Two years into my low-carb journey, I found myself in a place I knew all too well after decades on the diet-binge rollercoaster: panicked, frustrated, and angry at myself for not being able to stick with my diet.

At the time, I had already lost over 80 pounds, and had started to feel like maybe, just maybe, this time would finally stick. But then, like my hundreds of previous attempts to lose weight, life happened. Stress crept in, hunger and cravings got the best of me, and my food relationship took a nose-dive. Even though I knew what worked, knowing and doing are two very different things, and I was trapped in that very painful gap.

I started playing with fire and eating higher carb foods more and more often. First it was on special occasions, then on weekends, and before I knew it, “just this once” became a regular occurrence and I gained back 20 pounds – not all of the weight I had lost, but enough to send me into an emotional tailspin, with the same old voices in my head screaming:

“See? You really are hopeless. You’re disgusting.”
“Turns out keto wasn’t the answer after all.”
“You’re gonna fail, just like every other time!”
“You had a good run, but it’s all coming back.”

I started looking everywhere for more information, yet another bio hack. I followed all the low-carb gurus, restricted harder, trying to white-knuckle my way back every Monday morning, but red-alert alarm bells and intense shame were the only things I could hear.

I needed help, not another meal plan or hack. I needed real support and accountability. A lifeline

Enter: A Doctor Who Got It
I met Dr. Tro at a work conference I attended for my job at the time with The Nutrition Coalition. I had an awareness of him through his online presence and was, let’s just say…unconvinced. He was part doctor, part social media rabble-rouser. I loved that he was always calling out the failures of the traditional weight loss model and his medical colleagues, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

What I found was someone shockingly different from the hundreds of health professionals I’d encountered before. He was warm and human and saw me as more than my weight. He had walked in my shoes and had struggled with weight himself. And for the first time, I didn’t feel shamed or judged by a doctor, I felt seen.

At that moment, I didn’t need someone to lecture me about carbs or calories, I could write that lesson myself. I became a patient because I needed help, and thank goodness, it existed. I needed accountability, someone in my corner who could help me stay the course when every part of me desperately wanted to flee.

I needed a doctor who didn’t reduce me to a number on the scale or a set of lab results, who judiciously considered medications, who didn’t see me as a failure, or label me as “non-compliant” when I struggled. I needed someone who believed I could succeed, even when I didn’t believe it myself.

I found all of that…and more.

A New Chapter
With the support of Tro and his team of equally caring practitioners and staff, I lost the 20 pounds I had gained – and then another 120 on top of that. It wasn’t magic, it was hard work and took many years, but I know that I would never have achieved it alone.

This was different from every other program I had tried. There was no condescension, no “just eat less and move more.” Instead, there was curiosity and empathy. We talked about stress and patterns. Food addiction. We talked about hunger, cravings and the ways in which I struggled. We talked about what I was eating, why I was eating and reducing the harm around that so that I could sustain this lifestyle forever.

Tro and his team didn’t just treat my weight. They gave me the time and space to understand all I had been up against, and to heal my body from the inside out.

Finding My Purpose
The most shocking part of this journey (aside from the weight loss itself!), the part I never could have predicted? I’ve now been a part of that very same team for over five years. It took me until my 50s to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and it turns out I wanted to be someone who helps others get out of the same darkness I once lived in.

I became a patient because I was stuck, and I joined the Toward Health team because I believe with my whole heart that people deserve better than what the mainstream medical system typically offers. People living with obesity are often deeply diminished and dismissed by their doctors, and this practice goes above and beyond to rewrite that narrative for every single patient.

Each day, I get to be part of something meaningful, something real. I get to walk alongside others who are fighting the same battles I once fought, still fight, and I get to remind them: you are not broken, you are not weak, and you are not alone.

Too often people with obesity or metabolic illness are seen as lazy, as if it is weak moral character that prevents us from finding our way, and everything we want is just on the other side of “try harder.”

But what happens when “trying harder” isn’t enough? Anyone who has ever lived in a larger body knows that it’s not for lack of effort that we don’t make progress – most of us have been trying incredibly hard for years. What happens when willpower runs out, old habits sneak back in, and we no longer believe health is achievable? What do we do then?

What did I do? I reached out and got the support I needed.

I didn’t become a patient because I was failing, I became a patient because going it alone wasn’t working. I finally gave myself permission to try a different way, to forge a new path. Asking for help wasn’t weakness, it was a quiet, stubborn trust – buried deep down – that something better was possible for me, even if I couldn’t quite imagine it yet.

And even now, all these years later, I’m still a patient. I’m still learning, I still need accountability to keep old destructive patterns and thinking from pulling me under. Because no matter how much I know, or how many times I’ve fallen and gotten back up, I’ve come to understand that this journey is never “done.” There’s no finish line. There’s just life: messy, beautiful, complicated life. And my job, both literally and figuratively, is to keep showing up for it.

I became a patient because I was scared I’d lose everything I had worked so hard for. Because knowing what to do wasn’t enough – I needed help doing it.

I found that help in a medical team who didn’t just see a 400+ pound body – they saw a whole human being. And that changed everything.

You Are Worth the Support You Need
If you are feeling uncertain about your journey, and panic is rising and the old fears and messages are creeping back in, please know this: you don’t need to go this alone, you just need to reach out, to know you are worth it… because the right support doesn’t just help you lose weight, it believes in you until you believe in yourself.

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