I've gained 34lbs since starting here, and am PROUD OF IT.

Hey everyone!

I want to write a message getting my story out there in the hopes that it will help and inspire you onto achieving your goals and will help you stick with your program! In 2010, I started getting very weak and sick, and started losing a ton of weight without even trying. I ate healthy, exercised normally, and was an all around healthy girl. And then, I started dropping weight LIKE CRAZY, without doing anything. It was happening so fast, and I was even trying to gain weight by eating, at one point, a 4000 calorie diet filled with whole wheat pasta, bread, literally anything I could get my hands on that was healthy to put on weight. But still, even with my attempts, the scale kept going down, and I soon found myself at 5’5” and 78 lbs. It was also the most Hell-ish time in my life because everyone took one look at me and made the immediate judgement "anorexic" and proceeded to avoid me like the plague. It was the most lonely painful time of my life, and at the same time, I was literally fighting for that life, even though at the time, I didn't know why I should continue to fight if I was just going to be harassed the rest of my life.

The doctors were also mystified and could not figure out what was going wrong with my health. For a while there, I was literally almost about to die, and not many 20 year olds can say that they’ve faced imminent death- but I did. We did tons and tons of research, exploring every single possibility we could think of until one specific diagnosis came up. I had every single symptom of it and it turns out that I have very severe Celiacs Disease! When I found that out, everything all of a sudden made sense. The reason why I was losing so much weight was because my body could not absorb the wheat I was giving it, and everything I was eating was just serving to make me even more ill. Well, I am proud to say that since discovering my Celiacs Disease, going on a completely gluten free diet, (higher in calories of course), and lifting heavy weights, I have successfully put on 34 lbs. over 2 years, and my health (and life) is finally thriving!

And while this message board does not even begin to do my journey justice, I know it will help someone, so that's why I posted it. If I can gain 34 lbs., with a disease that makes gaining weight incredibly challenging, then you can lose 34 pounds. As I live in this new body, not sick anymore, not harassed anymore, and not fearful anymore, I am reminded that life, and our bodies, are gifts, and we cannot afford to take any of it for granted. No matter what size you are, weight you are, what your struggles are, or what you're going through, you listen here. You can do it. Don't let anyone, including yourself, EVER tell you otherwise. Your dreams were given to you for a reason, and you will live to see them become a reality. I have, and am living in that dream, my healthy body, right now. Love you all and thanks for reading.