Losing over 180 pounds wasn’t about vanity or chasing a goal weight. It wasn’t about numbers or sizes. It was about freedom.
Freedom to breathe.
Freedom to move.
Freedom to exist in my body without shame.
For years, I felt like I was living around my body — not in it. Trapped by physical pain, emotional heaviness, and a deep sense of disconnect. I didn’t starve myself. I didn’t obsessively count calories or spend hours in the gym.
I healed. Slowly. Imperfectly. But with full intention.
1. I Let Go of Restriction and Learned to Listen
For the first time, I stopped punishing my body. I stopped seeing food as the enemy.
I started listening — not to what diets told me, but to what my body was asking for. Hunger cues, fullness, cravings, comfort.
Sometimes I got it wrong. I overate. I slipped. I fell back into old habits.
But I kept choosing trust.
This wasn’t about control — it was about compassion.
I learned to pause before meals. I asked myself: “What do I really need right now?” And over time, the answers changed — from chips and soda… to peace, to nourishment, to water and rest.
2. I Ate Food That Made Me Feel Alive
I didn’t follow a strict plan or weigh every bite. I simply made better choices, one meal at a time.
- More water. Less soda.
- More greens and fiber. Less sugar and grease.
- Chicken breast instead of the drive-thru.
- Vinaigrette instead of ranch.
- A side of grace with every decision.
These weren’t extreme changes — they were sustainable ones. Things I could live with long-term, without the guilt. I focused on how food made me feel, not just how it looked on a label.
And slowly… my energy came back. My skin changed. My cravings softened. My confidence whispered: “We’re doing this.”
3. I Moved Because I Wanted To, Not Because I Hated My Body
At first, it was just walks to the end of the block. Just a few minutes. Just enough to say, “I moved today.”
Then it became music — dancing in my room, even if no one saw.
I didn’t join a gym or do anything that felt like punishment.
I moved because it reminded me I was alive — and I deserved to take up space.
Movement became a way to reconnect with my body — not fix it.
4. I Faced My Emotional Triggers
This was the hardest part.
Because my weight wasn’t just about food — it was about pain.
It was about childhood trauma, abandonment wounds, toxic love, and years of using food as a soft place to land.
Emotional eating had been my protector, my friend, my silence.
But I started therapy. I started speaking the truth I used to eat.
I didn’t need food to carry my grief anymore.
I learned to feel my feelings instead of feeding them.
And that kind of weight loss — the emotional kind — is the kind you don’t see on a scale, but feel in your soul.
What Most People Don’t Understand About This Journey
It wasn’t just pounds I lost — it was prison bars.
Most people will never understand what kind of freedom I’ve gained:
- I can tie my shoes without gasping for air or dreading the effort.
- I can sit in chairs without fearing they’ll break or that I won’t fit.
- I can go to the doctor and not worry if the blood pressure cuff will go around my arm.
- I can sit up in bed, open my laptop, and breathe — without my stomach pushing it away.
- And maybe most people will never know what it’s like to not leave the house because your feet are so swollen you can’t even fit into a pair of socks, let alone shoes.
There was a time I was scared — truly scared — that I was going to die.
And then it nearly happened.
I almost died of COVID.
When I arrived at the hospital, my oxygen was down to 50. I was in respiratory failure, diagnosed with pneumonia, and had dangerously high carbon dioxide levels in my blood. I had asthma, high blood pressure, and weighed around 440 pounds — maybe even more at the time.
I was unconscious for two days.
When I finally woke up…
I had a breathing tube down my throat.
It was the scariest thing I’ve ever gone through in my life.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I had to fight just to breathe.
At one point, they tried to take the tube out — but I wasn’t ready. My body wasn’t breathing right yet.
I remember the quiet panic, the sounds, and then… the stillness.
And then something happened that I will never forget.
I wasn’t alone in that hospital room — not really.
My grandmother, Rosie Lee Erkerd, who had passed on…
She was there. Beside me. Holding space. Holding me.
I heard her voice — strong, clear, full of love:
“You almost died, baby… but you have to go back. It’s not your time.”
She counted out loud…
“1… 2… 3…”
And then — I opened my eyes.
I could feel another presence too.
My sweet dog Duncan, who had also passed.
I could feel him licking my face, spiritually, as if to say: “You’re back. We’re here. Keep going.”
And when the breathing tube was finally removed…
I heard people around me say:
“Happy Birthday!! Happy Birthday!!”
It wasn’t my birthday — at least not the one on paper.
My birthday is in March. This was April.
But something in me knew…
I had just been born again.
A second chance.
A spiritual return.
Not just surviving — but waking up to my real purpose.
In the days that followed, I started having dreams.
One in particular stayed with me…
I dreamt I was a baby — crying. Alone.
And in the dream, my mother was walking away… giving me up for adoption.
That never happened in real life. My mother never gave me away.
But in that dream, I felt it — the ache of not being chosen, the fear of being left behind, the helplessness of not knowing why.
Looking back, I believe that dream wasn’t about what happened externally…
It was about what I was carrying inside.
That dream came from a part of me — the wounded little girl I used to be — who had spent years feeling unloved, unworthy, or unseen.
She cried out not because she had been given away…
But because she had given up on herself.
Waking up from that, I realized:
I have to be the one to choose her now.
To re-parent her. To comfort her. To say,
“You were never too much. You were always worth loving.”
That was part of the healing too —
Not just losing weight,
But holding space for the parts of me that had been silently waiting for someone to come back for them.
And that someone… was me.
This wasn’t about perfection.
This was about healing. About showing up when it was messy.
About choosing me, again and again.
I’m still on this journey. Still learning. Still growing.
Still becoming Antoinette — and now, I do it with love.
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