08/20/2026
A year between these photos. But the biggest difference isn’t what you can see. 🤍
I’ve gone back and forth about sharing this because this journey is so much more personal than weight loss.
I gained over 60 lbs during the pandemic and the years that followed. In 2024, I started focusing on myself again and lost around 20 lbs. Then 2025 happened.
2025 was a really hard year for me personally. There was a lot happening in my life, and I was living with more stress and anxiety than I knew how to handle.
In the middle of that storm, I was accepted to start clinicals in nursing school. Something I had worked incredibly hard for and wanted so badly. But instead of things getting better, mentally I got worse.
By the fall of 2025, I was living with panic attacks. I wasn’t okay.
And when my head wasn’t okay, my body wasn’t either.
I’ve always been someone who eats pretty healthy. I played competitive sports my whole life and genuinely LOVE being active. But stress and anxiety changed everything. I wasn’t eating enough. I skipped meals. I barely drank water. I stopped moving the way I always had.
My body was exhausted.
Then I failed nursing school by decimals.
As painful as that was, it forced me to look at my life and realize something needed to change.
I had spent so much time taking care of everyone else that I had stopped taking care of me.
I was two months away from turning 30 and the reality is that I would love to become a mom in the next few years, and I knew I wanted to enter this next chapter of my life feeling healthy — mentally AND physically.
It wasn’t just about how I looked. But there was more to it. My bloodwork wasn’t where I wanted it to be. My mental health wasn’t where I wanted it to be. I didn’t feel like myself.
So January 1st, 2026, I started again.
Not with a crazy diet.
Not by starving myself.
Not by punishing my body with exercise.
I started taking care of myself.
(1/2)⬇️
