Welcome to Hot Couple Chronicles,
a podcast exploring the swinging lifestyle.
Our discussions may contain explicit content
and adult themes intended for mature audiences.
While we strive to offer valuable insights and entertainment,
please be aware that the views expressed
are based on personal experiences and opinions.
We encourage listeners to approach the content
with an open mind and to prioritize communication,
consent, and respect in their relationships.
Remember everyone's journey is unique,
so take what resonates with you and leave what doesn't.
Thank you for joining us on this adventure.
I'm Russ and I'm Ashley and this is Hot Couple Chronicles.
So today we're going to talk about a big part of our lives,
our journey with weight loss, health, confidence,
body positivity.
It's a lot more than just weight loss.
It's about pretty much who we are.
And it's an entire five-year journey.
We've been, I mean, really our whole lives have been,
personally have been on this journey
since I was about eight years old.
Yeah, it's been my entire life.
I've squirted blood that way.
It was actually, like, I didn't actually lose any weight,
really, until about five years ago.
And it kind of transformed everything.
And I really do think that we wouldn't really
be on the same journey that we're on without that.
Yeah, I definitely not.
Yeah, we're going to talk a little bit more about that.
We've always wanted this podcast to be a lot
about little pieces about our story
and a lot about who we are and our friends.
And that's why we share our friends and our family
and our stories.
And so this is a big one.
People have been always asking questions,
always intrigued about it.
So we wanted to cover this one.
And it should be fun.
2019, we found out that your best friend was getting married.
And that was your main motivation.
I just felt like garbage.
And I said, yeah, I didn't lose weight too.
So I decided that we'll do it together.
Like, you were my motivation
when we started losing weight.
Because I knew.
I was just done.
I mean, at that point in my life,
I was already starting to send those.
And my cholesterol was high.
I was pre-diabetic.
Diabetic, my sugars were high.
Oh, it was.
We had four kids to-
I was tired all the time.
My body hurt all the time.
I was not in good shape.
I have to have like, I don't know something about me.
I have to have like a deadline,
like a goal for like an ending.
Yeah.
Well, I wanted to lose like 50 pounds.
I was like, my big goal was 50 pounds.
Yeah.
By her wedding.
And then we started in 2019,
we started doing like keto.
Yeah.
Pretty much a strict diet.
We went pretty hard on keto.
We even were like, tested our pee with the strips.
Yeah, making sure we're in ketosis.
And we lost like 20, 25 pounds on keto.
Yeah, like 20 pounds-ish.
And then we really got serious and ended up,
I started going to the gym regularly.
And we cut out pretty much all carbs and sugars.
And then we went to high protein.
We switched high protein.
Yeah, we-
And that's really when I got serious.
We basically went to the carnivore diet
before the carnivore diet was a thing.
Yeah, we did a lot of the protein, protein shakes.
And we went into a major calorie deficit,
like a major calorie deficit.
Yeah.
And then COVID hit.
And then we kind of fell off the rails for real.
Well, everybody started eating DoorDash.
Yeah.
Everybody started.
Well, everything was closed down.
We had nothing else to do but to eat.
I know.
It was so, yeah.
We didn't have many options.
So we did start out.
Because-
And there was like-
There was nothing to do at all.
Yeah.
So then we, but then we decided to turn it into an actual,
like it became our COVID project.
Like when we gained the 20, 25 pounds back
that we just lost and worked our ass off,
then it's like, all right, what the hell?
And so that's when we were like, all right,
let's buckle down.
And that's when we-
And we also determined to lose 50 pounds for her wedding.
Yeah.
And you had- That was in May.
And you had like a year to do it,
which was a crazy amount of time.
Like it was definitely doable.
It was doable, for sure.
I just lost 20.
And not easily, but just had done 20.
I was like, in a year, I could do 30 more.
So 50 was our goal.
Long story short, we ended up losing 75 before her wedding.
And we, at that point, I had finally gotten into
a pretty regular gym routine and did cardio.
And we went to pretty much all protein.
Yeah.
That was it.
That was how we did it.
Protein and a few vegetables.
A few vegetables.
Very few.
Protein was our main, lots of meats and cheeses as well.
And protein, a lot of protein shakes.
We basically went to carnivore before carnivore was a thing.
Yeah, we cut out all sugars, pretty much all carbs,
or as much as we possibly could.
And yeah, our calories, definitely in calorie.
Def that.
Oh, I learned that it's okay.
Portion control was number one.
I got used to being hungry.
Yeah.
But-
But you're something like drinks,
and you don't feel as hungry.
Yeah, it's kind of weird how that happens.
But then you start eating more often,
and then we learned that you actually
are better off snacking throughout the day.
Yeah.
Yeah, turns out you actually should not be starving,
you should not be hungry, you should be eating all day long
to the point where you feel full just all of the time.
And it should be packed full of good stuff
in those little-
Well, that's it.
It's not-
You're not eating empty calories.
But we were eating, our snacks were protein,
or protein shake, or, you know, unsalted almonds.
Bunch of tiny meals and portion control,
and was huge, portion control was like our biggest thing.
And also it's okay to throw food away.
It's okay to not clean your plate.
Yeah.
And that was huge, that was a really hard one to-
Yeah, it really was.
For sure, because I was always, you know,
you were always taught to clean your plate.
Clean your plate, don't waste food.
Yeah, don't waste food.
And, you know, we've been through some hard times
with food-wise, so I've always been like,
worried about food, and you know,
I've had a weird attachment to making sure
we have enough food, so it was hard to retrain your brain
and learn it's okay to get up, don't fork down.
We showed up to the wedding,
and we got all the compliments at the wedding.
Well, they hadn't seen me for-
Yeah, well that was the motivation.
10 years.
They saw us chugging.
That was the whole purpose.
And then we showed up.
I hadn't seen them in like 10 years, five years.
It was a really long time before I seen them,
and most of them it was more than that.
But yeah, it was kind of a motivational show up,
and there was like, there's a whole backstory,
a whole personal reasons and lots of things,
but the whole main thing was to just show up.
And we did.
Just show up good, and yeah,
we lost 75 pounds before the wedding.
And then at that point, it pretty much was our whole,
our whole lifestyle was changed, and we were in a habit,
good habits, and we were losing weight really well and easily,
and I was in a good gym routine, and he hates the gym.
He despises it.
He still hates it.
He's been like...
You'd be able to drag me a couple times, but...
I love cardio.
I hate cardio, but I do love the gym.
I love this gym.
Like I know I need to go to the gym, but...
I forced myself to do cardio, but I do love the night.
I do love the by myself part and the therapeutic quietness,
because I don't get to be alone very often.
So it's a nice little break, and I learned to love it,
and I need to get back.
But then we lost another like 50 pounds after that.
And then we kept going with it, and we were pretty strict.
We were very strict.
We were very portion control, very...
Oh, yeah.
Protein, high protein, and there's like no sugar.
That we cut out pretty much all sugars, everything,
sugar, everything.
And then we counted calories for the most part,
and we ended up losing 130 pounds each, roughly.
Yeah, roughly.
Somehow we both learned to learn...
Somehow we both...
Lost the same amount.
Exactly the same amount.
I lost mine quicker than yours,
and then I started gaining a little bit back
when you hit your smallest.
Yeah, we lost the different kinds of it both times.
Because I got down to like 175 pounds at one point.
Yeah, it was 130.
Like it was crazy.
I was never in my life.
I have always, my whole life, we were saying
about struggling with dieting and stuff.
I have been chubby my whole life.
I never went through a high school skinny phase.
I never got to be skinny.
I have been consistently morbidly obese
since I was three, four.
You know what I mean?
I was always...
Since elementary school, I've been overweight.
I've been the chubby girl.
I've had boobs since I was 10.
I remember being mortified having like double Ds
when I was 10 years old.
And I remember one time the girls walked,
some girl, one of my friends, walked into a locker room
and all the girls were talking about how big my boobs were.
And at 10 years old, destroyed me.
Like absolutely mortified me.
Like I was so sad.
But I've always just been a big girl.
I've been a really big girl.
And I've just, you know, I've done the dieting,
like done the weight.
It really had to be a mental thing for me.
It is.
And that's what everybody always asks me,
like, how'd you do it?
You know, it's...
I could have done it without you.
Yeah, definitely.
It was way different to have somebody to,
not just not rely on, but like to rely on,
to keep you accountable and to, you know.
Well, we didn't have to sit there
and watch the other one, like, still eating shit.
That's what I'm saying.
We threw out all of our shit.
We, you know, only went shopping around our diets.
We, you know, our kids,
obviously we didn't keep them to the deficit.
We didn't keep them like on a diet.
I still remember making them like...
We had to do separate meals and stuff.
But for the most part, like we ate together.
We just added the carbs with their meals.
Yeah, like they had the starches.
They stuck with the starch, like the mashed potatoes,
and the noodles, and the macaroni and cheese and all that.
We planned our meals.
But they still ate the same type of like meat
and vegetables that we ate,
or we just ate the meat and vegetable.
Because it was, like our whole family needed it.
Our whole family needed high protein, you know,
as in proteins and some healthy fats,
some good stuff into our diets.
We definitely were eating way too many processed foods
and sodium was killing us all,
and sugar was killing us all.
And so it was good for them too.
It was good to get there.
Because, you know, they're gonna have,
unfortunately, their parents are fluffier.
So they're gonna have to be conscious
for the rest of their lives, you know, about their weight.
Unfortunately, our whole family kind of passing that down
to the next one, and you're welcome, children.
So it's good though,
because I was never taught how to eat, you know, well,
how not to make better, I always say make good decisions.
And I like to teach, we taught our kids
how to make better decisions.
Well, it's about having a healthy relationship with food.
Yeah, not dying.
And because, and that was the hardest part with me
is because I love to-
An emotional attachment.
I had an addiction.
I have, I still do.
But I had to break up with food emotionally.
I mourned it.
I remember crying, remember?
I cried because I thought we'd never get to go
to another restaurant ever again.
Like I went through a whole grieving process
of like, I don't wanna ever,
because like most of our relationship,
we've traveled for food, a lot of our memories were food.
I have a really big addiction.
Yeah, I've been struggling my whole life with addiction
to food and it does have emotional attachment to it.
And it is like you go through the grieving process
of giving up your favorite things.
Like you can never have them again until we learn
it's all about moderation.
You cannot realistically never eat Oreos again.
So kind of going off of that,
the kind of, we lost all this shit ton of weight.
Naturally our confidence like skyrocketed.
And because we're sizes that we had never been
in our entire life.
We went out, we are shopping,
we're buying all the clothes.
So like, because I could wear things I had never worn before
and actually look good.
I only could shop at Torrid
or the old lady department stores.
Yeah, we were going to all the,
we were going to the skinny people stores.
We were going to real regular stores.
Yeah, like Express.
I didn't have to go into,
yeah, Express was like a new place
I'd never had explored before.
And yeah, there's a whole bunch of new worlds
when you're small.
We could go into like H&M and all of these.
Forever 21.
And get cheap clothes and you could, you know, $5.
Cause I would go into Torrid
and like a pair of my pants was $80.
Yeah.
A pair of pants for me.
Our shirt was like 50 some dollars.
Yeah.
And you know, bigger sizes, it costs more
if you want quality.
If you want quality and that fit right.
Yeah.
And it was a few years ago now it's,
I love seeing everything, you know, the size inclusivity
and all the stuff is like, you're starting to see
all the bigger sizes.
I had a suit made.
Yeah.
When you're starting to see that.
But I mean, even a few years ago
we weren't seeing like the bigger mannequins
and we weren't seeing the plus size options
like you are now.
I love seeing it.
I do, but it's hard when you grow up
your whole entire life
and you just want to put on the cute stuff
and you want to wear the cute stuff.
I've just never got to experience it.
And I thought honestly, like naively,
I thought that I, you know, you believe that
if you're skinny, everything's going to be good.
Everything's going to be great.
But tell me how that's not true.
It's not true at all.
It's not.
Because it wasn't true for me either.
Oh yeah, I was more confident.
I liked my body better.
So going back on what you were saying,
we only moved here and we were pretty much
at our smallest I've ever been my entire life.
We found this lifestyle and that's really where like
the confidence, you do get confidence
with losing that amount of weight.
Oh, absolutely.
And I had never, like I said, I was never skinny.
I've never been thin.
I've never been a normal society, you know, normal sized.
I've always been in plus size for seven.
So this time I was like, there was options of lingerie.
There was options of like smaller sized.
That side of it.
And then I think we were getting attention
we never got before from other people,
other than from us, you know?
And that was a huge like dopamine rush.
Yeah, because we were that hot couple in Georgia.
Yeah, I mean, that's how we got our name.
Our Georgia couple.
Is because we would, friends that we had met be like,
oh, I was just talking to someone there.
That's what they called us.
I think that hot couple was over there.
We didn't name ourselves.
People named us.
Yeah.
So yeah, it was this rush of,
yeah, everyone wanted to talk to you.
You were, you know, you fit in.
You looked like you fit in.
You looked normal.
You looked like normal compared to what you,
before we stood out, we were big people.
Yeah.
We stood out in the room, everybody, you know,
was, we took up a lot of space
and now we could have blend in with the group of people.
And I honestly wonder if we would be in the last aisle.
I don't think so.
Or not.
And I don't think that we would either.
I wouldn't have the confidence.
I don't think I would have had the confidence.
And then.
And I always tell people, like,
it's not what you look like.
It's how you feel you look like.
I didn't feel like it.
But I didn't feel like I looked like.
And I understand how larger people,
like, are reluctant in getting into the lifestyle
and having issues with it
because you don't have the confidence.
And when you don't have that confidence,
you don't attract the people you're wanting
to attract. It turns out,
we thought that it would give us self-worth
and it would make it automatic,
it would make the world all sunshine and rainbows.
But it turns out you have to put that work into it.
And confidence is all a state of mind.
It's not how you look, it's not how you feel.
Or not how you look, it's all how you feel.
And it's all how you perceive yourself.
I hear this a lot with people that are losing weight
or like through a health journey is,
and I am guilty of it,
I was so fixated on a number.
Numbers, yeah.
Like I remember going down like every Friday
and jumping on the scale once a week at the same time,
every week and see how much weight I lost that week.
Yeah.
And then coming down and like I had an app
to track it in my, in everything.
How are you feeling clothes
and how you feel in your outfits?
That's way more important than the number.
It has nothing to do with the number.
So we talk about how we got this huge confidence boosts
and everything, but also, I know I felt this way.
I know you were feeling a certain sort of way
about how your body was, how your new body looked.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we thought that if we lost the weight,
we got to a certain number, we got to a goal weight
that you could be able to walk in,
put on the lingerie and just own the place.
Turns out that actually was, it's actually the opposite.
Turns out I actually started not liking this body
more than I didn't like the other body
and it never fixed anything.
I just found ways to pick apart my body in new ways
because it was the loose skin now and it was the veins.
You could see the varicose veins better
and you could, you know, it was like the stretch marks
and the boobs, I lost my boobs, I lost my ass.
Everything became, you know, deflated, my face, everything.
And I just turned it into, instead of like,
I'm too chubby, I have this much on here
and I don't like extra weight on this body part or whatever,
it became the opposite.
And so, yeah, it turned out it was a definite huge eye-opener
that it has nothing to do with how much space you take up.
Has nothing to do with the number that you weigh
and what it says on the scale.
It was all, it's all in your head.
It's all a mental thing.
Yeah, because I remember,
even when I was at my smallest, I remember I had like,
the, you know, skin, like on my stomach,
the loose skin from, you know,
and then I had, you know, this or that or, yeah.
Yeah, like the neck skin started loosening.
Like there's just different things that started to change.
I started to see wrinkles that weren't there
because my skin wasn't stretched out.
Yeah, you don't have like the plumpiness in your face.
Your face changes and everything just changes, period.
And I was slapped in the face with a whole new body.
And on top of that,
we, at the same time we were dealing with this,
we were finding this new lifestyle
where there's plastic surgery everywhere.
90% of people have something enhanced.
Something that's, yeah.
You know, you were self-conscious about your boobs.
My boobs were huge.
I refuse to show my boobs even in, I did content
where we would just like have our boobs out
with like other content creators
that I'm really good friends with.
And then I know very well now,
but I would stand there and I would leave this,
I would leave whenever they did butt pictures
or boob pictures because I refuse to be up there
because I'm like, I don't have those.
Yeah, I remember that.
That's why I would say every time I would be like,
I don't have those.
And so I'd stand on the side.
Every single video, if you see in the behind the scenes,
like I'm standing over to the side
and I'm not in any of those.
It's because I was so self-conscious
about not having boobs, not having like implants.
And I had posted a story on Instagram the other day
and it was kind of like,
what are your biggest insecurities?
What about your body are you most self-conscious?
And it's the amount of women that said loose skin
and my boobs, I don't have implants.
I don't have a BBL.
I don't have, and it breaks my heart
because now that I've been through this whole journey
and it's been five years now, I understand.
And I get it that it is 100% how you feel about yourself.
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["Sexy Girl"]
Yeah.
And it's about loving your body throughout
that whole entire up and down.
That's why I see, you see it on the social media platforms
where it's like people against enhancements
or modifications and all natural,
we wanna be all natural, this and that.
And honestly, it's just how you feel about yourself.
If it makes you feel good about yourself, then do it.
I am here for it.
If you wanna go have your whole entire body replaced
and have a whole new body put on you,
and that's what makes you inside the happiest person
and the most content with it.
It's your life, it's your body.
You're the one who has to live in it.
I am fully support that.
But I hate when you are, you just don't,
whatever you do choose to,
there shouldn't be hate on either side of that.
Whether you choose to stay natural or you choose to be
in control.
Also, like when we've talked this about,
cause you've talked about how you wanna get.
Oh, I want it all.
I would love to have it all.
But also it's not, but I would just,
my whole thing has been is I want you to want it for you
not to look like this person or that person
or for me or anything.
I want you to do it to make yourself feel better.
That's the key.
And that's what we've talked about.
I said, that's all I'm trying to make sure that.
If you want it, let's do it.
But also I want you to make sure it's for you
and not for everyone else.
Well, unfortunately I'm too scared.
So I'll never get it done.
And I have a lot of health problems.
And every time I have surgery, I just about die.
So I have not yet been able to justify
just an electoral surgery, elective surgery
to just get something that I don't necessarily need
and then dying because I have children.
And that's kind of where I'm at with it.
People just assume that you don't have the money
or you don't, there's this reason or that reason.
And it doesn't matter what your reason is.
Whatever makes you the most happiest.
And right now that's.
You've definitely had some back reactions to anesthesia.
Yeah, I don't do well with anesthesia.
I don't do well with surgery.
So I just haven't really been able to justify
trying to risk it yet.
No one risk it yet.
I just, I'm not there yet, but I don't.
I mean, maybe, you know, that's the goal.
You know, maybe one day I'll get the nerve
and maybe one day I'll be cleared.
And maybe one day I'll be in a space that I will get.
Cause I do want, I need, I need, you know,
anything else that I do is other than like,
what I've been doing for the last five years,
skin and muscle repair.
And just, I've had four kids, I've lost 130 pounds.
I've been through some things,
but the only thing that's gonna fix any of it is surgery.
Going off of the back of that,
what have you done with your new body
to make you more comfortable in your new skin?
It's all fake until you feel it.
Has been a huge one that's kept me,
we've said that how many times I've said that.
We've said it a lot.
That's one of our other phrases.
They get to you feel it.
You aren't gonna always feel 100% great about your body.
It's really honestly been the hardest journey
that I've ever taken is learning to try
and love my body more.
And I feel like I've come very, very far
and I'm getting there.
But it's an every single day conscious journey
to remind just, there are gonna be a lot of days
where you just don't feel, compare yourself to everybody else.
I feel bad.
I'm comparing myself.
Especially in a club setting, naked.
In the swing.
And as a guy.
And yeah, we lost a shit ton of weight,
but I still have very much a dad bod.
Yeah.
And then I'm surrounded by guys that lift weights
four hours a day and are good for them.
But they look amazing.
But also, and that was a whole confidence.
It's hard not to compare yourself
with every other person.
And that's where I went was, well,
why would any woman wanna be with me
when this guy that looks like a model.
Yeah.
You have all these women with ginormous boobs
and BBLs are big right now.
So they have big old asses, big old boobs.
Everybody's got tiny tummy tuck waist and Botox
and extensions and the hard not to.
That's all, is you're not alone in the whole thing.
Very similar.
And not a lot of people talk about the guy side of it.
We hear a lot about the women's side of BBLs,
tummy tucks, boob jobs.
It's just hard in general not to compare yourself to.
All these different models.
But men have the same thing where it's in muscular,
super chiseled men.
And like I said, in the same situation
where you put the work in, it makes you feel good.
I'm here for it.
But I dealt with the personal,
where am I gonna fit in this space?
And so I had to.
Meet people, like meet people honestly is what did it do.
And I think what really helped us both is,
yeah with that we talked to people
and our personalities took over.
We gained confidence as we met these people.
Like oh they are like attractive.
Well the thing is when you start meeting people
and you start talking to these people,
they might look the perfect bodies and have all the things.
But a huge chunk of them turned out a lot of our friends
were also like bigger and went on a health journey
and lost a ton of weight and then went to the gym
and then got into that and then just went a different route.
And it turns out a lot of people,
and most of those people that look perfect
and have the chiseled bodies,
those people more than anyone else
are the people who are so self-conscious.
They are.
And they're just as worried about their bodies.
I remember having a conversation with one of our friends
and at that time he was.
Yeah one of our close friends.
Built.
He's a man.
And I remember joking around with him
and I said I couldn't have your body.
And he's what are you talking about?
I said I couldn't.
He's what do you mean?
I'm like I would be a trash person.
I'd be just like my.
Stay humble.
I'd be so cocky that like I'd be just,
no one would be able to handle me.
Like I'd be so arrogant.
Like I'd be annoying and everyone would hate me.
Everybody would hate me.
But he's looked at me, kind of laughed.
He's like so why do you have more confidence than me?
I'm like I don't know.
It's all in your head.
He's like cause I watch you.
He's like I watch you at the club or at secrets or wherever
and you're around, you're talking to girls,
you're dancing, having a great time.
He's like and I can't do any of that.
And I really didn't have an answer for him
except for it's just, you know you just fake it
till you can feel it.
That's a thing.
That's been our motto.
Yeah cause we don't, I don't feel it a lot of times
but you just gotta put your head up and.
It's a never ending struggle.
There are days when I wake up and I'm like yeah,
you're hot bitch, you got this.
But most of the rest of the days I don't understand.
Well a lot of times I.
What I'm thinking.
If I'm not feeling my body,
I compensate with how I dress.
Like I'll put on.
I was gonna say some tips for confidence
and feeling better about yourself is dress to rest
has been like a really good useful thing.
If you feel good about what you're wearing,
that helps you feel better about your body
and you see yourself and your body better.
Absolutely. It's a mental.
This is a whole, we always said our entire weight loss journey
has been a mental game.
95% of it has been mental and we've always said that.
It was very little diet.
Say our whole wellness journey period has been mental.
Like even when it comes to losing weight,
everybody on earth knows how to lose weight.
Everybody knows how to lose weight.
It's the simplest thing you would ever do
but is yet the hardest thing we have ever done
because it is a fight against your own brain.
Everyone knows how to do it.
Yeah, everybody knows how to do it.
But it's the hardest thing we ever did.
So hard doing it.
So I think it's, that just shows how everyone struggles with
self-image.
I think that's where the community really comes into play.
It's because we, I see it all the time.
We build each other up.
Yeah.
And it's one thing when I tell you you're beautiful,
you look amazing, you're hot, you're sexy.
But it hits different when a complete stranger tells you
you're so beautiful, you're hot, you're sexy.
Oh my God.
Like where'd you get that?
It hits different because you hear it from me all the time
and almost since we've been married for so long,
like you say, you've said it, like you have to say that.
And I don't.
Yeah.
But I say it and so it doesn't,
it doesn't hit in the same way as a complete stranger.
So the community really builds everybody else up.
When somebody's feeling down, you can see it.
Oh yeah.
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Once I learned that as we navigated the lifestyle,
I've began, you know, I started out at first
and I was so self-conscious about my assets
and all the things and that everybody else had that I didn't
and I was at my tiniest, so I was navigating that
because I had other side of it.
I was like too small and I started figuring that out.
And then we got, our bodies got comfortable.
We got comfortable and it was just hard to sustain.
It's very hard to sustain at the level that we were sustained.
We did for two solid years, pretty hardcore.
And it wasn't, we couldn't maintain that.
And so we eventually started getting more lax
and introducing more, you know, carbs and sugars back into.
And it is a very easy habit to get back to exactly.
You know exactly what you're doing wrong.
You know exactly what to not do.
And you still go back to exactly the way that it was.
And that's kind of where we're at right now.
That's kind of where our current journey is.
I've since gained about 30 pounds back.
So I'm still at 100 pounds loss, which is-
We're about the same.
Yeah, we're again, still navigating about the same.
And it's, I am always, I'm struggling to like
not be hard on myself for gaining 30 pounds back.
Cause like in the huge scheme of things,
I would have been perfectly happy with 30 pounds.
Yeah.
We never, when we started,
we never expected to lose that much weight.
Like you said, our goal was to lose 50 pounds.
And then our stretch goal was 75.
That was, yeah.
That was just to see if we could make it.
We almost doubled that.
I know, I know.
Which blows my mind.
But it becomes an addiction.
It does.
And you start seeing that number go down
and you say it becomes like a game that you play.
But part of it in people that are going through
like a health journey, I think it's almost
cause we were addicted to food.
It's like addiction replacement.
Yeah, we were foodies.
We just mentally just stopped.
Like instead of being addicted to food,
we were addicted to this lifestyle, this number.
It became.
And like this journey of how much weight can I lose?
That was not the most healthy thing.
And then we got to a point where like
our bodies wouldn't lose anymore.
Kind of just explained the argument.
And it's okay, this is where I am.
And then we started getting comfortable.
At that point we found swinging.
And so we were going out more.
We were eating out more.
We were drinking empty calories.
We were drinking more.
Cause we stopped drinking completely
for a year and a half.
Two years, yeah.
And yeah, we started drinking and sodas.
We're not drinkers.
We've never have been in our whole marriage.
We would have like one alcohol cup a day.
I was getting a sweet tea or a soda.
You're getting a soda, you know,
or we're getting a cocktail.
They came with Dr. Pepper.
Got hardcore addicted to Dr. Pepper.
I still am hardcore addicted to Dr. Pepper.
That's like the biggest nemesis.
Like, oh, it was just something where we just,
we gained a little bit back.
Yeah, and then we say, it's like we were saying,
it's easy to get back into old habits.
And again, I have to be mentally ready
and mentally checked in to quit things
and stop doing things.
And yeah, and so these past year has been a lot
of navigating that and getting back into the gym
and making better decisions.
And we're kind of trying to balance between living our life
and still being the foodies that we are
and enjoying good food.
And he went to culinary school.
He is, you know, he loves cooking.
I like to cook.
He's a chef, he cooks.
Like he does, and his best meals are always
the highest carbs and the highest sodium
and the highest sugars and the highest of all the things.
So it's been hard to try and navigate that
and traveling and kids and life and everything
and trying to, moderation has been learning how to,
you know, live with moderation and have, you know,
enjoy stuff and learning how to let yourself have it.
I think that's our newest journey is actually moderation
because we didn't have moderation.
Well, we lost weight, we didn't have moderation.
We let it cut everything out.
And it's not sustainable.
Like we couldn't.
That struggle with binge eating and eating disorders.
We, then we started going out and having a good time.
And then I think now it's for finding that,
we gotta find that happy medium.
Yeah, it's been like a year and a half or so
we've been really trying to learn how to allow,
when we go out and we have these event weekends and stuff,
we do let ourselves eat the pizza
and have all the carbs and sugars and all things.
And then, you know, we eat a good vegetable,
a good protein when we get home
and just learning how to make just better decisions.
I keep saying that it's not about a number.
It's not about a number.
Just try and make better decisions, drink more water,
eat, you know, just be conscious,
put the fork down in between bites
and just be aware of what you're putting into your body
and learning how to get back to that.
Because I do, I did felt amazing.
I felt at my best when I was actively in the gym
and eating well and everything, I did feel better.
I felt good about myself and I felt inside good, better.
So getting back to more of that and getting my butt back
in gear and getting back into the gym.
It's the hard part and then winter's coming,
sad season's coming, kind of the struggle.
So like I got, April's like my newest,
my newest goal is April and that's kind of what
we're shooting for since we have secrets coming up
and bathing suit season's around the corner.
Yeah, we've talked about that one.
The last two secrets I have finally,
I don't know, in the lifestyle in general,
I just don't care what people think about my body anymore.
Which shows, I'm getting there.
I love watching you just let go.
Especially secrets, I feel the most like,
when you first walk into, like with our lifestyle journey,
when we first walked in, it was content creation.
We walked straight into content creation swinging
and so a lot of the parties were smaller,
full of the most beautiful men and women, gorgeous.
And as we've navigated these last three years,
we've met people and like you were saying earlier,
the more you get to meet people,
the more you realize you're all struggling.
No one thinks, oh yeah, I'm a hundred and 10% perfect
and I am a 10 out of 10.
Every single person has normal bodies.
Every person's dealing with one stretch marks
or something that they're self-conscious about
or their nose or their chin or whatever.
Everybody has a something.
There's something that you're gonna be able to pick apart
from yourself and from others
and you just gotta stop caring
what everyone else thinks about your body.
It doesn't matter what they think about your body.
It doesn't matter what they think about your fupa
or whatever it is that you're having struggles with.
And now I've gotten to the point where I had secrets
the last two times.
I have been naked at times and I've been topless.
I was walking around in a spong with no top on last time.
I just stopped giving a shit what people think
about my stuff.
Love watching.
I have H.S. and I have a lot of issues there
and a lot of like that's where I'm a hundred percent
most self-conscious about is my H.S., my scarring and stuff.
And so I, but I just, there's nothing I can do about it.
It's my body.
I have the skin disease.
I have these veins.
I have these health issues and it is what it is.
And you know, I can't have surgery.
And also you either embrace it or you just side round
and you know, wear a paper sack and sit in the corner
for ever.
Just be sad and hate yourself.
Or you can just stop caring
what everyone else thinks about you
and take the top off and own what it is you do have
and it's your body and be proud of it and be,
be happy that you can be there at all.
And you're breathing and living and-
Living your best life there.
Living your best life and just be happy that you-
Yeah, I get that.
That you have a body to do it.
I mean, yeah.
That's what keeps me going.
I don't get naked very often in public,
but Seekers is a place that you might see me naked.
Yeah, the atmosphere's good.
Walking around.
The people around her.
You see all the normal bodies.
You see so many normal, regular, everyday average bodies.
And it's not, it turns out it's not all content creator
and the perfect little zip and tucked
and perfectly snipped bodies.
There is majority of the people in the lifestyle
are just normal, regular, average, everyday bodies.
And it's not always as you first see it.
Once you start actually meeting people
and you start exploring the different communities
in different places, the majority of people
are everyday average, normal people.
So if you're looking at lifestyle and I know,
like if you're thinking you can't be in the lifestyle
because you're not beautiful or perfect and it's amazing,
I promise you for one, you're beautiful.
I promise that.
I don't care who you are or what you look like.
You're beautiful.
And for two, it doesn't matter.
It really doesn't matter.
It's all how you feel.
It's all how you carry yourself.
It's all how you believe that you look.
And that's what everyone else will see, I promise you.
Well, and I've met women that are absolutely beautiful
on the outside, but are trash people.
And I didn't want to touch them with a 10-foot pole.
I can go the other way.
I can run away from them.
Same with men.
And then you find somebody that is still beautiful,
but not the supermodel.
Serious, societal norm.
And I'm way more attracted to those people than I am.
It's all about your personality
and who you are as a person and passion
and what you're passionate about and what you love
and just you.
And I, personally, I might be a weird one,
but I personally think somebody's imperfection.
It's our sex.
Yeah.
Yeah, it turns out most people are attracted to things
that are the quirks that you think are weird
or the things that aren't perfect.
Yeah, I love the imperfections.
Perfect.
Those are the things people actually end up liking
more about you.
I've learned about eyebrows now is like a huge thing,
which is cool for the girls with little pummies.
Eyebrows are like trending right now, which I do love.
I like that.
And yeah, and people are starting to just embrace,
erase these little imperfections.
And there's no such thing as perfect.
And we keep all aiming towards this perfection that is-
We're already there.
Unattainable, that doesn't exist.
And we're already there and you're beautiful and wonderful.
And as long as you believe that in your soul
and as long as you believe that you're a 10,
everyone's going to see you, it turns out.
Yeah.
I feel like that's a good spot to wrap it up.
I know, it went fast, real quick.
That's all I gotta say about that from now.
That's all I gotta say about that.
But coming up, we got-
We have a new event.
Yeah, we got New York's Eve in Atlanta
with Pineapples After Dark.
Yes, this episode, the details possibly
will be coming out in time, we're not sure.
Sometime in this week.
So in sometime this week, stay tuned
for all the socials, Instagram, especially,
look at my stories and I will be sure
as soon as I find out the information,
everything's kind of being wrapped up
and contracts are being signed
and everything is kind of being finished up.
And then we were going to find out all the information
about that any moment, we're just waiting
on the permission to drop all the information
and tickets and stuff being unveiled.
Where it's at, where-
It's in Atlanta area.
Yeah, it's in Atlanta.
And it's with Pineapples After Dark
and that's where we will be on New York's Eve.
That's where we will be.
And we'll have a link eventually.
And we'll have times, information,
more details coming up soon.
But definitely- It's fresh,
just new, it's fresh.
Definitely stay tuned.
If you are looking and you're in this
Southeastern USA area and you're looking
for a good group of human beings to hang out with
and to explore with and a good vibe, a good party,
a good, you know, just a good group of people.
Yeah, they are amazing.
Just such a good group of people.
If you're in that area or not
and you want to travel this area,
we're going to be there New Year's Eve.
So definitely recommend coming out
and checking that party out.
And then we got Secrets in April, but it is sold out.
We tried to tell everybody.
Yeah, we tried to tell-
We tried to get all of our friends there.
All of our friends were coming this time
and we finally got an entire-
They're like, we'll get it, we'll get it.
Huge group of people to come.
We'll get it, we'll get it.
Next week, this week.
One couple got tickets.
Yeah, we got one couple.
One couple got tickets.
The rest are all-
Cause they listened.
Yeah, of course.
No one believes us.
No one listens to us.
I was going to sell out so fast.
We told them I was going to sell out quickly.
But if you are, there is a wait list.
So if you want to get in on the wait list,
DM us or email us, get in hold of us.
And we can get you all that information
for the wait list.
And I'm sure there'll be cancellations.
It's six months from now.
Yeah, there will.
Things happen and rooms will open up.
Rims will open up.
But that's why when we tell you, you jump on it.
But yeah, that's what we've got going on.
It's winter season.
The FED season is coming.
So we don't have very much swinger stuff going on right now.
But we, so winter is when we tend to spontaneously-
We do.
We end up spontaneously deciding we're going on things.
And now like the last two weekends,
like we've had friends in our neck of the woods.
We've went to parties locally with them.
And we're staying close to home.
Winter, we do that.
We stay close to home.
And we do a lot of bonfires and-
We want to get some health stuff taken care of.
Yeah, I've got a few health procedures
that I would like to get taken care of
and some surgeries that I have to do.
I have no choice with this summer winter
I want to kind of do.
While it's cold and sad season.
So I guess-
Whereas we'll take care of our bodies.
Jeez.
Oh, we got to get ready for New Year's Eve.
That'd be good for that.
We're going to be there.
It's going to be so much fun.
I'm so glad you get to come.
It's like a Tuesday.
Yeah.
That'd be fun.
That'd be good.
We got lucky this year.
And yeah, that's about all we got to say about that.
Come join us back again on Wednesday,
every Wednesday on How Couple Chronicles.
Make sure that you're liking, sharing, reviewing,
giving us all the feedback we love hearing from you.
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make sure that you'll DM us, email us.
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and doing all the things.
Because we are a baby podcast for Brandy
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and all of your friends to know about it.
And yeah, we'll see you here next Wednesday
on the How Couple Chronicles.
It's not that serious.
Don't make it weird.
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