Courtney saw every specialist, got told her labs were normal and to go on an SSRI, then cut alcohol, sugar, gluten and dairy for three weeks and lost nothing. We talk about what finally worked, the two years she spent waiting, and the week her dad died in the middle of it.
I get some version of this DM every single week. My labs came back normal but I feel like garbage. Cool, so now what.
That was Courtney. She watched my stories for two full years before she ever booked a call with me, and I want to be careful here because I do think women have to feel ready, but I also sat across from her on that first call knowing exactly how those two years had gone. Her husband physically getting her out of bed at 7am so she could get two toddlers out the door. An allergist, a neurologist, a sleep study, an MRI of her head, a full hormone panel from her gyno. Everything normal. The recommendation was an antidepressant and less stress.
So she did what every high performing woman does when she's told nothing is wrong. She tried harder. Cut alcohol, sugar, gluten and dairy for all of January, HIIT four or five days a week, and two and a half weeks later not a tenth of a pound had moved. Then she started the actual protocols and dropped 17 pounds in the same amount of time. That number is not the point. The point is that effort was never her problem, and she'd spent years quietly concluding it was.
The part I did not expect was where this conversation went. Her dad's cancer came back in month four and he died ten days after they put him on hospice, and what she did that week is one of the most honest things anyone has said on this show. We also get into what she says she regrets most about waiting, which made both of us emotional, and the thing she now brings on every single trip that she used to make fun of other people for.
If you're currently in year two of thinking about this, this one is for you.