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As best as I can recall the story…..   I was walking at the YMCA on the indoor track and trying to run a little bit around the track at the parts where no one can see me, well more like struggle around, and I spot this young guy maybe 24 years old hanging out by the doorway.  He looked like he had been working out hard.  I glance over and he is pouring sweat with muscles that have muscles.  I doubt there is an ounce of fat on him anywhere.   I make the turn spot him again, and smile, and keep going.  I round  the corner,and all of a sudden I feel someone tap me on the shoulder.  I pop out my headphones.

“Hi, miss.   My name is Nathan.”   (Okay two points for calling me miss!)

Read moreTales from the Gym……

Just got home from the YMCA.  My hair is a hot curly mess. I am sweating, and my clothes are stuck to me.

I drank a ton of water, refilled, drank more on the way home.  I peeled off the sweaty stuff jumped in the shower, refreshed.  Just sat down to read email and thought, “Hmmmm…. Wonder what else I can do today?”

This has been my whole summer.  Who is this and where is Chris??  Because this is not Chris.   Chris is tired, exhausted, and constantly in pain.   Well not anymore!  I am finallyyyyyyyy doing the one thing Dr. Jack promised me would happen…..the thing I never believed would happen…..I am LIVING my life!!    MY life!!     The physical part of my life that I have missed out on for so long! And now that I have a taste of that life, someone try to hold me back!!

Read moreWho are you, and where is Chris?

Shhhhhhh….. No one tell….Dr. Jack is away on family business this weekend.  He is extremely busy and he won’t have time to read here for a while……….So shhhhhh…. I am telling secrets about him while he is gone,  no one tell….shhhhhhhhhhhh….. The truth is he is a modest man, and we argue about whose success is the hundred pounds.  Whenever I say it’s him, he says it is me.  We go back and forth.   We finally agreed to split the credit, team effort, team win.  So while he is gone, and busy, I thought I would share my favorite things about him… The truth is when I first talked to him, I knew he was a special kind of doctor, but I had no idea the profound impact he would have on my life.  I tell him all the time, I prayed for him and God sent him, because God knew how much I needed his help. And it wouldn’t have been the same if it was someone else.  I needed HIS help!   He gets embarrassed and tries to push me off that topic by changing the subject,  but it is the truth.  Well, he is gone for weekend, so I can just talk away, giggles……..Just shhhhhhhhhhhh……

Read moreShhhhhh….. Secrets about Dr. Jack…shhhhhhh…

In Dr. Jack’s seminars and webinars, there is always a place where he has a slide that says, “If you do nothing, where will you be in a month?  In three months? In six months? In a year? In five years?”  I can remember exactly the first time I saw it, when I had watched his webinar sitting on my couch.  I can remember that I sat there and cried thinking how every time I had tried something else, here I was three months later with nothing to show for it.  I also admit that every time I hear him say that whether it’s live or when I watch a pre-recorded webinar, I still get all welled up with tears I just can’t seem to control. Where would I be if I had done nothing?  Where would I be today??  I hurt just thinking about it.

A lot of people tell me that they give me credit for the fact that I just keep going.  Well, I am not sure I would have if did not have a lot of things in place.  But one the most important tools in my bag of tricks, is my “why.”  That’s another thing Dr. Jack talks about in this presentation, why do you want to do this?

Read more“Where will you be in a month? Three months?” Finding your, “why.”

As a teacher, I hate that word, “can’t.”  And I never permit the students in my care to use that word.   Tough things are just that, tough, and somehow we sort through the can’t part so that we find out what is really the problem and we solve that, suddenly turning can’t into CAN.

Can’t isn’t a word I much like in my personal life either.  When I find I can’t do something, I try really hard to over come that.  And God help me when anyone uses the word can’t with my name attached to it, because then it becomes my mission to prove to them that I CAN.  That is the whole summary about why last summer so was hard on me, because I knew I couldn’t change what was….. And then I found out that I could change it when I met Dr. Jack.  And it is the summary of how I got here because a lot of naysayers told me I could NEVER stick to it.  Well, yeah you totally underestimated me…..

Read moreChris’s Can’t to CAN Challenge!!! Turn one thing around!

Dr. Jack knows all about my, “Ohhhhh…,” moments.  He has seen plenty of them.  Lots of people call them, “Ah, ha,” moments.  But for me they are more like, “Ohhh……”  I actually think that is funny because my name is, Chris OConnell, get it?  Chris Ohhhhhh!  They are moments when I forget that when you lose a hundred pounds, things actually change.  One time, when I had lost like thirty pounds, I said to Dr. Jack, “Well, I think we are getting somewhere, and even though I don’t see it, I think we are making progress. .”  I can remember clearly his response. ” So,  you dropped thirty pounds, and you ‘think’ we might be getting somewhere, and you truly can’t see it?  Really, Chris??  Look again.”  ” Well, yeah, I am looking in the mirror and I see that…….   Ohhhhhhhhhh..”

Read moreThe “Ohhhhhhh….” Moments…

 Go ahead!! Be as stubborn as you want! That’s what has gotten me here!

I was looking at the calendar and thinking, wow…. Last summer…. How low I was last summer.  I felt like I was on the ground, beat up, dirty, tired, exhausted and not a single ounce of hope left.  I felt betrayed by some in the medical profession, people I had trusted.  I felt like I had nothing left but to accept my disease and my weight, and that from then forward would just be a steady road downward. But I was wrong.  There was still a lot of fight left in me. There was a doctor just waiting for me to find him, Dr Jack!  There were answers!  I just needed to take a minute and breathe…. You ever felt that way??

It was at this time that all the discouragement began.  It was around this time I had already visited the nutritionist who called me a liar, one in a line of nutritionists who all told me I was doing it wrong from the advice of the previous one.  I had already been told I had no hope except weight loss surgery, which I might have been okay with, but I knew the problem wasn’t going away with some stomach staples.  I had already been told that I  needed to meet with a counselor to discuss my need to get help because I just was seeking attention. Yeah okay, me, who prefers invisibility.    I was told I had falsified my diet journal, even though that wasn’t true since I had eaten Paleo for months.  I had attended exercises classes where people had laughed at me and made fun of me.  I was done. Gosh,  I was soooooo done!

You get enough of that and one day,  you hit the wall.  And I hit it hard. I was finished trying.  My only prayer was for acceptance.  I remember clearly driving to my church, sitting with a box of Kleenex and praying that I could learn acceptance of my disease and my body because I felt powerless to change any of it.  No one believed me, and I was doubting my own self.  Did I eat more than I thought?  Had I measured everything??  It was hard.  I knew I was doing what I should and yet, I just wasn’t getting results, and to top it off, no one believed it.

But, that was then, and now that story is just that…. A story.  It’s  all gone now!!  It’s gone, good bye, adios, see you, out of here, gone!  That poor sad person who felt like a total failure is gone. And she is replaced by ME!  I am no a dieting failure! There were other answers for me! There were foods that could help me.  There were exercises I could have done if someone had taken time to help me. There were changes to my diet that would have alleviated my symptoms if someone had told me! There were answers for me!

I am really stubborn. People tell me that all the time.  It has always been a a terrible personality trait.  But now I realize that in being stubborn I refused to give up.  No matter how angry I was, and despite saying I was done, I actually still looked for an answer.  And I was lucky enough and blessed enough to find one.

And my message for today is you can too! Be stubborn!!  Be as stubborn as you want!  Hashimoto’s is one disease that people fight but there’s a lot in life that we fight every single day. Diseases, health, mental issues, physical issues, finances, kids, family, friends, name it.  So dig in your heels and refuse to believe what you know is not true!  Find your answers!

Don’t like what you are being told? Find someone else and don’t give up until you find the truth that is your truth!!  It’s easy for me to say that today.  Last summer?? Ummmmm yeah, not as much.  But the truth is, if I could do this, then I can do just about anything,  and so can you!!  No matter what you are fighting, just don’t give up. And if you fall down or are pushed down, just get back up!

Find your answer!! And be stubborn about it!

Today is the day!  Today, Dr. Jack and I reached a huge milestone,  100 pounds lost. It’s a great day!  Yes! That is my jacket from marching band last season! Looks like the band will make a few bucks off my new purchase, even though I am confused as to what size to buy!

In the beginning, I had a hard time believing that this was an achievable goal.  When I first talked to Dr. Jack, he asked me what my goal was.  I said I wanted to lose just forty pounds and lose a few symptoms.  After all, I figured that was the best I could hope for and even that was a long shot.  But Dr. Jack is a wise mind, and obviously more knowledgeable than I ever was. I remember that he got quiet for a minute, a sure sign that he is formulating what he wants to say in just the right way. He asked why that was all I wanted when much more was possible, including Hashimoto remission.

Read moreHappy 100 pounds to Dr. Jack and me! With 71 days to spare!

I love Nancy Hughes, have I told you that? Nancy is my Pilates teacher.  She used to be “the” Pilates teacher, but now she is mine.  If you are a regular here you know how scared to death I was of any trainer, and how quickly Nancy changed me.  She and her partner have a studio, Northstar Pilates at 2801 Wehrle Dr.

When I first started with Nancy, I really was afraid…. Afraid I would be in pain, scared I couldn’t do it, scared it would be intimidating.  It has been none of those and as with everything, Dr. Jack knew best in selecting someone whose personality and mine would fit together as neatly as two puzzle pieces.  I am all hyper, hurry up, let’s go!!   And Nancy is all calm, peaceful and slowwwwww down.  We fit together perfectly!

Read morePilates…. Moving like I never could before!

I don’t have pretty girly hands.  I have hands that look like I work, because I do. My hands take a beating every day.  I do all my own cleaning, don’t have a dishwasher, and I do my own yard work.  My second job at Walmart is working the site to store pickup.  So I am moving boxes and opening and breaking down cardboard for hours.  I have never been someone who wore gloves to do anything, although I should.  I also like to paint and sew which can be drying.   Life can be hard on your hands.

I remember clearly last summer, the day I noticed what was going on with my nails.  I was asked to cash out in lawn and garden for a few hours.  The pace is much slower out there and I was helping out doing a little cleaning.  I looked down and saw that I had glue or something on my fingernails.  I scraped at it but it didn’t quite come off.  Some did but then there was more.   And then I realized, it wasn’t glue.  It was like a layer of my fingernails flaking off.

Read moreThe proof is in the nails..