My Trim Healthy Mama (THM) Weight Loss Testimony

To finally be at the day where I am sharing my Trim Healthy Mama (THM) weight loss testimony is so hard to believe, because I never thought this day would come! *Note: I am not selling any product or business to you. This is just my testimony of my personal health journey.

The majority of my life I have been slender and I ate pretty healthy. Back in 2010 right after I got married, I gained about 15 pounds in those first three months of marriage. I had just started a new job at a cornea specialist doctor’s office where food was constantly made available in the kitchen to us by other doctors and pharmaceutical reps. I started working there around Christmas time which meant that sweets and treats were showing up in the staff kitchen every hour! I have never really had to say no to sweets before because I wasn’t around them as much, but in this case, I was not fully aware how often I was consuming high sugar foods. Plus it did not help that we wore scrubs as our daily uniform, which are very forgiving around the waist.

One day, when my favorite skinny jeans decided to split down the middle in the church parking lot, I realized I needed to do something. I started counting my calories very strictly, but I did not make changes in what type of food I was eating. I continued to eat whatever carb or sugar loaded foods were available at work and would count those calories on my app, which normally would leave me with hardly any calories I was able to consume for dinner. I found that for dinner most days I was stuck with eating a couple slices of turkey deli meat and pickles. I was able to get down to 4 pounds away from my original weight, so I stopped counting my calories and still continued eating the same way I was. Needless to say, those pounds came back on quickly and doubled in a matter of a few months. This started a spiral of constant dieting, depression, and a low self-esteem.

At one point I felt so desperate to lose the weight and I needed the accountability, so I joined a program that has a very strict way of eating and you are required to go into their offices three times a week and be weighed and show them your food log. I thought this would help me make wiser decisions knowing that someone would be checking me weekly, but it ended up throwing me into a deeper state of depression. I started feeling sorry for myself on all the things I wasn’t allowed to eat, and so I ended up failing miserably almost every single day and I became a clinical binge eater. On a daily basis, I would find myself giving in to my cravings and I would either go hide in the work bathroom and stuff my face with 8 ice cream sandwiches at one time (& consuming up to 20 by the end of the work day), or at church small groups I found myself in the kitchen when no one else was in there inhaling 20 Subway cookies. This became a deep time of depression for me. One full year on this eating program and over $1,000 spent on it, I was 60 pounds heavier than I have ever been in my life– and more depressed then when I started the program. At this point I was ready to give up!

Almost 4 years of being miserably unhealthy and overweight, hope presented itself. One day while sitting at my desk at work, a coworker friend of mine came by and was telling me about a healthy lifestyle of eating that she had started doing based off of a book she read. Her and her husband were dropping weight and feeling super healthy! I was very curious about it and she was so sweet to actually give me her only copy of the book. Here is where Trim Healthy Mama entered my life! I immediately started reading the book and could not put it down! This whole idea of being able to eat exactly the way God designed us to eat all food groups, and learning how to eat it in a balanced way and how our body metabolizes those fuels, was soooooo incredibly freeing to me! Learning that I can live a healthy lifestyle and lose all my extra weight while getting to eat delicious yummy foods and desserts but knowing how to do it in the right way was exactly what I needed! No more counting calories, and no more trying to eat a low carb diet or low-fat diet!! No more saying “no” to delicious desserts!! No more wasting money on a food program or special food/snacks!!! No more needing to spend hours and money at the gym!! From that point on I knew my life would never be the same!

I immediately started implementing Trim Healthy Mama (THM) and dropped 10 pounds that first week! Right after that week, we found out we were pregnant with our first child Harmony Dawn. I started developing food aversions to almost everything except peanut butter crackers and cheese. Because of this, I stopped eating the THM way just trying to make it through that first trimester. Looking back, I realize now that the best thing I could’ve done was continued to eat the THM way during my pregnancy, but since it was still so new to me, it was easy for me to give up and use my pregnancy as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted again. I figured that once I had Harmony, I would go back to eating the Trim Healthy way.

In July 2015 after I had Harmony, life got really busy as a new mom trying to figure out my new routine. I did keep the principles of Trim Healthy Mama in the back of my mind when I went grocery shopping and made our meals at home from their amazing first cookbook and second cookbook! So I can say that we probably ate the THM way about 65% of the time, unless Christopher decided to bring home junk food on a whim. I did NOT stay on plan anytime we went out to eat or over to people’s houses or events. I had the mindset of as long as we eat mostly healthy at home then we should be ok. Unfortunately, there’s so many times that it’s easy to make an excuse to eat this dessert or that hamburger and fries this “one time.”

Over the next 3 and a half years and another pregnancy and the birth of our son Colin, I did slowly lose 40 pounds of my weight by making the healthier choices at home (which I’m at most of the time since I am a stay-at-home mom) as well as nursing my 2 babies. The last 20 pounds though, I knew were not going to come off by themselves unless I decided to fully commit to the THM lifestyle! I knew I needed the motivation and encouragement to get started, because every time I thought about committing 100%, I would get sad and feel like I would miss out on all the foods that would be at restaurants or at events and parties. That is when I decided to go back and listen to every single THM podcast. This was one of the most encouraging, uplifting, and inspiring times of my life! Being encouraged in my health, marriage, and faith by listening to every single podcast is what catapulted me back into my THM journey!

As of April 2019, I have been 100% committed to the Trim Healthy Mama way! The pounds and inches started falling off of me as I was so happy and content in eating healthy, non blood-sugar spiking foods! I felt amazing every time I made the choice to eat the right foods at restaurants and parties, instead of giving into my old way of eating!  It has been so freeing knowing that I can essentially go anywhere and find something that is on plan to eat! I eat off plan here & there, but I really try to keep it to deciding if that one cookie from a box is really worth my health. That helps me pick & choose special moments that I will eat off plan as opposed to on a regular basis. If I know there is going to be food that might be tempting somewhere that I am going, I usually plan ahead and bring something with me that I can enjoy while there. I have also found so many great food shortcuts that are available at my local Walmart that I can buy to help me stay on plan. I came up with my favorite, easy go-to meals that I can make when I don’t have time to make a full blown recipe (both of these are very good starting points for anyone who needs ideas)! I was also never a baker before I committed to THM, but now I love to make delicious desserts that are totally on plan and bring them to events! Not only has my health been affected, but my husband and kids too! My husband Christopher who is very slender by nature and has a very high metabolism, has been eating the THM way (at home and tries to stick to it when he is outside of the home) to feel good and have more energy, and it sure has worked! And to know that I am raising my kids up in knowing how to eat healthy for the rest of their lives gives me such a peace of mind for their future. We also love to work out together in our own living room for under 20 mins with the THM “WorkIns” exercise DVDs!  It feels great that we are moving our bodies and being active as God intended us to be, without having to overdo it. We are a Trim Healthy family! My passion to share about the freedom I have found through Trim Healthy Mama has made me decide to start a group at my church to teach the plan and go through the book, as well as cook through the recipes in the books!

I wish everyone in the world knew about THM and what it can do for their health and how much freedom it will bring into their lives! This plan is so easy to do in a frugal way— no need to over complicate it! We live on a one-income pastoral salary and I am not someone who likes to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I promise anybody and everyone of any lifestyle can do this! If you are reading this testimony and desire this freedom for yourself, click on the links that I posted throughout the blog, as well as visit the Trim Healthy Mama website and sign up for their free encouraging emails and read their testimonies. They also have a shop where you can buy different foods and ingredients that are also very convenient and helpful on your Trim Healthy Mama journey, but none of that is necessary to do the plan! Simply shopping at your local grocery store is all you need to do!!!  I do highly recommend that you buy their Starter book off of their website because it gives a concise version of their plan within 47 pages and then 50 recipes that you can experiment with if you like to cook or bake and just want some new options of meals and snacks to try. Also, check out my Trim Healthy Mama Resources blog post! I thank God and happy cry every single time I think about how He brought Trim Healthy Mama into my life and could not be more grateful!!!

Advertisement