Seasoned with Grace: Women Winning Wednesday

"There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise"

- W.E.B. Dubois

Welcome to the first edition of Women Winning Wednesday!! I will be sharing stories of women who have not only successfully overcome a battle but who are now inspiring others to win too!

First up is the inspirational, genuine, determined and funny Kenya (aka Lady On A Quest)! I am so happy to be sharing Kenya's story first because she has inspired my weight-loss journey tremendously! I started following her on Instagram at the start of my weight-loss journey so it's been about a year now!

I sent her a list of questions and her transparency nearly had me in tears! This just goes to show how authentic she really is.. I hope you are just as inspired as I am when you read her story!

@ladyonaquest

Kenya, what triggered your weight-loss journey and how much have you lost to date?

I decided to do something about my health when I realized how much my weight was holding me back not only within me but my family. It had gotten so bad that I didn't want to go anywhere. I was embarrassed to go on family outings. I didn't even want to go to the grocery store!! I would send my husband with a list. I was so miserable. I would secretly get upset when he wanted us to go places together and I would make excuses as to why I didn't want to go. My number one excuse would be: I don't have anything to wear, you go ahead. Even when he would say, let's go buy you something then, I would say, we don't need to spend unnecessary money on clothes for me to go, you go ahead. He would then refuse to go because I wasn't going. I felt so bad about that. He didn't know that all of it was because of how unhappy I was with me. I was already suffering from depression due to issues with secondary infertility. We had been going through dealing with several pregnancy losses and I just felt so inadequate in every way. I had given up completely on me. I cried daily about how out of control I had allowed my weight and my health to get. On September 4, 2012, I got down on my knees and I prayed to God to just give me the strength to try, to keep going, to do this for me and for my family because we all deserved to be happy again. I asked him to heal my heart because it was shattered into pieces. I started that day, I joined My Fitness Pal and I said to myself, Kenya, you have nothing else to lose girl. I made a vow to myself to focus only on how much better I felt. If I felt good enough to go to the store without being embarrassed, that was a NSV. If I didn't turn my husband down on a social event, that was a NSV. I started walking at home with Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds dvd's because I didn't want to be seen working out but I knew I had to get active. Within 2 and a half months I was down 30 lbs, this was ALL the motivation I need to keep going. I started believing in myself again and I kept pushing forward. To date I am down 95 lbs in a little over 19 months.

Kenya over a year ago when she lost 35lbs!

Your page has inspired my journey tremendously. Your drive, consistency, realness just made me (and I'm sure others) want to push harder! How did you come up with your #fatkillanation?

I came up with fatkillanation because I know there are so many people out there that felt or feel the same way that I did when I started my journey, that feeling that it's impossible. I want people to know, no matter what your race or gender that we can do this together. That together we can beat obesity but it will take support from each other. We can be healthy, we can be fit but it will take effort and we can lift each other up to keep pushing forward. Nation by definition means a large group of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent or history. Fatkillanation is a group of people who are about this fit and healthy life and this is what we have in common and what helped me to come up with the name.

You have posted old pictures of you that showed you looking slim and trim however you refer to yourself as skinny-fat. Explain that for us.

I am not new to weight loss and back in the day I would lose weight by doing things that I knew I couldn't do forever. I destroyed my metabolism by doing all cardio and eating few calories for months on end. I lost tons of weight but I wasn't healthy. I was on a mission to be thin because I had never been thin before. During those times, to be smaller than I had ever been was my only goal. I had no muscle tone. My goal was to be able to wear a bikini and I did it, but as soon as I got there, I had nothing else to aim for. My desire was gone and the weight came back. I wasn't doing it for health then. I am so thankful that this time, I could honestly careless about those kinds of things. My goal is to be in the best shape of my life, to live, to be strong, to feel healthy, this has become my life.

Kenya when she was 'skinny-fat'

So many people start and stop their weight-loss journey over and over again. If you were delivering a motivational speech on this topic, what would a summary of your speech look like?

This journey is never ending, once you realize that this is something that you will have to incorporate every day for the rest of your life, it will make it all worthwhile mentally. Being healthy is what you should aim for and with health, comes all the outer benefits you are looking for. When you focus merely on what you want to look like, you don't truly appreciate what it took to get you there. I think this is what causes a lot of starting over and over again. We set up in our minds a deadline and when we don't get there when we think we should, we stop, get frustrated and it ends. Then we get upset for gaining and then we start over again. It can be a never ending cycle if you look at it in terms of outer gains. This journey is more about inner, changing your perception of food and your relationship with it, and finding some form of physical activity that you love and can see yourself doing often. Anything that you really don't like to do and can't see yourself doing forever is the recipe for yo-yoing and you will eventually gain every pound back when you get tired of doing it. The key is finding something that you can do for the rest of your life. Everyone's journey to better health is different, what I like, you may not and vice versa. Start enjoying how much better you feel and stop focusing on results, it only overwhelms you. Stop focusing on other people's bodies, we all are shaped different. Enjoy the body that God gave you and all the many things you can do that you never believed you could, enjoy your strength, enjoy your ability to control the one thing you can take control over, what you put in your body and how you treat your body! This my friends, is the recipe for life long success! And I promise you once you incorporate this way of thinking, you will feel like a weight has been lifted off of your soul. You can have the fit body on the outside once you are spiritually fit on the inside.

Thank you so much Kenya for sharing your story!! If any of you would like more info on her, follow her on Instagram- @ladyonaquest and myfitnesspal- losinit4life!