Guest Post: A Little Personal Journey by ChelleyToy (Michelle)

This blog post is written from my own personal experience only.  Everyone is different and unique in so many wonderful ways.  Always remember that.


Hi.  I’m Chelley and I am severely obese.  There I said it.  I wanted to be perfectly honest as it’s taken me many years to actually admit that to myself even though I’ve always known it, but it’s never really bothered me too much.  I mean I’ve always been overweight.  Ever since I can remember.  I think I’ve always just known that it is part of who I am, the way I’m built and the way I always will be.  I know I am an emotional eater.  Sometimes it’s just easier to eat my feelings to make myself feel better.  Of course over the years I’ve been on different diets, lost weight, put back on again then lost a little more and then put back on again, but something changed recently and I wanted to share my experience with others and I honestly believe that believing in yourself means that you can achieve anything.



In 2013 I lost my sight.  I luckily, in the end, managed to keep the sight in my left eye, but am now completely blind in my right eye (you can read more about that here).  At the time I had lost quite a bit of weight due to getting married the year before so when I was put on a huge and I mean HUGE dose of steroids which started off with a drip of them straight into my blood stream I was determined to not let them change my body and gain the weight I had lost after hearing many scary stories from others who had been prescribed them.  I was on these Steroids for around a year and sadly my mental health, confidence and outlook on things took a complete nose dive.  I have always been a huge reader and I even couldn’t bring myself to read. Without really realising it I did gain weight.  Of course I easily blamed the steroids.  It’s easy to blame anyone but yourself really isn’t it?  But I am as much to blame for what I ate and put into my body or the little exercise I did whilst on them and of course I was already overweight.  I will admit the physical effect the high dosage of these steroids had on my body and my mind was a shocking eye opener and certainly some things I never want to experience ever again.  But it wasn’t until this year, 2017 that I had the get up and go to try and get my weight under control.


Seeing the New Year in with some of my absolute best friends and my gorgeous family was the absolute best.  Laughs aplenty and bottled up gorgeous memories to keep for many years to come.  A couple of weeks later I was struck with the flu and chest infection that completely knocked me off my feet.  My body was very poorly.  Sadly around this time I found out that a work colleague of mine had died suddenly out of the blue of a potentially undiagnosed brain haemorrhage that he never knew he had.  He died in hospital on New Years Eve.  Whilst I was having fun and raising a glass to bring in the New Year he had died.  His family had lost their son, his daughter had lost a Father and friends had lost one of the most nicest, kindest gentleman I have ever had the pleasure to work with.  Don’t get me wrong we were not best friends or anything, but I worked with him everyday and it was an honour and an absolute pleasure.  He loved his daughter, his family and life.  The reality was he was only in his early 40’s.  Still young with plenty of time ahead of him to watch his seventeen year old daughter grow into a woman.  This affected me more than I ever thought it would be possible.  I now realise that although I didn’t know it at the time I was grieving the loss of someone I hugely respected and admired and I felt such a huge strange sense of loss especially for his daughter.  I also realise now that grief is a complicated being.  It made me look at myself and give myself a stern hard talking to and even examine what I am doing with my life.  I’m thirty six years old and what am I even doing?  Where am I going?  Where do I want to be?  Your own thoughts can be a very scary place to be sometimes.  All these things, feeling and thoughts can’t be resolved all at once so I decided to focus one piece of the puzzle of Chelley’s life initially.


In March 2017 I joined a slimming group.  I knew I wanted to give my body the best chance it had of seeing my son grow up, growing old with my husband, my sole mate and cherishing my family and friends.  I walked into group with the support of my Mom and faced the music.  And trust me the music was not very pleasant.  More like nails down a chalkboard.  But I did it.  I focused my mind and started believing in myself for once.   It is now the 8th July 2017 and I am proud to say that I have lost 3 ½ stone (49lbs).  I have had a complete change of lifestyle.  I am eating healthier and walking more, spending time with my family and enjoying things so much more.  The other day I walked 5 miles with my husband and son and for me that is an achievement.  I’m not sure I’ve ever walked 5 miles and certainly before I joined this slimming group I could not walk far at all without very severe back pain which of course I blamed the steroids for *rolls eyes*.  I’m focusing on me and how I feel and in turn I am having so much fun in the process.  Of course I know I have a long way to go until I am at a healthy weight, but I’m going with the flow and taking each day as it comes whilst staying focused on the things I want to achieve.  And most of all I feel great.  What will be.


There are plenty of things still swirling round my silly brain.  Losing weight is not going to fix everything, but what I’ve come to realise most is that every single moment, every single second of your life is so delicate and oh so precious and sadly can be too short.  Tell people how much you love them.  Every day if you have to.  And do things that are right for you.  But remember to believe in yourself.  You are totally amazing.  You can achieve anything.


I love you


Chelley x

BIO: Michelle is an avid reader and one of my favourite book bloggers online. Check out her blog Tales of Yesterday here.

1 comment

  1. You wrote very creative. I need to know the quintessential benefits of double glazing and many in uK might wanna know too. Can you please help us to get an agent?

    ReplyDelete