57: How My Darkest Day Was a Turning Point For My Health

Juggling perimenopause, family, and weight loss goals can feel overwhelming, especially when it seems like "healthy" and "anti-inflammatory" food means "no fun." It's absolutely possible, but it helps when you have a few boundaries or guardrails in place.

In this episode, we're doing things a little differently and getting deep into our feelings. I’m sharing my story from a really dark time in my life, and how the lessons I learned through that experience actually created the foundation for my health today. (Because these are the lessons YOU need today, too!)

As I’ve navigated my breast cancer journey, I’ve had to do a lot of reflecting and healing. In that process, I've seen how much of my healing is tied back to the way I think and act when it comes to my health and wellness. My life has taught me some hard lessons, but these are the very things that have given me the tools to feel good, stay healthy, and lose weight, even when life feels hard.

I’m pulling back the curtain on my own struggles with trauma and depression, and sharing how I used my darkest days to finally take control.

This episode is your permission slip to acknowledge those struggles, but also to find the strength to keep going.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

📌 How our excuses keep us safe, and the simple way you can identify the ones that are holding you back.
📌 Why progress is actually found in the boring, and how to stop your brain from trying to modify everything when you're just starting out.
📌 The hard truth about where discipline is actually built, and how you can use life’s hardest moments to your advantage.
📌 Why taking care of yourself is a brave act of defiance against the chaos of midlife.

You deserve to feel good. You're not alone in these struggles. It's time to find the strength to keep going, even when you feel like giving up.

More Support For You

💪 Get the exact at-home programs Ashley uses to lose weight and build muscle. All you need are some dumbbells!
🙋‍♀️ Work with Me
🍳 How I Cook Just 3 Nights/Week
🧠 Mindset Framework to Stop Relying On Motivation
📌 Connect on Instagram

Transcript

Hello there, my friend, and welcome back to the Family Fork. Today, we are actually gonna go deep into our feelings a little bit. And to be honest, there may be a few tears. So I want you to just settle in and let's get comfortable with maybe some things that might be some uncomfortable feelings. So let me tell you where I'm coming from. As I have navigated my journey through breast cancer treatment this year, I've had

more than a handful of days where I feel a lot of different things, humbled, proud, and emotional. That's a big one.

There is so much wrapped up into this really big journey and many days it can be really difficult to put all of it into words. Now, I've also done a lot of reflecting, like questions come to mind, you did I cause this cancer? What could I have done differently? How can I help my daughter and my granddaughters to not experience the same thing? And

I've found that much of my reflecting has actually fallen back onto my health journey, which has been a huge area of focus for me for the last 11 years.

Over the past decade, I have tried a million different things and I've learned even more than that. But there are honestly three very distinct lessons that stand out. And if I'm honest, I have had to learn them time and time again. Each of these lessons has really allowed me to improve my overall health and wellness with every passing year. And I know that these are lessons that you can also learn from too.

Before I share those lessons with you, it's actually really helpful for you to understand where I actually was 11 years ago. Now, I get it. Your life may not have the exact same circumstances or situations, but I am confident that you will identify with a lot of the feelings that I was struggling with in that time of my life. So I'm gonna try not to cry as I share this story with you because even this many years later, it still gets me pretty emotional.

Eleven years ago, I was working in a really fast paced tech startup company and I was putting in about 60, 70 hours a week. I was commuting two hours a day. And at that time in my life, I was a single mom. I had left an abusive marriage. My ex-husband was a gambling addict and an alcoholic. And after the divorce, I really was doing everything I could to raise my son. But the reality is that

we both had a lot of trauma from what we had walked away from. Life, it really was not easy, but we both kept going.

There were many, many days where I was just drowning in mom guilt and feeling like an inadequate employee and really struggling to find who I was in this new season of life. So it was in that time of life that I really started working deeply on my health and my wellness. I really did not like the way that I felt. I was tired all the time. I was overweight. had these really like sore and achy joints. I never slept well.

My skin, my hair, everything was dry.

Now that I look back to deal with some of the trauma and the feelings that went along with that, I was definitely drinking a lot. It wasn't like I was drinking at work or anything, but I was definitely drinking a lot on the weekends and often during the weeknights too. And I just felt like a mess. I had no confidence. I had really low self-esteem, but every day I had to work really hard to put on this face to everyone else that I was fine. I was just fine. So in this season of life, I started seeing

some doctors to try and feel better. And after years and years of being told, hmm, I don't know, everything looks normal. I was finally diagnosed with hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune disease that impacts the thyroid and severe nutrient deficiencies. It was really hard to get that diagnosis, but there was a big sense of relief that came with it because it gave me a starting point for healing.

So when I got that diagnosis, I went all in on my nutrition and my movement and to be able to start changing my life around. And that change, it was not linear. I assure you of that. I tried so many different diet approaches and some worked and some didn't. I tried lots of different workouts and honestly, most of them were just too hard for my body at the time. But in that moment,

I saw that as a negative reflection on my poor health. And I really felt a lot of shame that I couldn't complete a lot of the workouts that I was finding. But I kept going and I kept learning more about nutrition and movement and really tried to dial in for the things that worked for my body. And I did all of this and kept going as best as I could until after the birth of my daughter in 2019. So a little plug into the story there.

Along this journey, I met this amazing man. We got married and we decided to have a sweet little baby together who if you've been on the podcast for a while, you'll know that is my daughter, Suraya So many, many months after her delivery, I really continued to struggle with my health. And really more than anything, I struggled with my worthiness. I had a very low self-esteem and I didn't feel confident in my abilities as an employee.

or as a mom. At that point, I was more than 50 pounds overweight and I really continued to struggle with my thyroid and my gut health issues. And on top of all of that, I was in a very deep depression. had postpartum depression that lasted for quite a long time. And I was also feeling this crippling anxiety. So as you can imagine, things were very, very dark for me at that time.

So in that time, there was one Saturday morning and I found myself sitting on my cold basement floor. And it was after trying to do a workout that I just literally could not finish. And I remember I just started crying these like deep, painful tears into the couch cushions. you know, here I was surrounded with this wonderful husband and two amazing kids and a full-time job. I was still

incredibly unhappy. I had spent so many years working on my health, so many years trying to recover from this abusive marriage, but I kept holding on to this story that no matter what I try, nothing ever works out for me. That's still a story that I struggle with today. But on that Saturday morning, sitting there on the basement floor in my really deep sadness, I really felt like I had two choices.

I could either stand up for my life and fight, or I could end it entirely.

That was a really dark day.

Somehow I summoned the courage to finally take control of me. I had a family to care for and honestly taking control of my life at that point was my only option. So that day in an attempt to truly turn things around once and for all in my life, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I chose the longest workout program that I could find in my

online fitness library. I just really needed someone to sit there and tell me exactly what to do for a while. And I promised myself, I vowed to myself that I would finish that program no matter what. At the very least, it would feel like I had a little bit of control over something.

Fast forward 80 days later, I did finish that entire workout program and by no small miracle, I completely found myself in the process. Now, I know that a lot of that story is about emotions and circumstances that I was in, but it was during that very, very dark time in 2019 that my life started teaching me these

three most important lessons about my health that I have learned to date. And those are exactly the lessons that I want to share with you.

So the first thing that really came to light for me is that we make a lot of excuses for ourselves, whether we realize it or not. I spent so many years, that entire decade, blaming my health, my bad health on my abusive marriage or my high stress job, on being a single mom, on my thyroid issues. But truth be told, I...

actually let myself give into those excuses time and time again. I think about it. If you tell yourself that you have a really heavy workload at work and you're not a morning person and you think you should work out in the morning, all of a sudden you will believe that there is no time in your day for a workout or for getting to the gym. But if you look around, there are other people out there who have even more on their plate than you do, yet somehow,

they find a way to work out four times a week.

What's happening is that to our brain, excuses keep us safe. For me, it was really easy to blame the trauma that I had experienced in my high stress job for my poor health. sure, were definitely contributors to my poor health. But remember, I also told you that I was drinking a lot. That meant less movement.

less healthy food. I was probably eating a lot of junk food on the weekends and I was definitely doing more sleeping. So that is not a recipe for better health. But my brain didn't want to feel the uncomfortable emotions. So it just let me keep believing that, no, you don't have control over your health, the stress, the trauma, that's all to blame. The trick here is learning to identify the excuses that you make to yourself.

And this is a huge piece of the work that I do with my ladies in the method, which is a group coaching program that I run for midlife weight loss. Once you can identify the excuses that you use, you can actually start working on them. And so here's a quick tip for how you can identify if you're using excuses for yourself. Notice when you start to feel resistance about doing something. And I want you to ask yourself,

Am I actually trying to avoid a certain emotion? Maybe you're trying to avoid shame or embarrassment. Like if you go to the gym and you don't really know what to do, like you've heard you should lift weights and you go to the gym and you don't want to lift the weights because you don't know what to do. And you're like, ⁓ no, they, you know, the machines were too busy or I wasn't able to get in that day. You're actually trying to avoid embarrassment. Maybe you're trying to avoid failure. So,

If you can identify a feeling that you're trying to avoid, this is gonna give you a starting point to dig in so that you can slowly stop making excuses and actually start making some progress.

All right, number two, start doing before you start modifying. So this was a hard lesson for me to learn, but if you are struggling to stay consistent with health or movement or fitness or whatever it is, I want you to go back to the basics. So a member of my community said to me the other day, you know what? I just really need more variety in my meals, but which I can appreciate, but

here's the kicker. She continues to gain weight, she still feels tired, and she's not sleeping well. So some of this takes us back to the first lesson, which was about making excuses.

this belief that you're not making progress because you don't have enough food variety, or maybe this belief that the workouts are too hard, or you don't have enough time. The problem is you haven't let yourself sit in the hard work and for a while before you start making these modifications. So for example, a lot of times I will work with private clients and I'll say, I want you to eat the same thing for breakfast

every single day for 30 days and they roll their eyes. You're probably rolling your eyes too right now, 30 days. I want you to do that exercise and then assess how you feel before you start getting creative with recipes.

Here's another thing I might recommend. I want you to go to the gym or do a workout for five times in a week and do that for a month before you start looking for a new workout or a new fitness class or saying that, you know, it's not working or the progress, you know, you're not seeing any progress.

What's happening here is that getting creative or making these modifications is actually your brain's way of avoiding these emotions like boredom or monotony. But guess what I have learned? Progress is actually found in the boring. It's unfortunate, but it's true. I told you, I got up every single day and did the same workout program for 80 days straight. Think about that. That's almost

three months. Yes, I definitely got bored. Yes, I definitely wanted something different. But I had a fear that that would sort of lead me off of my path of consistency. And if I led myself astray, then I probably wouldn't have seen the progress that I did. I stuck with the basics. I stayed bored. And that actually helped me heal my health and lose 55 pounds in that 80 days.

Actually, let me just say, I didn't lose 55 pounds in that 80 days, but it was the start of my 55 pound weight loss. So if you feel tempted to make these modifications to your nutrition or your fitness, I need you to have a very honest check-in with yourself. Are your basics dialed in or are you actually trying to avoid boredom or frustration? I need you to do the hard work first that

really boring work. And then when it becomes second nature, you'll know when the time is right to start making some modifications.

Okay, so number two, we were gonna start doing before we start modifying. And then lesson number three, that is probably the hardest lesson to learn, but it's magical when you witness it and it comes to light for you, is that discipline is built in darkness. So remember back to my story of sitting on my basement floor in a pile of tears.

I really did think about ending my life that day, but I decided to take a really different path. And one that I know now actually led me to having some discipline when it comes to my health and my wellness. Discipline, it is not built when your life feels easy and effortless and carefree. It's not. It is built when things feel like they are absolutely falling apart.

and when life is just giving you a challenge every single turn.

that 80 day workout program that I did, yeah, I did miss a couple of days, but not many. I kept putting in the reps every day, day after day. In that season of life, it was almost like my therapy. I really believed in my soul that I needed to keep going every single day. And the result is that today, the transformation,

of who I am, I just, don't even think about working out or eating healthy. It is who I am. My discipline.

My discipline for a healthy lifestyle was built day by day in some of the darkest moments of my entire life. So when your life feels hard, sometimes you need to dig deeper. I don't want you to let the challenges pull you off track. Go back to the basics, stick with the basics. Stop making those excuses to yourself and start building the kind of discipline that your life and your health.

deserve.

Okay, I feel like we need to hug it out. So I'm sending you a hug. I know that this is a bit of a heavier episode than most here on The Family Fork, but truly these incredibly challenging moments in life have taught me more about my health than anything else. And it's really easy to get tied up in the how, like what kind of workout should I do? What kind of meal plan? Do I need hormone replacement therapy? But

What I know without a doubt, my life has shown me that these three lessons are literally all it takes to feel good. It doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen. So as you keep thinking about your health, where you are right now and how to improve, especially because it feels a little bit harder as we get older, right? I want you to remember these three really important lessons.

Learn to recognize your excuses. Do before you start modifying and discipline is built in the darkness. I am so grateful for you. I loved sharing this time with you today and I really hope you can take these lessons to heart. I'm so proud of you and I know that these... I'm so proud of you and I know that these lessons can help you...

achieve truly amazing things. Thanks my sweet friend. I can't wait to see you back here next week.