends. I also started my period during that same time. I just felt so self conscious of everything about me. But that’s when I noticed I was bigger and I only got bigger from there. By high school I weighed close to 200 pounds, then when I graduated I jumped to 235lbs at 18 years old.

My Parents Food Habits

I didn’t really take notice of my parents eating habits as a child but I definitely have looked at them now and thought back on them when I was younger. My mom was good with portions, S L O W eater and was never a huge sweets person and she maintains that way today. My dad is a big portions, very very faster eater and loves his Kroger peanut butter and chocolate cake frosting. No need to guess, I took after my dads way of eating. I’ve always struggle with huge portions and I love my sweets.

Adulthood:

Now you see where I started, that merged into similar patterns as an adult. My husband came from a smaller family but they ate out A LOT. I used to joke because being one of 8, we hardly ever ate out and if we did it was the McDonalds dollar menu. Every time someone would ask where I wanted to eat out, or if I had been to a specific restaurant I would say, “I have no idea and surely I have never been there.” Several occasions they would not believe me- I was like guys there’s 10 people in my family do you really think we ate out very much! Once I started working I was able to go out more but basically kept similar habits.

I was 17 years old when I received my multiple sclerosis diagnosis. I had had numbness in my legs months before and then got optic neuritis which put me in the hospital. After a long night of running tests and seeing a neurologist the next day I had my diagnosis. They wanted to put me on medication shortly after. But I pushed it off for several months, I guess in denial a bit.

Engaged

When we had gotten engaged I decided I needed to lose some weight before the wedding. My co-workers at Kroger told me about doing low carb. During our engagement I lost 32-35 pounds. I was 199 lbs the days before the wedding.

Doing low carb the weight came off pretty quick. It was easy to stick to when I was packing my lunch and dinner. I was working a full and part time job at that time and was keeping very busy. I didn’t have a lot of time to sit and binge plus my part time position was pretty active. My spare time was wedding planning with Nick or helping with my GG since I lived with my grandparents.

It was so great to have accomplished weight loss for the first time ever. I stopped drinking pop when I was 11 because I thought that’s what would help me lose weight. I told myself when I looked the way I wanted then I could drink pop again. Since then I have had a literal sip of pop. Spoiler alert- I never went back and have no plans or desires to have pop again.

Married to a Marine

We went on a cruise for our honeymoon, it was wonderful and filled with a lot of indulgent food. Which was fine, I wasn’t planning to have another honeymoon so I should enjoy this one. Nick left for boot camp 2 months after our wedding. I think I stayed around that 200 pound mark through boot camp, and his second set of training. Once we moved out to California and I was in college and working part time, then full time school and full time working right before we moved to SC. I had re gained the 30 ish pounds I had lost AND I gained another 30 pounds.

When we arrived in SC October 1st, 2016- I weighed 265 pounds (I’m 5’5”), wearing 2XL shirts and size 24 jeans. The biggest I had ever been. I was incredibly insecure, out of breath doing everything, worried constantly I was going to break a chair if I sat in it, and just miserable in a lot of aspects of my life.

That’s a brief history that brings us to 2016 (before getting pregnant with Olivia) I’ll dive into a bit of pregnancy & weight and then get into the good stuff in the next post!!

Let me know in the comments below if this is something you enjoy hearing about, your personal struggles & victories with weight and wellness. I’d love to build this community with you friends.

This photo was taken after having lost my first 20 pounds. Downtown Greenville, in 2017

Reference Links

1st Pregnancy Announcement

Looking back here are Family Photos when Olivia was a baby

Brittany Williams is who I learned so much from in the beginning!