It's your girl, Crystal Elle. And today I'm going to be sharing about my recent weight loss journey slash finished journey. So if you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen my real or my TikTok about how I lost 15 pounds in one month, one month in a week, a few days maybe, but around one month per save. So as mentioned in one of my previous videos, I did have a major surgery in December of 2021. And after that, it was just really hard for me to, I would say you know, get back on the Van Wagon because of course the pain from the surgery, but it was also difficult due to some other reasons that I will not discuss in this video just yet. I got the surgery, I started kind of recovering. The minute I was clear to start working out again, I told myself that I was going to lose the weight that I felt I had been so unhappy with that, you know, I had gained. And at this point, you know, when I stepped on the scale, I was actually past 200 pounds, I was over 200 pounds. And for me personally, that's the heaviest I've ever weighed. And you know, that's just not a weight that I wanted to be at. So of course you have to consider, you know, my height you have to consider just hormones, you have to consider lots of different things when you think about weight, muscle mass and all types of stuff. So if you're watching this video, I also don't want to feed, you know, any disillusion of, you know, your body and how you should be because my goal is never to project, you know, any insecurity or to, in a sense, enhance that, you know, in you. My goal is for you to love yourself while also working on your finished journey and your body, you know, the goals that you have for yourself, help wise. So please do not hear me say that pushing 200 or being over 200 is a bad thing. Just personally for me, it was the heaviest I had ever weighed. And I really felt like, okay, it's time to do something or to at least get into a mode where I'm willing to lose this weight and discipline myself. And I can say for one that when I was over 200 pounds, I wasn't healthy. Like I wasn't eating healthy. I didn't have healthy behaviors like working out, you know, consistently. So I wasn't healthy. I wasn't an, I wasn't an over 200 pound healthy person. I wasn't unhealthy person overall. So I knew I had to do something to get myself back into shape quickly and pretty drastically. So I believe after I had my surgery, come December, January, February, I told myself that I was going to start this thing called Whole 30 again. And I've done it before. If you are, you know, an OG or maybe you've been following me for some time now, you might have seen one of my videos a few years ago in 2020 when I did Hold 30 for the first time. It was very effective. It was very helpful and it helped me lose weight as well. Whole 30 is not just about weight loss. It's also about other things like figuring out what inflames your body, what kind of triggers, different bowel issues and things like that. So it's like how like this holistic approach to identifying foods that really aren't for you. So for example, oatmeal is not for me. If I eat oatmeal, it will bloat me and it will like give me major bowel cramping and it's just does not feel good. So I was able to identify that because I eliminated, I eliminated oats for about a month and then it again, my body was thrown. So I really did like doing Whole 30 because one, it helps you really discipline yourself. For me, I thrive on you know, structure and then being disciplined. So if I have a script, I can follow it even if it's like really challenging. So that's essentially what I did. I did Hold 30 and then I got active. I started seeing a personal trainer and I worked with her twice to three times, two to three times a week and that is basically how I was able to shed that weight. Of course, my Whole 30 journey wasn't perfect per se. I think on Valentine's Day, I was like, I'm going to do myself a little bit, you know. So I wouldn't say I was by the book Whole 30 like hardcore, but I believe that with the dedication and just better food choices, I was still able to shed a lot of pounds and that's how I lost 15 pounds. So I do still have more fitness goals in mind, but as of right now, I am going to just maintain and just tone up and continue working on that. And then I think come May, I might do Hold 30 again just to kind of push myself and see, you know, kind of what I can do, you know, help wise for myself as well as just like fitness goals, you know. Like I said, I gained a lot of weight in 2021 due to reasons that will not be discussed just yet, but I will say that it does feel good to have control, back control of my body and to do things that are good for it in terms of, you know, eating healthier, working out, having that mental discipline, having that emotional discipline. So I really do, you know, enjoy it. It makes me feel like, yes, I have freedom, right? Kind of like, binging food and then feeling horrible about doing it. So yeah, that's basically how I shed it that much weight. I know a lot of you guys were asking on TikTok and on Instagram, just kind of a more detailed video. So here is like my detailed video. I guess it's not like that much of details, but I hope I gave you guys some helpful details. I don't do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to my workouts. I would say I do more like body weight lifting. So my trainer, you know, has a lot of exercises that requires my body, you know, me lifting my body weight, which I will have you okay, because I have a lot of muscle mass. I have a lot of muscle mass and I will also say that, you know, when it comes to your journey and your fitness journey, please have a, you know, a goal that is realistic and natural to you and for you. So for example, you know, in the past, I would always be like, oh my gosh, I want to be like skinny and just like so like tiny and, you know, I just want to look like I can't lift a pencil. That's just, you know, what I feel society has projected on us as women that we are supposed to be tiny and, you know, kind of fragile looking and just whatever else. And that's what I desired. But the more and more I thought about it and the more and more I looked at my body and just the way our body is shaped, you know, I realized that I have, you know, my natural body tendency fit is to look more muscular. That's not a bad thing. I think that for years, I had thought it was bad because I have all brothers and the last thing I wanted to do was look like a man. So I wanted to, you know, I wanted to completely stay away from, you know, fit arms or just like tone arms or tone body because I didn't want to look a man at all. But it's like that's being less clear. It's not what manhood is, you know, built on, you know. So I feel like coming to terms with my body type and embracing it and, you know, loving that and enhancing that like through working out has helped me so much because if I was still trying to pursue being like, you know, whatever I wanted to become years ago or whatever the idea of beauty or a standard that I had of beauty, it would be so unrealistic and I might even go to unhealthy measures to reach that. But I am no longer in that space. I'm in a space where I want to enhance the body that I have and get this body right here to the best peak performance or the best peak, you know, fitness level that it can get to because this is the body that I'm working with. You can't be a circle trying to be a triangle. It's just not possible or even healthy possible, right? So that's my encouragement for you if you are on your journey. You know, just be patient with yourself, show yourself some grace and find that discipline. You know, you are going to have to put in the work. I will not say that this journey was easy at all. I just knew that I had to push myself to make sure I knew it would happen. And it's hard. It's hard because, you know, I am married and my husband, you know, literally has the metabolism of a nine month old. So he like burns all this way or not all this way, but he burns all this food so quickly meanwhile, if I eat a chip, I have like a third chin coming in, you know, so we're different. It's a struggle, but we're making it work. Anywho, if you guys enjoy this video, let me know. I'm more than happy to go into more details if you guys have questions. Just let me know in the comments section if you guys have any other questions for me. Make sure to like this video, make sure to subscribe if you were new here. And I will chat with you guys later. Bye.