I've had so many miserable days lately walking into my closet looking for something to wear and there's nothing - none of it will fit me, and I'm left searching for something to hide behind. This spring I became unhappy in my own skin, and that had only happened once before.
Let me explain:
The Younger Years
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| Me (in the pink) with my High School acapella group |
I've always been a positive, witty, intelligent girl. Although I never felt like I fit in, I made my way through high school at the top of my class with honors, winning every competition there seemed to be. Whether it was singing, drawing, painting, writing - if it was anything artistic, I excelled. I was also very thin, with no work needed because of my teenage metabolism. I'm also a perfectionist - needing things to be perfect before finishing them and showing them to the world. I have even been holding off on this blog for that exact reason, not knowing what to say so I can phrase it all PERFECTLY. Well - I'm
not perfect - that's never going to happen, and if you don't grab life by the horns the moment you have a new idea, that idea will pass you by. Better to start now! So here goes...
This was me, my first semester at
Berklee College of Music:
I lost control of my perfectionism, entering the rush of college and realizing the fact that I wasn't the best of the best at ANYTHING anymore. I felt demoted and worthless, balooning up to 155 pounds thanks to my incessant binge eating. It was all emotional - I didn't REALLY want the food, but I
needed it to feel better about myself. A hard day in class? A fight with the boyfriend? Phone the greasy Chinese food place downstairs. I was too lazy to even walk down to pick it up, and within the first month they knew my order the second I told them my name.
Nonetheless, my boyfriend loved me for all of my chubbiness and even indulged in adding some himself. But when that started to happen, my eyes widened and I realized the path I was going down - from 130 lbs to 155 in just a few months?!
Not okay. I needed to do something about it. So I got a job working at
Healthworks Fitness Center near my school in Boston and started working out two hours a day and monitoring my caloric intake. It's the tried and true method, and it worked. But it was HARD and I would spend countless hours at the gym late night after late night.
Making a Change - Part 1
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| Photoshoot Spring 2011 |
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| Glowing - down to 128 lbs! |
Slowly but surely, over the span of the next year and a half I got back down to 130 but with a BETTER body - a stronger, more toned one that
I had created all on my own. I finally felt in control again! I looked amazing, felt spectacular, and everyone could tell. I was glowing! I now felt so knowledgeable about health and nutrition that I even started my own business on the side - helping others find a healthy eating plan that works with their dietary needs and constructed, customized workouts for each client. I researched getting my CPT through
NASM and wanted to become a personal trainer to help others with their fitness goals, although I never had the extra money at the time to sign up and start. I assisted a couple friends in losing twenty or so pounds, and felt like a proud mama - I was someone people came to for HEALTH ADVICE. I received countless Facebook messages from old high school friends asking
"How can I get my body back like you did? PLEASE give me tips!!!"
I felt like passing on my knowledge would be a building block for others to lead a healthier life, and since then my passion for health and fitness has never faltered.
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| Unedited photo from Spring 2011 - I HAVE ABS! |
Moving to LA - Back to Square One
Well...my passion never faltered, but my willpower did.
I graduated Berklee in May 2011 and moved with that same boyfriend here to Los Angeles. We picked up our somewhat-established lives in Boston and made the move cross-country for our careers. The fact that LA itself is the entertainment capital of the world and an all-around amazing place to live had us sold. I also grew up in Minnesota, so there were no more negative 35 degree winters allowed!
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| With Fabio at Natural Expo West (March 2012) |
Slowly but surely once AGAIN - I started gaining back the weight I had so studiously lost. I'm not sure if it was the fact that in Boston I walked everywhere and in LA I have a car so I lost out on a lot of extra exercise, but the weight just started piling on even when I was tried to control it with Pilates classes and going to a gym. Nothing seemed to work for me anymore and the second I would sit down feeling bored I would order food. I got really depressed and went though some hard times with my boyfriend, leading us to eventually break up. He moved out in January (of this year) and that's when I
really went overboard with the emotional binge eating.
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| 80's party - trying to hide my weight |
After many attempted failures I tried a self-intervention. For about two weeks I ate a restricted diet and took a well-known diet pill, but I quickly slid off the bandwagon leaving myself feeling depressed and worthless once again. I got really excited about it and told everyone, then failed miserably. When people would ask me how I was doing and if I was still going on it, I shrugged it off and changed the subject.
Luckily, I DID make some great friends who kept me from being bored. But the fun turned to partying - which included a LOT of drinking. Every party night ended with a late-night saunter down the street to
Cafe 101, where I would scarf down eggs, greasy bacon, and french toast with two butter packets and a tub of syrup. This happened literally EVERY night, and once again before I knew it, the scale read 155.
NO freaking way! I told myself I would never get to this again... and I would tell everyone I was going to get back on track but I was only lying to everyone including myself. Heck, I loved those eggs.
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| Mom and Me - April 2012 |
I also had a new guy in my life who made things very emotionally confusing, so I think that helped add to the chaos. I didn't know how to handle myself or my feelings for him. He had recently lost a lot of weight himself, and I felt that pressure put on me once again. Some nights sitting alone I would order a full pizza from Dominos including cinnastix and garlic bread and would eat ALL OF IT. Other nights I would go to Ralph's and buy three King-sized Kit Kat bars, three Heath bars, and a box of Double Stuf Oreos. All gone by the next morning. Thousands upon thousands of calories (not the good kind), feeding their way into my hips, legs, arms, face and tummy - I noticed I couldn't see my feet in the shower anymore. I felt like crap, but I just kept eating. I now avoided the scale like the plague, stuffed away in my closet so that I wouldn't go near it - I didn't WANT to know the number on that thing. I hoped it was broken. About a month ago I got it out and weighed myself...
166.7 pounds.
NEVER in my life had I been at this weight before - I was ashamed and embarrassed that I had let myself get to this point. I told myself once and for all -
This is my maximum, I'm only going down from here. This is my frailty, my weakness - and I knew nothing would change unless I was able to openly, honestly and authentically admit that to myself and others.
Making a Change - Part 2
So I did the one thing that worked last time - I got my butt off the couch, off the party circuit and got a job at a gym! Well,
Firm Body Evolution is much more than a gym - it's a state-of-the-art holistic fitness facility that not only includes kettlebells, weights and brand-new cardio machines but also
Whole-Body Vibration machines, incredible detoxing
Infrared Jade Saunas and my personal favorite,
Pneumatic Compression Massage (it's a machine that feels like you're getting massaged by four hands at once!). Joseph, my boss, noticed I wanted to make a change so he suggested I try their #1 diet - the
Firm Body Evolution hCG weight loss program. He showed me pictures of previous clients who had lost 35 pounds in a month and kept it off - boy oh boy did I need a head start like this at this point in my life! Now that I was
finally comfortable being single and okay with being alone,
I was ready to construct a new me - uncovering who the real Jourdan is - pound by pound lost along the way.
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| Start day of hCG diet |
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| 167.7 lbs, 41.7% body fat |
I said my final goodbye to 166.7 lbs and 41.7% body fat (OOF!) while hopping on the
Body Composition Analyzer, and started my new life as of May 19th, 2012. I've lost 10 pounds now to date (update: as of July 2012 I am back in the 140s!). I'm not going to be scared of walking into my closet from this day forward!
Well, this post was cathartic - thanks for reading! Please read more blog posts to keep up with my hCG diet, weight loss results and news from FBE!
