Sherri: "I just started walking"

I was in the hospital for the last month of my pregnancy because I was so sick. I had to be monitored constantly to keep my son alive and viable. I was pretty obese going into the pregnancy, so that played a role - I had gestational diabetes and it damaged one of my kidneys. I might have had diabetes before I got pregnant, but I didn't know because I didn't get check ups. Then I got COVID after, which further damaged my kidney, and I lost function in one of my kidneys completely.

I required dialysis every week initially and was told I would probably need a kidney transplant eventually. Doctors also told me I'd need insulin for my whole life.

My brother died. He had already had his leg amputated from diabetes, and gained a lot of weight after that. He was also a single dad with two girls, and with the stress of that he was really sick. He got an infection and his body didn't heal the way other people's bodies do, because of his diabetes. His heart was too weak for dialysis, and his body couldn't take it - so he passed away.

That was really the biggest wake up call for me. I realized that I was also obese and I was also on insulin (at that time) and I was thinking: "Wow. I have children too." I saw what his girls went through, losing the only parent they had, and I didn't want my kids to have to go through that as well.

My whole family is overweight. My parents, my siblings - we all struggled with our weight for as long as I can remember. But now, they've seen what I've done, and they're doing it too. My niece and my sister have both lost weight. I'm able to help them now, and give them guidance. They've seen that I did it, and that helps them believe they can do it too.

I joined the rec center, but I didn't know how to lift weight properly, and I had no idea what I was doing. Anthony (co-owner of CrossFit Postal), Tess (gym manager), and Kimber (coach) used to come to the restaurant I work at, Hokkaido. They said "you should come to CrossFit." I said, there's no way! I looked it up, and it looked so intense and intimidating. But then I texted Jackson (co-owner), and he told me: "CrossFit is for everyone. You can scale anything. You just show up, and we will help you."

So then I signed up for Foundations with Kimber.

It has changed my mental health. I was such a push-over. I realized I would put everybody first, and try to keep the peace all the time, and hold everything in. Pushing myself at the gym, I have realized, "I am worth it! I am worth being happy too. And I can make myself happy."

Doing things for yourself feels good - and I never did that before. I would eat when I was stressed, and I didn't have good coping mechanisms.

Being at Postal. The community there - everyone is SO supportive. There were days I would be there, working out, and thinking "I can't do this." Tina, Anthony, Tess - they would say to me: "I'm proud of you. You're doing great." And it's not just them, it's everyone at the gym, being so motivating and supportive. I didn't have that support elsewhere. My support is the community at Postal - without that, I would have failed in losing weight, just like I had so many times before. It's really like a family. I've never met anybody at Postal who was not supportive, and didn't hype each other up. It's such a welcoming community.

Doctors told me a little bit about diet, mostly to decrease my sugar and processed food consumption. But nobody gave me hope. As a doctor, I think you should give your patients hope. Doctors told me that I would need insulin for the rest of my life, and that I would probably need a kidney transplant. They said I would always need dialysis. They told me I needed to change my diet and exercise, and that this could maybe lower my dose of insulin, but they didn't tell me it would be possible to stop all of my medicines. I think they didn't believe that I could do it, or that I would do it. When I started to really get better, they were seriously shocked. They asked: "What are you doing?"

I remember my blood pressure was 117/70 without medicine and they were shocked it was like that without medication. I hope it made them re-evaluate how they think about things, so that the next person who comes to them in my position, that they can give them a little more hope.

Now, we are talking about me maybe stopping dialysis completely. I used to have it every week and now I only have it every six weeks.

I've had doctors who were really nasty about the need to lose weight, and I've had doctors who were compassionate and straight forward. As a doctor, that's a really hard line. Everyone is going to respond differently to different ways of delivering things. For one person, you might need to be really straight forward, and another person might need a more compassionate delivery.

That's hard, but from my experience, losing weight is mostly inside your own self. Doctors just need to support this to help patients understand that their weight and sickness isn't written in stone - patients need to know they can heal. Doctors should tell people, "this is what you have to do" and give them steps and resources to get there. And I think doctors should send more people to nutritionists.

A lot of people just don't know what they're doing wrong. They don't know what they're putting in their bodies. I was one of those people. I grew up eating things I didn't know were bad for me, and I used to live in the drive through. Now, with the problems happening in our country, low income people are the hardest hit. Eating healthy is more expensive.