Hi Brook! You’re awesome and so inspiring. SO happy I found you. I’m 28 and live in Austin and can’t wait to see you one day hopefully in Dallas!

I’m 5’1 and my goal weight is 130 lbs. My scary goal weight is 125 (haven’t weighed that since I was 18). I was in the 140s for the last 3 years until I got an Implanon birth control in my arm and gained a smooth 15 lbs within a year, putting me at my heaviest–158.
Good news: I got the hormonal BC removed 3 weeks ago, which is liberating. However, I’m feeling a LOT of shame about my weight, so much so that I often feel “fear” and that adrenaline shot in my blood telling me I’m in danger. It makes it very hard to create that awesome, exciting positive energy I know I need to create to lose weight. How can I get there? These feelings come up when I’m putting on clothes and they don’t feel great–or when a picture taken and I don’t want to be in it–so fairly often. My weight also hasn’t budged in the last few weeks, which is scary. My thoughts go to– “What if I never lose weight again?” (I know, dramatic!) My thoughts are hovering around “I can’t lose weight” “It’s not going to work for me” “How could you let this happen?” “I’m different than others” “It works for others and not me” I have so much evidence for why this won’t work for me, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE lost weight before when I’ve exercised and monitored my calorie intake.

For a long time I had excuses of why I couldn’t lose weight but I want to be done with those. I want to BELIEVE! I want to DO this! And also not get discouraged when the scale doesn’t move. What thoughts do I need to create and hang on to? 🙂

a bit of extra context: I got blood work done recently and everything came back normal (thyroid working great, even blood sugar levels were fine). I exercise a LOT, and in the past I’ve exercised a TON (aggressive CrossFit daily for 2 months) and not lost any weight, which has sapped some of my normal enthusiasm around working out. Now I just work out knowing not to expect that it will result in weight loss, and instead for my mental health.