12/29/2025
This was never just about the weight.
I started this journey at 718 pounds. On Christmas day I crossed under 200 pounds on a day that already carries deep meaning for me—the 10 year anniversary of losing my cousin, who was more like a sibling. Seven days later, I lost my best friend on New Year’s Day.
Those two losses changed the trajectory of my life.
They cracked something open that I could no longer avoid.
For the past several days, I struggled with what would feel like the right words for this part of my story.
But silence doesn’t honor the work that saved my life.
This journey was never just about weight.
It’s about advocacy—learning how to fight for myself in systems that were not built with my body, my story, or my humanity in mind.
It’s about relentlessness—showing up even when grief, fear, and exhaustion begged me to stop.
It’s about commitment—to truth, to healing, to doing the work no one applauds.
It’s about grace—especially on the days progress wasn’t visible.
It’s about self-love—not the performative kind, but the kind that requires boundaries, honesty, and responsibility.
It’s about refusing to bend to stereotypes, shortcuts, or narratives that reduce complex lives into simple explanations.
This year, the most significant weight I shed wasn’t physical.
It was the weight of unaddressed trauma, misdiagnoses, survival patterns, and the belief that my body was the problem—rather than the messenger.
When I began, my goal weight was 175.
I’m 12 pounds away.
And the irony is this:
The closer I get, the clearer it becomes that the real transformation happened far beneath the surface.
This isn’t a “before and after.”
This is a still standing.
This is what happens when you do the work people don’t talk about—and choose your life anyway.
If you’re in the middle of your own becoming: I see you.
And I hope you keep going. 🤍
