About Shay Olsen

My name is Shay Olsen I would like to share with you my long journey on how I have become the person I am today.  At my largest I was 229lbs and a size 20, I always felt I was the fattest person in the room, I gave up several time, I have tried it all, Weight Watchers, calorie counting, diet pills, you name it I have tried it.

I love food and I love eating, But I don’t love dieting. I am completely embarrassed, ashamed, very disappointed in myself.  The person I looked in the mirror every day for the past 14 years is not the real me.  When I met the love of my life, I was a size 8-10, but I weighed 173 lbs. I would look in the mirror and love myself, I would feel pretty, I felt like my husband would look at me and be proud of me. I was proud to be his wife.  

3 months after we were married we found out we were expecting our first child.  This came to us as a complete shock as I suffer from PCOS.  Dr said it could take a year or longer to get pregnant.  

We decided we were going to prevent having a child for a while so we can learn to live with each other, to get our career's figured out.  We just bought our first home together. We wanted to enjoy life with each other for a while before we brought children into our family. Well God had another plan for us and 1 year 4 days after we were married we welcomed our First Beautiful baby girl. The Dr said I was border line of Gestational Diabetes.  Our First Baby Girl came out a whopping 8lbs 14 oz. and 21.5 inches long.  The dr said I may have been wrong I think you did have the Gestational Diabetes even though the test was border line. 

 I unfortunately gained 37 lbs with her and retained SOOOO much water with her my belly looked like I was have Triplets.  Unfortunately after having her I had to go back to work, started having Horrible eating habits, never made myself a priority, I had a hard time losing my baby weight plus added a few more pounds ok maybe more like 20 more pounds.  I hit my highest I have ever been.  I felt ugly, I hated myself, all I wanted to do was eat and sit on the couch.   

  When our first daughter was 3 we decided to try for another baby, I still was on the heavy side but had lost a few pounds.  It took us about 4 months to get pregnant with our second daughter.  Dr instantly put me on Glucophage and made me meet with a dietitian, I even had to keep a food diary.  I lost 14 lbs the first trimester and gained 13 lbs the rest of my pregnancy. I delivered 1 pound lighter with my 2^nd daughter.

 I thought I was going to keep all the weight off and start living my life for my two daughters and husband.  But NOPE life gets in the way, we went right back to our old eating habits, our old ways and then again all the weight. I even would go get Chilies take out and yes not the healthy choices and go home and watch The Biggest Looser wishing I was them as I was stuffing my face. 

That is when I finally realized wow I have a food addiction.  Did I do anything about it other then Wish?  NOPE I did not.  I made every excuse in the book why I could not cook at home, why I wanted to eat out all the time.  I thought it would be easier for us to just go and get something then I don’t have to clean my kitchen, was the dishes, we ate and left the mess at the restaurant.  The only positive thing I could say is I really never gained much more weight maybe 5 lbs – 7 lbs and then I would lose it, gain it back and then loose it.

 I tried EVERYTHING from diet pills, weight watchers, walked with friends, joined several gyms and would go a couple of times but pay for it for 24 months cause of the silly contracts.  For some reason I could never get to the point that enough is enough and want to change.  I did a lot a talk but never wanted to do anything. I keep saying to myself I will do it tomorrow and then that day would come and something would come up and nothing would happen.  Fast Forward 3 years.  I was not feeling normal, I always was so tired, I always had a stomach ache, was VERY DEPRESSED, still was heavy.

 At this point I weighed 227lbs. I went to the doctor and I got the dreaded news.  I had type 2 Diabetes.  I thought my whole world came crashing down.  I was feeling all the emotions all over again. I hated myself for what I did to my body, I was embarrassed, I was angry, I thought my husband did not love me anymore, that he did not find me sexually attracted. We were trying to have our third baby and we tried for a couple of years.

 I became very angry, I was sad and depressed all the time, because I could not give my husband another child.  Luckily I had such a great Dr and he put me on the right medicine and he even put me on depression medication, YES I swallowed my pride and started on depression medication.

 Still after 4.5 years of trying to have another baby it was just not happening.  We decided to keep trying but also try to get me better.  I reconnected with one of my good friends from elementary school through High School Brother who was a creator of an amazing vitamins and supplements.  I decided I would give this a try. It worked it was amazing weight was falling off of me, I was eating healthy I was making good choices, I worked out 3 times a week with him, he was my personal trainer if I remember correctly I lost 34 or 37 lbs and a lot inches. I got down to 193 lbs I was able to go off my diabetes medicine.

 I was finally for the first time PROUD OF MY SELF.  I was happy, I loved how my husband looked at me, I was a good mom, a good person. My husband and I decided we were going to move to Idaho to live by family.  I knew it was going to be hard to do it without my personal trainer but I thought to myself I have this, I can do it.

 We moved to Idaho and I was able to keep the weight off for about 3 weeks, then I ended up right back to my old self again, back to my old routine, back to not making good healthy choices, and started gaining the weight back.  I ended back up to 220lbs again.  Back on my diabetes meds, back on the depression medicine.  Back to old fat self again. 

Let’s fast forward 5 years.  We were able to finally have our third princess.  I did pretty well with my weight only gaining 18 lbs.  Our baby girl decided she could not wait to come to our family and was born 7 weeks early.  We were over joyed she did so good that we were very blessed to bring her home 11 days after she was born.  She was so tiny we brought her home at 4lbs 4 oz.  For the first time I was able to breast feed her and for some reason my body loved it and I lost close to 20 lbs. 

After bringing her home and working full time and taking care of my other girls after 4 weeks I had to give up on Breast feeding her and go to bottle.  I tried changing my life style for the better and of course I fell right back to my old self again, eating garbage, drinking so much soda, not exercising.  I ended up gaining ALL my weight back AGAIN!!!!

 In November of 2015 is when I decided I need to do something about my weight I am back up to 220lbs. I have a few amazing people in my life that have had this surgery done and was such an inspiration to me and I decided I am going to bite the bullet and find a TOOL that will help me get my life back.  We knew our insurance did not cover any weight loss surgery so we started looking at going to Mexico for the Sleeve Surgery after doing more research and talking to other people we found an amazing Dr in Dallas Texas that was able to help me with what I need. 

On March 31^st 2016, My life changed forever. I had the Gastric Stomach Sleeve.  I can’t thank The Nicholson Clinic and Dr Carlton for saving my life.  I am so grateful they gave me a tool that will help me live a long healthy life as long as I do my part.  This is not a quick fix, this will not fix it all by itself.  This is why I have decided I am not going to hide any more about my weight, and just sit on my butt and Wish I was beautiful and Skinny.

 I have decided I am going to share my personal experience, and the everyday life of a person who has a FOOD Addiction.  The one thing I learned is Food is a drug of choice, it’s no different than anyone has a drug addiction, pornography addiction, or alcoholic addiction.  I admitted it, I am at war with my weight, and I am fighting all the food demons right now and I am going to WIN!!! 

I am only on clear liquids for right the next 2 weeks, I am going to start blogging my food journal, the daily life I have, the mistakes I have made and the exercise I have done for that day.  This is going to hold me accountable in EVERYTHING I do every day.

I want to thank my husband who is my world, my rock, my everything.  I could not have done this without him, my beautiful three children Thank you for letting me be your mom. I love you all with all my heart!

These are pretty much all my before pictures, I hated getting my pictures taken, so there is not many.  These are my ugly fat pictures

-Shay L. Olsen