& So the Journey Began

It's October 2017, there I am, sitting with my doctor for the umpteenth time this year telling him I don't feel well. I feel sick all the time, I have no energy, I have no interest in things anymore. Everything is a goddam effort doc, I say. Do you think I am deficient in something? Iron, Vitamins? I heard how you can feel pretty crappy if you are deficient in things.

This doctor must see people EXACTLY like me every day of his life. I wonder if I made him snap, or he is just this kind of abrupt.

"You're obese Kim, what more would you like me to say? You've been getting bigger and bigger for 7 years and every year you come to me with the same complaints and every time I give you advice. Every time I give you advice, you repeat the same behaviour and then you come back to me and ask me, "am I deficient in something". Yes, you are, it's common sense. In fact, you are on the right pathway to be dead by 30 and if you are still living this lifestyle and are alive at 30, please come and see me, I would like to study you because it will be a goddam miracle".

I thank him for his time, go home and rant to my partner. "Fuck this guy, he doesn't know what he's on about, just being an asshole". My partner just smiles meekly at me and lets me go about my life.

Cue Christmas time and I feel like crap but we go about our day. Christmas means breakfast with my mum on her property then a big drive to the sunshine coast for lunch/dinner with my partners massive family. Everyone is playing backyard cricket but I am too tired for that. Into the pool for a swim but I can't find any swimsuits that fit me so I just sit next to the pool and chat to the family.

Photos are taken because you know, it's Christmas and then we all have dinner, pile into the car and head back home

I would like to sidebar here and point out that I have, at this point, been so neglectful of my health that being too self conscious to swim and engage in any kind of activity is no longer something I actively think about, it's become a habit. Once you are in the spiral, it takes a goddam miracle to break you out of it.

For the next few days after Christmas I stay off social media because I work in retail and I am VERY busy and I don't get an opportunity to do my usual scroll and like etc.

Until New Years Day.

On New Years Day my partners aunty who hosted Christmas, does her usual family shoutout, happy new year post and she includes a boat load of photos from Christmas.

And thats when I see it.

I see what I look like, through the lens of a camera. No bullshit filters, no internal monologue telling me this is normal. Absolutely nothing. just me, in all my incredibly obese glory.

Holy Shit. Is that what I look like? Is that what other people see? Is that what my DOCTOR was talking about? I have not only let myself go, I have walked into a whole new plane of existence where I don't just not give a crap about my body and my health, I have outright sought to destroy it.

On January 1st, 2018, I decide that I need help and I need to do something, quite literally anything to get my shit together because you know what, that doctor is not an asshole, he's a realist.

For 5 months I still ate like a moron, but I went to gym. I started at 2 days a week, then I went to 3. Then my roommate asked to come with me and we turned it into a social event and then suddenly we were training up to 6x a week. I noticed small changes, but nothing critical. What's funny about weight loss is that it takes about 4 weeks for you to notice changes, 8 weeks for your closest family to notice and 12 weeks for the rest of the world to catch on. I was so dug deep into how I felt about myself that I didn't even notice over those 5 months that I had lost 12kg until my roommate forced me onto the scales to prove a point.

When you start taking your health seriously, and you acknowledge your own personal growth, you start to reflect on everything in your life. I lost 12kg, and my partner told me to, "not get too cocky, I still had a ways to go", and I was like yeah you're right. Until I lost another 2 kg and I thought, " that is not the right approach to my weight loss at all".

In June I made the decision to drop all deadweight and toxicity in my life and I left that partner (9 year relationship mind due) and I took my room mate and we moved to the Gold Coast. At the time, I was working on the coast and commuting from Brisbane to the GC 6x a week so this was a good move.

I continued to lose weight and to feel much better about myself but something was still missing and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

During my move to the Coast I met and fell in love with the most amazing man ever. He saw things in me that I would never be able to see myself and he loved me at all sizes and supported my goals. Want a second helping baby? Go for it? want to go for a walk, go to gym and then lie on the floor for 3 hours? Let me join you. He is perfect and he boosted my confidence ( and my ego) tenfold and inspired me to do more and to be more.

In March 2019, I officially had shed 30kg and was ecstatic. What a milestone! My partner encouraged me to keep going, but maybe find a goal that wasn't just losing weight, so I decided to look into transformation journey suggestions and I found WBFF. I also found a coach and my god is she amazing.

I had the opportunity to do a show in 2019 but mentally I wasn't quite there yet so I asked to do 2020. We agreed on July 2020 I would do Transformation Division in Sydney.

Well, then Covid happened.

Our show got pushed back and back and back but then, after all that, it got cancelled. and I got complacent. I put 10kg back on, I decided to just "live my life".

A firm conversation with my coach and a slightly softer conversation with my partner led us to here.

Here is:

- Setting the new goal to hit the WBFF Stage in April 2021 for the Transformation Division

- Getting qualified in nutrition and coaching

- Learning how to balance life with goals.

I have lost 5kg, I am aiming for a stage weight of 65kg so I have 15kg to go. I am doing a 20 week prep, have a coach who is fired up and ready to support me, a partner who makes sure everything in my life is simple so I can focus and a passion to stand on that stage, fierce and proud.

My journey so far has had so many ups and downs. I was on the fast track to death by 30 but a blunt doctor and a confronting photo put me on the right path. I am also now nutrition qualified so I can understand A) what goes into my own body and B) how to help others like me to achieve their goals.

I could have continued on my path but I wouldn't have achieved what I have so far, and I wouldn't feel the way I do now. I love who I am, what I have achieved and what I am going to achieve.

Lifestyle change is hard, but from one obese sad girl to the next, it's so worth it.