I weighed 260 pounds. My doctor said lose weight, do PT. 

My knee pain was too great, the cure seemed too hard, and too slow. 

So I said no thanks and took the steroid injection instead.

Three steroid injections over two years.

The first one helped.

The second one gave me a reaction.

The third one hurt me.

I was heavier than ever, and in more pain than when I started.

I wasn’t a candidate for knee replacement. 

Too young. Not damaged enough. 

Just suffering. Waiting to get worse.

So I decided to stop waiting.

I looked for help. I found out about knee decompression and made an appointment for a consult. 

Twenty-one targeted physical therapy sessions. Decompression, red light therapy, TENS. 

Seven weeks, three times a week, forty-five minutes from my home. 

A huge commitment. But I had to try.

It worked. More space between my joints. A foundation to build on.

Then I did Keto. Forty-five pounds gone in a year.

Then a fitness studio opened in my town, and I started strength training.

I had a slow start. It took about six months for the habits to stick.

I started working closely with Tani, my trainer. I took her Midlife Metabolic Reset and her Journey to Hormone Harmony class. While I was learning to train my body, I was learning to reprogram my brain. I literally had to detox from Keto.

I can only focus on one thing at a time. So I focused on strong, and let the weight be what it was for a minute.

Tani is amazing. I’ve learned so much from her about my body — how it’s meant to move, and what happens when you stop using it the way it’s meant to be used. I learned about behavior change, habit stacking. We worked through emotional eating, identifying triggers, all-or-nothing thinking, and every other mental roadblock women put in their own way.

I’ve been showing up to Tani’s weekly group coaching calls, and they’ve been some of the most helpful hours of this whole process. Community isn’t optional when you’re trying to change. It’s the thing that makes change stick.

Here’s where I landed.

Seventy pounds gone. Forever.

Normal A1C.

LDL down 30 points.

Total cholesterol under 200 for the first time in decades.

NAFLD, healed.

Liver enzymes like a brand new liver.

My diet is protein forward. Clean. Limited sugar. No alcohol — I lost the desire for it.

I went back to the center where I had my original treatment for an updated evaluation. I wanted to know if the space I’d built in that joint was still there.

It was better. Losing the weight and strength training since then gave me even more room than the original treatment did.

My knees are still arthritic. But they’re not screaming anymore.

It took about six months to hit my stride. But somewhere along the way, exercise just became what I do. At home. In the studio. In gyms across the country. Throughout the Caribbean. There’s nowhere I go now where I can’t find a way to move.

I’ve changed more than my body. I’ve changed my mindset. It’s not that I have to move my body anymore. It’s that I get to.

I get annoyed now when I have to skip a class.

I’m not going to fool you into thinking it was easy. It wasn’t.

But that’s okay.

Because I can do hard things.