Women’s stories

“...I like myself better than this.”

Helga, a 35-year-old engineer, was faced with multiple health problems all at once. After a serious car accident, things were getting worse and worse. In addition to weight gain, she had trouble with her cholesterol, her thyroid, and was headed down the path to type 2 diabetes. Finding Women to Women’s Personal Program turned her life around!

“In 2005, I got into a bad car accident and cracked all of my ribs. You hear about people who get into car accidents and then it all goes downhill. Well, that’s what happened to me. First of all, I was in a lot of pain. It hurt to work out, I became more and more stressed at work as a teacher, I started to gain weight, and it just seemed like I was on a downward spiral. In December of 2006, I went to the doctor and found out my triglycerides were way up, my LDL was too high, my HDL was too low, I had high blood pressure, my thyroid wasn’t working right, and I was on the road to diabetes.

“As you can imagine, I got really scared. I mean, you’re not supposed to have these kinds of problems in your 30’s. I thought, ‘I like myself better than this. There’s got to be a way to get back on track.’ I did some research on restarting your thyroid and I found Women to Women. I began the Personal Program in March of 2007, and by June my blood work had improved immensely. In fact, my doctor said it was pretty much perfect. The weight finally started to come off too. I’ve lost 22 pounds since May. People, including my doctor, keep asking me, ‘What are you doing? Everything about you looks better.’

“Before starting the Personal Program, I felt terrible all the time. I was tired and depressed. I was on ten different medications. My hands and feet were swelling. And I knew my job was making me feel worse. I decided to get a Master of Engineering. Instead of teaching, I work as an engineer now, which is so much better for me! I literally bound out of bed in the morning at 5:30 and go to work. I work out every day for an hour and a half during lunch, then finish my day at the office, and pick up my kids. I take them to karate, we swim — I just have so much more energy. I’ve even started taking karate, which is exhilarating. I can feel my own power!

“I follow the Personal Program Nutritional Guidelines very strictly. I mean, I eat like a cave man! Really. Fruits, veggies, anything I could hunt or gather. I don’t think our bodies were engineered to eat all those refined carbohydrates because we don’t have a shut-off mechanism for them. We’ll just eat and eat and never feel full. But protein and fat make you feel full. I used to have major ups and downs with my blood sugar. I’d get dizzy and cranky from not eating. I don’t ever feel that way anymore. Our bodies are like machines — if you put the wrong components in them, they’ll break down.

“Because I’m an engineer, I’m always experimenting to find the right answer. I knew I wasn’t living the life I wanted to live, and I knew I needed to try something different. What I like about the Personal Program is that it makes scientific sense. I can understand how things work in my body, and the principles are really simple. The bottom line is, if you want to make a change in your life, you have to want to change.”

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Last Modified Date: 11/23/2011