If you had asked me a few years ago how I was doing, I probably would have said, "I'm fine."
But I wasn't.
I had an unhealthy relationship with food, and looking back, almost everything about life felt harder than it needed to be.
After giving birth to my son at 25, I gained a significant amount of weight. A few years later, I managed to lose it, and for a while I thought I had things under control.
Then I entered my 30s.
The weight started creeping back, and this time it didn't stop.
Life had changed. I was chasing a corporate career, building a family with my husband, raising our son, managing a home, and trying to keep everything together. Every day felt like a race from one responsibility to the next.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped taking care of myself.
Food became my comfort.
Whenever I felt stressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, or sad, I ate. At first, it seemed harmless. After all, everyone deserves a little comfort, right?
Except my comfort slowly became my coping mechanism.
My husband had been encouraging me for years to become healthier. He wanted us to live longer, be more active, and enjoy life together. We had countless conversations—some of them turning into arguments—because I always had the same answer.
"I don't have time."
At that moment, I genuinely believed it.
Between working full-time, earning a living, taking care of our home, and being a mother, there never seemed to be enough hours left for me.
What I didn't realize was that I was making time for something else.
Food.
A few months before I finally decided to change, I became painfully aware of something I had never heard anyone talk about before: the constant food noise in my head.
I would eat before going to bed.
Three hours later, I'd wake up feeling hungry.
The very first thought in my mind wasn't work, my family, or the things I needed to do that day.
It was food.
What should I eat?
What do I feel like eating?
When can I eat again?
I don't know how many hours of my life I wasted thinking about food. It occupied my mind from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep. Looking back, it felt almost paralyzing.
People often ask what my turning point was.
The truth is, there wasn't one dramatic moment.
It was a thousand little moments that slowly became impossible to ignore.
I noticed I couldn't do things that used to be easy.
A short walk left me breathless.
My feet, knees, and legs constantly hurt, even when I hadn't done anything physically demanding.
I realized how much money I was spending on food.
How much time I spent eating, planning my next meal, or thinking about what I wanted to eat.
I started saying no to invitations because I didn't want people to see me.
I dreaded the comments.
"Ang taba mo na."
"Losyang ka na."
Eventually, I started believing those words myself.
I was sad.
I was unhappy.
I had stopped loving myself.
The woman looking back at me in the mirror didn't feel like me anymore.
I avoided mirrors whenever I could.
I didn't like looking at my body because I didn't recognize the person I had become.
Then came the moment that finally broke through all the denial.
It wasn't intentional.
During one of our outreach programs, my husband was taking photos to document the event. Later, as we looked through the pictures, there was one candid shot of me.
He hadn't taken it to embarrass me.
He hadn't even noticed.
But I did.
For the first time, I saw myself exactly as everyone else had been seeing me.
No carefully chosen angle.
No flattering pose.
No hiding.
Just me.
That photograph forced me to face something I had been avoiding for a very long time.
It hurt.
But it also became the beginning.
That was the day I finally admitted to myself that I needed to change.
Not because I wanted to be skinny.
Not because of what other people thought.
But because I wanted my life back.
And that was the day my journey began.
