When I moved in with James-Simon in 2009 I was in the best shape of my life. I was working with a fitness trainer, which I had never done before, and was training for a figure competition. I weighed in at about 118lbs with an 11.80% body fat and was entering the last stages of the preparation process for the contest. I decided that this was not in line with who I am and opted not to continue training for the competition. Once the reality of a fitness show settled in on me I had no desire to pay $1,000 for a bikini and flex and pose my body in front of an anyone much less for an auditorium full of people.

With the contest looming over me I had maintained a very rigid diet and lifestyle at that time. I ate certain foods at certain times and rarely ventured outside of a set menu. I even wore a device on my arm that helped me keep track of how many calories I was burning and taking in so that I could better manage my goals. I made sure my body got plenty of rest to recover. I maintained a workout schedule 6 days a week that between the warm up, weight training, cardio, cool down, and stretching generally took me almost 2 hours; and most of the time I really enjoyed it. I felt like an athlete who was being coached and trained like a professional. When I was growing up I went to several different schools and never had the opportunity to be trained as part of a team so my personal trainer was like my coach. we were a team and I loved it.

For about a year or so prior to my training experience I had teeter-tottered on the scale between 112-132lbslbs and before that my weight usually fluctuated between 113-138lbs and only reached 142lbs during particularly stressful events. Although I had always maintained a fairly regular gym routine I found that I often took in more food (energy) than I required and noticed that I often would feed my emotions whatever they craved.

When James-Simon and I moved in together there were several stressors. I went from being single for an extended period of time and spending a great deal of time alone to being with constant company, being someone’s partner, sharing everything, and staring in the role of step-mother to a 9 year old girl. It was a whirlwind of things to adjust to. We enjoyed cooking together and of course eating our creations. We became big fans of the chocolate martini, as well as the key-lime, the butterscotch, and the vanilla martinis. We loved to entertain and make wonderful food and pair it with fun drinks even if it was just us who were being entertained! It was great. Still today our chief complaint of each other is that we don’t get enough sleep because we’re up too late talking with each other. You may be thinking… boo-hoo, poor KimChell found somebody she can’t stop talking with. But all these things combined were a recipe for weight gain. Although the fun, the laughs, and the overall happiness outweighed anything else there were still difficulties. I had trouble adjusting to the other people in the house, how they did things paired with how I did things, and the different schedule that he kept. This combined with being cast into a mom role, a part I’d never played before, I was quite spun.

I found it difficult to maintain the routine I had before I moved in. I had trouble going to bed at the time that I use to because he was use to staying up later and I enjoyed his company so I stayed up too. I found it difficult anyway to wind down and rest when he was stirring around the house. I had trouble prioritizing my time to go to the gym; I usually did this after work and my priorities had shifted and I felt a greater pull to do something else. Now I wanted to be with him and Janel after work, making dinner, playing outside, and hanging out. To do both would require a schedule change and I’d never really felt the gusto that I would need to do one of my workouts at 6am. I went from working out 3-6 times a week since I was about 15 years old to not at all and taking in more calories than I may have at any other time in my life. Within about 4 months I had went from being quite svelte if I do say so myself, to being, well… not so much. I reach a surprising 145 pounds, the heaviest I had ever been. I have since yo-yoed between 140-145lb for a little while, and am now ranging between 135-143lb.

Putting on weight and taking it off over and over again each year for several years is very hard on a person mentally, physically, and emotionally. Five pounds is no big deal, even 10lbs is a bit more reasonable but much more than that on a regular basis may have its roots buried in something other than loving good food and fun drinks. I am and was genuinely happy in my life when I put this weight on. I laugh all the time. I give and receive great love, I have wonderful friends, a family that I am grateful for, I’m developing some of my passions and letting many of my other ideas openly percolate. I feel at my best intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally when I am comfortable within my physical self… and again I was not.

I believe that there are (generally) personal issues that underlie the excess weight you carry around with you and I believe it will continue to plague you as long as those issues go unexamined. I liken fat to being the bubble wrap around your soul. Each layer serving to protect you from an old hurt, perhaps from your childhood, covering up anger at your parents, burying your resistance to forgive another person or your self for some perceived wrong. It may also represent a fear, or offer you an assurance that a horrible experience will not be repeated. But this is not true, fat offers you no protection from your pain and if anything creates more pain and unrest within you. The more you wrap your soul the more resentment towards your self you create. When you gain weight or try to loose it and fail you beat up and berate your self for not being better, and for not doing something other than what you’ve done. It can turn into quite the vicious cycle.

Think of each experience in your life as being a bag, full of the many details that made up that experience. As each one occurs you can choose to reach in to the bag, take a few lessons out and set the bag down as you move along through life. As you continue your journey your knowledge, awareness, and information are constantly increasing. You will notice that things come up that trigger a memory or an emotion from a past bag. You can again choose to reach back into that bag and grab another lesson that you couldn’t reach with the knowledge, awareness, and information you had when it had occurred initially. However, many people get stuck in the emotion from the experience and carry that part of the bag around with them always; a heavy resentment, a tiring guilt, a burdensome fear. For many, these emotional hurts materialize into excess weight.

I felt an unspoken knowing at 118lbs that my weight loss would not continue, that this weight was not going to last, and I would gain the excess back. Of course the routine I was keeping at the time was unrealistic for any long term goals but I knew that it was more than that. I was still not happy with my self even when I was in amazing shape. My troubles had nothing to do with my body; my body and my "problem areas" if you will are a reflection of something on the inside. But I had a strong desire to create the very best of my self and to look within for the answers to my troubles. I knew that I needed to find peace with every area of my self from both past and present in order for me to love all aspects of my self now and to be able to maintain a healthy weight for my self going forward. I knew I was carrying around baggage from the past and until I was able to fully release it I also knew that I would always struggle with maintaining a physique that I was comfortable within.

I thought I’d always been pretty good about getting my lessons from the bags of my experiences and reaching for more as they presented themselves but this was (obviously) not always the case. I had moved too quickly past some experiences in a rush to forget the unsightly and unspeakable, became so anxious to set the bag down that I missed important lessons, and neglected to give forgiveness that would serve me going forward. I did not want to feed and fight my emotions or struggle with my weight fluctuations the rest of my life so I took action.

I began to create an awareness within my self of the feeling I got when I mentioned someone’s name or recalled a particular memory. When the feelings was at all negative I recognized that there was still work to be done in this bag of experience. I utilized Louise Hay’s book, You Can Heal your Life, to it’s fullest ability. I took my time and went through all of the work as she directed. I discovered many things I thought I had let go of from my past including from my childhood that I was keeping close to my heart, emotions and within my resulting decisions. The emotional release since my in-depth emotional work has been extremely powerful and I now feel a peace within my self that I have never known. I no longer feel the angst at mention of a certain person or event and I feel as if I have both received and given my self the gift of freedom from the past. No longer tethered to these experiences I felt a huge weight lifted… no pun intended. I have since found a workout routine that works for me, exercises that I genuinely enjoy doing, and am well on my way to getting back into my favorite pair of jeans.

The key to success in any area of your life is to be able to love your self and the skin you’re in now and always. I love my self right now... extra weight and all. It was important for me to have the experience of gaining so much weight while so many other things were going so wonderfully in my life. It nudged me to look within for answers and has allowed me to grow as the person that I am capable of being.

This article is the first of many that will take you through your weight loss goals. I believe that dealing with your emotional issues which may throw up road blocks to your long-term success are the key to your lasting success and should therefore be considered a top priority.

If you have any constructive feedback, a similar experience, or would just like to give a compliment please contact me at KimChell.

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Most Sincerely,

KimChell Haskell