My name is Jessie Danville (@fit4jessie), and I am 35 years old. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and I am a stay-at-home-mom. Seeing my mom's health fail made me realize I needed to prioritize my well-being by paying attention to my nutrition and fitness. I started following Weight Watchers to develop better eating habits, and I went from walking to running and lifting weights. I lost 50 pounds and transformed my mindset and health.
I had been overweight all my adult life. I didn’t grow up in a household that prioritized health, nutrition, or wellness of any kind, so when I went off to college, I immediately began gaining weight. It continued through my 30s. I never understood what it meant to think about my health or weight long-term; I was constantly living in survival mode. Immediate gratification was my mechanism for surviving the majority of my life, and that led me down some very dark roads when it came to my weight.
Because I grew up in a food-insecure home, I always ate whatever was in front of me because I didn’t know when I’d have my next hot meal and that sense of urgency carried over into adulthood because I never really processed how abnormal it was. I never attempted to get my weight under control because I never thought about the long-term ramifications of my food and fitness choices. My brain was laser-focused on getting what it needed or wanted immediately because I felt like it could be taken away at any moment. I got to my highest weight after my first pregnancy when I was 28—I hit 220 pounds.
I got sober from alcohol in October 2019, which had been a lifelong struggle for me. My recovery allowed me to have the clarity of mind that I didn’t when I was active in my addiction. Then, in April 2020, my mother died of COVID. She’d been suffering from a rare form of early-onset dementia since she was in her late 40s.
When my mom died, I realized that I needed to be incredibly proactive in my own health so that I could prevent myself from ending up with the same disease she had.
No one in my family modeled healthy eating or fitness, and I decided the day she died that I wasn’t going to continue to replicate those patterns for another generation. I wanted my sons to watch their mother love and care for herself in a way that I wasn’t able to witness in my own childhood.
Losing my mom was the single most painful yet miraculous thing that has ever happened in my life. I’d watched her slowly suffer for many, many years from dementia. When she was freed from that, I felt like the light bulb went off for me. I would shift my habits and patterns towards the direction of a long, happy, healthy life for my own children. I would do everything within my power to stay healthy for them.
I decided to sign up for WW (formerly Weight Watchers) because everyone I knew who had tried it found success with it.
It’s simple to use and it’s intuitive. I eat as much nutrient-dense food as I can, and I add in less nutrient-dense foods every now and then. I eat an enormous amount of protein, which keeps me satisfied so that I snack less than I ever used to. I like eating this way because it’s simple and I’m never hungry.
I immediately began tracking every single thing I ate for two weeks in order to get an idea of exactly how much I was consuming. I think that step is key; so many of us have zero clue how much we’re truly taking in throughout the course of a day. Once I did that, I started searching for WW-friendly recipe bloggers (Sweet Savory and Steph is my current favorite) and began bookmarking the recipes I thought I’d enjoy and be able to repeat.
I began meal prepping for the week each Sunday and pre-tracking those meals in my phone to save time. This was a huge time-saver and kept me accountable to myself to stay on track.
Here’s what I eat in a day.
- Breakfast: A bowl of plain nonfat Greek yogurt mixed with a scoop of protein powder and topped with frozen berries
- Lunch: Barbecue chicken salad on a bed of butter lettuce, sliced bell peppers, and spicy hummus on the side
- Snacks: A spicy tuna packet with crackers, turkey jerky, or a protein shake with peanut butter powder and almond milk
- Dinner: Bell peppers stuffed with sliced deli chicken topped with fat-free cheese, baby spinach with balsamic drizzle on the side
- Dessert: Oatmeal topped with dark chocolate chips, fried apples, and a scoop of peanut butter
I immediately began walking every day.
I had to start slowly, using Leslie Sansone’s Walk at Home videos on YouTube, and then I built up to three-mile walks outside. After a couple of months, I began doing guided runs on my phone. Then, about a month after that, I began lifting weights. I now focus heavily on strength training with my Lululemon MIRROR and lift three times per week. I run two times per week, and I aim to hit 7,500 steps per day on each of those days.
Walking and lifting weights have completely transformed my body into a strong, lean version of myself that I never knew could possibly exist, and they’ve made me fall in love with fitness. I don’t move my body to lose weight—I move my body because it gives me energy and it will help keep me healthy for the rest of my life. It makes me a better, happier version of myself, and it shows me that I’m not stuck. I am a malleable human who can overcome and move forward in ways that I never used to believe I could.
These three changes have made my weight-loss journey successful.
- I started identifying as a fit person. From day one, I began telling myself, I’m becoming a fit person. I began making choices that a fit person would make, even when I was 200 pounds. I decided to make fitness and health a core part of my identity, rather than focusing on losing weight to simply look better.
- I made my goal health-related. I was never focused on hitting a specific goal weight. I told myself that if I stayed within my WW points budget for one day at a time, and if I walked and drank water, I’d be doing right by my body. I looked at it as a daily medication that would stave off illnesses as I got older. This is a moving target—there’s no finish line. That allows me to stay consistent.
- I take it 24 hours a time. Just like with my sobriety, I only focus on tracking what I eat, moving, and drinking water for one single day. I can’t do this weight-loss stuff for a year, or a month, but I can absolutely commit to doing it for one single day. I wake up every single day and commit to just focusing on today.
I’ve lost 50 pounds so far, and that took me nine months.
I’ve maintained that loss for over a year and a half now. Losing weight is never about just losing weight. When you’re able to keep daily promises to yourself, make shifts to your daily habits that are better for you rather than harmful, and prove to yourself that you can stay consistent, you learn to trust yourself.
I know now that I can keep a promise to myself to eat a high-protein breakfast. I can keep a promise to myself to drink a few glasses of water and take a walk in the sunshine under a bright blue sky. I can keep a promise to myself that I won’t drink myself to sleep anymore. I’ve learned that I have every single characteristic and ability within myself that I used to constantly seek in others, in the hopes that some other person would do the hard things for me and keep me safe. I get to do those things myself now—it’s all right here inside me. The smaller jeans size is just a bonus.
