This isn’t going to be your typical I was “60 pounds” overweight, made a smart decision, and worked my ass off to lose it type of article. I was 80 pounds overweight the last time I looked at the scale and probably more at my starting point. At age 30 I woke up one day, a new nurse, a new mom, and a new newlywed. I had let myself go because for once in my life I was comfortable and I didn’t feel the need I had to impress anyone every day of my life. A string of bad relationships in the past had me in a s**tty mindset of I had to be 120 pounds and look good or they’d leave me. Do you know that feeling? Abused. Physically, mentally, emotionally. It was exhausting, but for the first time in my life I was truly happy and the weight piled on because I was too busy caring for my family instead of myself.
I bought a cute little dress to wear to my son’s baptism and it wasn’t until I saw the baptism pictures is when I had the “OMG” moment of just how heavy I had gotten.
I was working full time while my husband worked away on the rigs. I hated dragging my son out of bed at 4:30 am, 5 days a week to drive an hour to work one way just to drop him off at the sitter. I was spending more money paying other people to raise my son than what it would cost to stay home and raise him myself. I was not happy with the situation but we did what we did to try and survive and have a few extra bucks in the bank in case of emergencies. I didn’t have time to workout. I barely had time to cook a decent dinner. Most of the time it was me with a one-year-old so as you can imagine, I grabbed the easiest thing that would fill me up for a one-person meal. Processed, store-bought, carb-loaded, chemical loaded foods that were cheap and easy. That’s what I lived on for the first year of my son’s life because as I said, it was easy!
I looked for an easy way out. I had spent hundreds on diet pills and programs that worked a little bit but not fast enough for me. As I said I didn’t have time to exercise. I didn’t feel like cooking after being away from home for 12 hours a day. I was just exhausted!
I ran into a friend of mine from school one day and she looked freaking amazing! She was taking a “bee pollen” supplement and lost almost 100 pounds with really no effort. I took the chance, tried it myself, lost 58 pounds in the process and people started noticing. As a nurse, I enjoyed helping and “caring” for other people. That’s just what I do on the day to day. So I decided that this magic pill could help a ton of people just like it helped me, I could make a little extra money, and maybe not have to work so hard away from home and could spend more time raising my son like I wanted. I made the decision right there to make this a little side gig and I started selling like crazy. This did give me the ability to help thousands of men and women and stay home with my son but it didn’t last.
2012. The Fall of Bee Pollen.
I was a nurse. A nurse unknowingly selling a supplement that contained hidden ingredients. HIDDEN ILLEGAL INGREDIENTS. Sibutramine. (Sibutramine, formerly sold under the brand name Meridia among others, is an appetite suppressant that has been discontinued in many countries. Until 2010, it was widely marketed and prescribed as an adjunct in the treatment of obesity along with diet and exercise.)
I was scared s**tless to tell you the truth. Does this sort of thing happen? How could we not know about this? Why was that ingredient in MY BEE POLLEN? While all these answers went unanswered by distributors, we were heartbroken to say the least. But the next month we still continued to see sales of Zi Xiu Tang Bee Pollen even though these had been recalled with the Ultimate Formula Bee Pollen! How? What the heck is going on?
So I contacted a distributor out of Jersey who told me some s**t story of how Zi Xiu Tang Success was making their own Zi Xiu Tang and it was in no way shape or form the same stuff she had. I was gullible. I was looking for that magic pill. I visualized having an answer for all my customers who were upset about the bee pollen being taken away. I had it AGAIN. So, in January 2013 I started selling again and I was ecstatic. People were losing weight, but not as fast as they did with the first formula. Not as consistent as it was with the first product. But losing nonetheless.
Fast forward a year and a half later and guess what…. those pills I was selling were recalled AGAIN. AYFKM?! I thought these were “different”. I thought these weren’t the same pills that were recalled two years ago? So not only did I let my customers down once, I had done it TWICE in two years. I wanted answers.
I’ll never forget the day. FDA reports Zi Xiu Tang Bee Pollen contains hidden ingredients. RECALL. Frantically I contacted my distributor. No answer. Check website. 404 Error. No such website. Whaaattttt is going on? Vanished. Just vanished and left every single one of us hanging and I was LIVID.
So continue on to stay at home I was selling everything and anything I could to get SOMETHING into my customer’s hands. But I just didn’t feel right about it. I didn’t believe in these products like I once did with Zi Xiu Tang and Ultimate Formula.
I wanted to be able to help my customers, struggling women like me, find instant weight loss and improved health again while supporting my family from home and living my best life.
I was struggling. Struggling to find THAT magic supplement again. I regained almost 30 pounds from stress eating, not sleeping, coffee drinking all day to stay awake to search for that pill. I wasn’t finding any supplements that worked for everyone. That meant I wasn’t able to help them or myself for that matter.
To make things worse, I felt terrible. Ashamed. People were furious. Furious that the pill is no longer available. Furious that it contained illegal ingredients. Furious that they couldn’t take it anymore. I had people on both sides of the spectrum. I had zero answers from the FDA after several attempts at getting lab reports so I had concrete answers to tell my customers. I felt like a failure. A failure to myself and the thousands of others who were counting on me to find SOMETHING.
I had hit a wall. I gained the weight back, I was no longer able to stay home with my son, I had to return to work part-time so I could make ends meet. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love my job as a nurse but not as much as I loved helping women feel more confident in their own skin. I put my dreams of staying home on hold and almost called it quits. Almost.
The Epiphany: That’s when it hit me. I’m a nurse. I know how the body works. That’s my JOB. I could figure this out. I was looking at things from the wrong point of view. I started researching. Day and night. Researching ingredients, chemicals, styles of eating. I loved it all. I brainstormed for months. I started BUILDING supplements to solve specific struggles that we faced when it came to losing weight and keeping it off. I knew what I needed but I was in no way, shape, or form a chemist. I could control what I put in those supplements. I could mimic the results of the old China junk with USA made supplements. I could control the testing. I could have the reports in my hand of what I’m selling to people to help them lose weight. So instead of buying junk to sell, I made the decision to make my own with the help of privately hired chemists. 6 of them to be exact. I had my own team of scientists and as a team, we made an AMAZING line of supplements.
Through the research process of ingredients, I found that the mindset I needed for “magic pills” does not exist. It takes more. Rebuilding your cellular machinery in your body can happen. People needed to stop thinking that the magic comes in a capsule. They needed to learn about a natural fat burning process called ketosis. They needed to learn this so they could finally use “supplements” as a tool instead of a crutch while learning what their body craves to keep the weight off long term. As a result of this discovery and epiphany in my own head, I enrolled in several online coaching courses for health coaching, keto coaching, and primal health coaching and lifestyles while living the ketogenic life myself. I started teaching hundreds of women in my community the same concept I followed with strides of success. Suddenly I was learning more about hormones, my own body, my own anxiety/depressive disorders, and gut health and re-educating others who struggle with the same things I did. I re-lost 30 more pounds by the way. Feel amazing and I AM the product of my coaching.
My plan was to teach everyone how to easily start seeing results. So I started a brand new company, TS Transformations, a whole new supplement line specifically formulated to help with struggles that my customers had faced when it came to losing weight, how to take supplements as a tool and not a crutch and how to keep the weight off long term.
I ran into conflict once again. People still wanted results without much effort. They didn’t want to change their eating habits. They wanted to eat whatever they want and still lose weight. I had to educate them on why they needed a total lifestyle transformation. That their fears and struggles were coming from what we’ve been taught our entire lives about weight loss. Fat is bad. Carbs are good. I had to teach them why they are getting sicker and sicker and not losing weight and not getting healthy. Why the doctor is putting them on more and more meds each time they go and why they fall off the wagon more and can’t keep weight off long term.
I ended up getting so frustrated I started to call out the lies we’ve been told all these years. I put my nursing experience to work to inform people from a nurse’s standpoint plus my triple coaching certificates to alert people of why our bodies were not made to process chemicals and pharmaceutical meds and why they are getting sicker and sicker.
I chose to call it “TS Transformations Total Lifestyle Change”. I thought if i could create something that would make it possible for women to see significant results in 3–6 weeks and to show women how amazing they could feel, lose 10–25 pounds in the process and see long term lasting results we’d all be happy.
After another 14 months of researching, 8 months of testing products, tweaking products and 16 hour days, I created a system. A total lifestyle transformation system that could be used by ANYONE who is really struggling to lose weight. I can now confidently get to the bottom of metabolic woes in a few short weeks. I then started letting other women looking for an easy way out of struggling with weight loss, self-esteem, self-love in on the program. I let use my system with one on one coaching.
As a result of all of this, I was able to get to the bottom of their metabolic insufficiencies and dramatically dial in their appetite, cravings, mood swings, waistline and yes, even that darn scale. I’ve developed products and programs and services that work although they are off the beaten path a bit.
After creating TS Transformations Total Lifestyle Change, I was not only able to feel amazing while maintaining weight, building muscle, and have more energy then I knew what to do with, I’ve also been able to stop taking anxiety and depression meds, I was able to stop self-sabotaging myself when it comes to constant weight flux, and I was able to stop the negative thoughts of being worthless because I can now control my cravings, use supplements as a tool instead of a crutch, teach women the same exact transformation system and see amazing results in 6 weeks flat.
It was a hard lesson learned in the beginning but a beautiful ending in so many ways. I cannot wait to teach more women the simple steps to success!
