How Joy Tillman, A Single Mom with Four Kids, Lost 100 Pounds While Going To Nursing School 

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Teaser: On today's episode...It's doable. And the more knowledge that I've gained and the more like, um, I guess, work that I've put into it on learning how to eat healthier and learning, you know, shortcuts to being able to eat healthier. It is doable. Even when you're busy, even when you're a single mom, there are ways to eat healthy and quickly on a budget. Prepare yourself. Okay, let's go!

Clarence Fisher: This week, we're talking with joy Tillman, a busy nurse, single mom of four kids who lost 100 pounds about the challenges she faced along her journey and what finally worked for her. In our conversation, she shares the secret to eating healthy for busy people who are on a budget. She actually gives specific examples of things that you can eat, how she combats a bad body image. And while I had a nurse on the line, I had to ask what is the best way for heavier people to survive COVID? Don't go anywhere. Welcome to the party!

Intro: Welcome to the 100 Pound Party Podcast with Big Juice, uncovering weight loss, tips, tools, and strategies used by everyday people to lose 100 pounds or more and keep it off for good.

Clarence Fisher: All right. Welcome to the hundred. I don't even know if I'm gonna say hundred Pound Party Podcast or the 100 Pound Party Podcast, if I want to eight, but welcome. I have no idea what I'm doing with this thing right now, but what I do Joy, welcome to the podcast.

Joy Tillman: Hi Clarence. Thank you.

Clarence Fisher: You are the very first guest on,

Joy Tillman: Oh my gosh. I'm the inaugural hundred pound party podcast. Oh, wow. I'm so honored.

Clarence Fisher: I don't even know how to spell that, but it's but you are that and

Joy Tillman: I N A U G U R A L I think.

Clarence Fisher: Oh, okay. I think that was a rap song. Wouldn't I N a no, not

Joy Tillman: Exactly. I think it was, that was independent. I know that one.

Clarence Fisher: All right. Alright. All right. So, uh, it's gonna be a party, you know, and I have no idea just like a party. I have no idea. What's kind of gonna go on. The purpose of this is to just, I just wanna know the real stories of people who have lost significant amounts weight. Our milestone is 100 pounds. And the way that the whole a hundred pound thing got started was I needed to lose 150 pounds to even get back down to what most people consider normal or what doctors consider normal. And I started off trying to do that and then quickly, you know, I had some success and then quickly, you know how it goes like you bounce back. And I was like, I can't do this by myself. And so we started the, or I started this little Facebook group, which you are in and was like, Hey, there's gotta be other people. So anyway, we snowball to this and I'm like, you were actually the very first person in the group to lose a hundred pounds.

Joy Tillman: Oh, okay.

Clarence Fisher: Did you know that?

Joy Tillman: No, I didn't.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah.

Joy Tillman: I know he had a, there was somebody else, maybe it was a cousin or something who was doing really well. They were looking great. They were posting pictures and stuff. I didn't know how much they'd lost though,

Clarence Fisher: Man. That's what happens though. It's like, okay, we're doing great. Doing great, doing great. Doing, doing whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, and then we don't hit it. So you, no, you were the, you were the first and even when you did hit it was funny when you hit the a hundred pounds and you, you posted like, all right, Hey guys, I just wanna let you know, I did it

Joy Tillman: Because I didn't trust myself to keep it off. And I still don't. I mean, I'm still, I had gotten to like 120 or more pounds gone and now I've gained a good 20 some back. So I'm fluctuating right around that hundred pound mark. Some days I'm over it. Some days I'm back under it.

Clarence Fisher: you're like, why?

Joy Tillman: You know what I mean? So that's the thing it's like, I know I've lost hundreds of pounds over the years. We all have people. Who've struggled. I think like you and I, I don't wanna speak for you, but people who've struggled like me. I have lost hundreds of pounds over the years. I've never lost a hundred pounds, but I mean, I have struggled with my weight for the majority of my adult life. And I'm 42 years old now. And so I wasn't an overweight kid, but man, I feel like right after I had my first kid, I started putting it on and never could kind of get back on track after that. And I had my first kid very young. I was 19. So it's been a roller coaster of weight and, and loving my body along the way. And those are things I still work on. So,

Clarence Fisher: And you were not an overweight kid?

Joy Tillman: No, I was not an overweight kid. I was not okay. I was not athletic. I was not fat though. Like I look, I thought I was fat because I was a teenage girl, but I look back at those pictures and I was, and I had a dad that was not supportive. He would, I think it started when I was a teenager and he would kind of like poke my belly and say, you need to do some situps, you need to run some laps. And I was not overweight. I was not, I probably weighed, I was, you know what, I'm five, fiveish in that area. And I was like one twenties, one 30s and that's within a healthy BMI in every range. Did I have muscle mass and tone? And did I have a figure? I thought I did. Okay. But you know what I mean? Like athleticism was important to him and I was not an athlete and my brothers and sisters were. And so I don't think, I think as with most parents, they just do stupid things and don't realize it, trying to be helpful. And he was, that was part of the start of my really bad body image, you know? So

Clarence Fisher: Mm-hmm

Joy Tillman: And I still carry to this day.

Clarence Fisher: Isn't that crazy? How that happens. How were you able to, well, I know both of you and I have done a lot of, mental work and, and I think that's kind of what you end up having to go through and do, but when you trace that back, does it help you to know, it's kind of a side note, but does it help you to be able to go back and say, okay, this, this is when it started.

Joy Tillman: It helps you with knowledge, but getting your head knowledge down into your heart and soul is not an easy process.

Clarence Fisher: Mm-hmm .

Joy Tillman: And it's not a permanent process. That's one of the things that I've learned, coz I've done a lot of self-help over the years. I have done some, all kinds of counseling, some really good Christian counseling. I've done the journey training where you and I met. I've done Celebrate Recovery, I've done the walk to a Maus. I've done you know what I mean? Like I've done so many things to like learn how to love myself, holy and unconditionally. And it's still, it's a continual work in process. It is a choice I have to make to get up and either love myself or not love myself on a daily basis. So,

Clarence Fisher: Hmm. That is so real because I mean, it is a constant battle, which is like at what point. So if, if you're kind of going through this and you know, you hit body image, you hit steam in that and all that. So at what point do you realize, okay, this is not going to get like, I, I need to make a change in your physical body. Like at what point did you say, Hey, I'm going to, I, I need to lose weight and then I'm gonna go down that road. Cause you said you've lost hundreds, which most of us, and you can speak for us. We've lost hundreds of pounds. Yeah. Do you remember when that aha was?

Joy Tillman: Yeah, I was pregnant with my daughter who is now 19 and I did not, I don't think I realized the amount of, cause I was at a pretty healthy, I mean, I had gained a little weight when I got married. I don't remember what I was when I got married, but then I had gained a little weight afterwards and I wanna say I was around 150 or 170 when I got pregnant with my son and I got up, you know, I gained the normal 30 to 40 pounds with a kid and then I lost that and I actually got under it and I was back like 150s to 160s or something, which was technically, probably about 10 or 15 pounds overweight for me out of your, if we're talking BMI, which I don't love, but we'll talk BMI cuz it's easy.

Joy Tillman: But anyway, and then I, somehow I don't, I, I didn't realize that I had gained weight between having him and getting pregnant with her there's there's four years apart. So she was about three when I got pregnant with her and he turned four right before I had her. And the last she was due in December, December 16th, I had her November 20th after spending a week in the hospital because I put on bed, been put on bedrest for like high blood pressure. I never actually got preeclamptic, but I had been on bedrest at home. And then my blood pressure was high. Again, they couldn't control it with meds. They admitted me to the hospital. They tried for a few days, couldn't get it down. And the OB was finally like, you can't go home. We've either gotta deliver her or you're gonna stay in the hospital.

Joy Tillman: And this was four weeks early. So we went over pros and cons. I had her four weeks early and my sister who's also struggled with weight, had been doing weight Watchers and been very successful. And she said, I'm getting you a, that was like her gift to me. She was like, we're gonna weight Watchers. We're gonna get this weight off of you. We're both gonna lose weight together. And I'm like, okay, perfect. So I did and I was a very successful, I lost, I think I was around 235 when I started weight Watchers and I lost like 50 pounds in a short amount of time, like six months or something. It came off super easy. The first time I actually gave it a go and then I like gained weight. I had gotten up right around 200 pounds again and got pregnant with my son and then my last three kids or two years and two months apart.

Joy Tillman: So I spent the last several years of my marriage, either pregnant or nursing and never really lost the weight again. And then I went through a divorce, gained weight, and then I went through nursing school as a single mom to four young children. My weight went up and down. I would like, I've done everything from, you know, the weight Watchers to Plexus. Let's throw any, any MLM thing that you can think of I've probably done it. Oh my gosh. I bought H C G from Canada and mixed it and injected it into myself.

Clarence Fisher: Did you really?

Joy Tillman: Yes I did. Yes I did. I was in, I almost did that. I was in nursing school, so I knew everything as a nursing student. I knew it was safe. And anyway, so yeah, I did that and ate very little. I was like, I don't know.

Joy Tillman: It was like an apple for breakfast and a salad with no dressing for lunch. And I don't know some, maybe a piece of chicken for dinner. Like you're eating very little. Like I don't even think I cleared 800 calories, but of course I lost weight. But then as soon as I quit doing that, I gained it back. I just did your I've done diet pills. I've done just your hardcore. Let's just exercise and eat. Right. And everything can be successful, but it's gotta be. I mean, this is something I think we all know by now. You've gotta be able to stick with it. My sister who had, who lost weight with weight Watchers gained weight back again. She has been very successful with keto. A lot of people have a very negative connotation to keto. It's been wonderful for her. She was a diabetic on, I wanna say like a hundred units of insulin a day.

Joy Tillman: I could be over exaggerating, but she takes no insulin anymore. She's been able to either come off or cut back cholesterol and blood pressure medication. And she's running again training for like half marathons and marathons and she sticks and a half years older than me, you know? So, so ketos been very effective for her and she has found a way to live on it. She loves it. She doesn't miss the carbs. She's found substitutes for things she likes, you know? And so, and she'll cheat or whatever every now and then, but usually she feels like crap and gets right back on it, you know, know. So her, with her insulin resistance, that's been very effective for her. And like I said, anybody can lose weight on anything as long as you're in a calorie deficit. And so it's just a matter of finding what's gonna work for you.

Clarence Fisher: That that's a, I mean, you hit on a lot there. I mean, I think after we try so many things, it does come down to probably just out of a pure exhaustion, trying to figure out what works for you. You know, you come to this realization that, okay. Weight Watchers, wasn't it. And then this wasn't it. And that wasn't it. And this wasn't it. And that wasn't it. You know what, I'm just tired. Like what, what, what, what did work? And that I had the least chance of falling off, you know what I mean? So like, like what, what can I do?

Joy Tillman: Yeah. Well, what I did, what to lose the a hundred pounds sort of to lose the a hundred pounds was I had gastric bypass. Now here's the thing with gastric bypass. People think it's the easy way out or whatever. It, it is very, defeatable a lot of people have the vertical sleeve gastrectomy or the gastric bypass like I had, or, you know, there's different things. There's actually, when you get into that world, you find out there's actually several surgeries, not just a couple that we all talk about that you can have, but you can gain the weight back on there. I'm living proof. And you can also, and like, you know, when I went through that, I had hit, I had hit a high, I had hit like my highest ever. And I was like, okay, something's gotta change. I was probably, I say prediabetic, but probably would've needed to be put on Metformin or something.

Joy Tillman: Had I not had the surgery, I had high blood pressure and I was like 39. And I was like, this is not okay. And I, and everything I had tried, I tried multiple times. So like, you know, I had a lot of success on Weight Watchers. I tried it again. I never could get back to that success. There was a point after the journey when I was working out five and six days a week, like hard workouts, like CrossFit style workouts with Mike Watkins in, at his group. And really I felt like eating pretty well. You know what I mean? And it was just such a struggle. And, and I like, again, I would have some success, but then it was like, I would hit this plateau where I could not break through. And then, you know, I had some like bouts of depression where I just totally didn't take care of myself and my weight skyrocketed.

Clarence Fisher: And that's when I finally kind of hit rock bottom. It was covered by my insurance. And so I just bit the bullet and did it. And I had lost a good amount of weight, but I hadn't hit the a hundred pounds. And after you're a couple of years out, they kind of let you know, you kind of lost the effects of the surgery. Of course, if you have that surgery, any of those, you're gonna lose weight rapidly in the beginning because you cannot eat. You cannot eat. And so it's, it's an extreme calorie deficit, but then the inflammation and the swelling goes down and you're able to eat more and more and more. And I can eat a pretty much normal meal now. I can't eat what I did before, because previously I could probably put away a whole large pizza. If I wanted to. Now I, now I can eat like a normal, what a normal person would eat. You know what I mean? So my stomach is to the size of probably normalness at this point.

Clarence Fisher: Surgery is temporary?

Joy Tillman: It's not temporary per se. I mean, for instance, last night I ate, I make chicken. My kids love it. It's their favorite meal. It's not healthy. It's literally cheese spaghetti and chicken , but it's their favorite meal right. So I'll make it for 'em every now and then my daughter had been asking for it. I've been gone a lot. And so I haven't been even home to cook for them. They've been fending for theirselves a lot. And so I was like, yeah, I'll make the hotel chicken on Tuesday when you're off work. And so we had it with little Texas toast, garlicy breads or whatever that you buy in the freezer section. And I was able to eat a piece of that and a piece of toast, which right after my surgery, I could not have eaten any of that. I couldn't even eat rice right after my surgery. I mean, you can eat like you, you do broth and then you do soft foods and then you do, but yeah. So your stomach will stretch. You can totally like gain all the weight back by eating inappropriately. So yeah, it's not, it's not full, it's not failproof, you know what I mean? So,

Clarence Fisher: So let me ask you this, because I've always wondered. And you know, when I was like 330 or something like that, I could have probably, well, I, no, no doubt I could have qualified for the surgery. And I just kinda thought about it and kept going back and forth, back and forth and back and forth until I got till now. I just, I wouldn't even qualify. I don't think cuz you have to be what you gotta be a, do you have to be a hundred pounds to even qualify for that?

Joy Tillman: No. Well, they look at your BMI and I wanna say your BMI has to be 40 or it has to be 30 something with comorbidity. So like sleep apnea, high blood pressure, diabetes, those kind of things.

Clarence Fisher: Oh really? I didn't know. Uh it was 30 something with

Joy Tillman: Yeah. Yeah. If you have, uh, I think two comorbidities and also it depends on your insurance and it depends on how risky you are because you can probably go to Mexico and get it done when you're not even overweight. So there

Clarence Fisher: My thought was was if you have to eat and exercise, then why go there?

Joy Tillman: Yeah.

Clarence Fisher: So what was your, you know, and I, and I've, I've heard, I've had friends that say, Hey, that's the only way that I was gonna force myself to change. Is that how you felt or

Joy Tillman: Well, okay. So when I originally, I'll tell you, I can remember the exact process I had. I was calling to make an appointment. You just have to get in for like an evaluation. First, you have to go to like a seminar and then you have to go in for like your first eval or whatever. And I was having a really hard time because I felt like one of their doctors got really ill. And so they were having to shuffle people around or something. And I kept, they kept having to reschedule my appointment and it was like two to three weeks before they could get me in for an appointment. And I finally was like, you know what, maybe this is a sign that I shouldn't even do this. And the person I was on the phone with, she was like, let me let you talk to one of our navigators or something like that.

Joy Tillman: And so I talked to this guy and he was like, and he pretty much laid out my weight loss journey, what I had done with how I had tried everything. And it worked well the first time it went the second and third time or fifth time, or however many times it didn't work for me anymore. And I, and again, like I said, I felt like I had worked really hard and been really diligent and, and like, I couldn't get out of the two hundreds, you know, I'd be like two twenties, two thirties. And you know, and I'm not a huge girl. I'm 5 5", 5 6", you know? I mean, that's where I that's, I'm not, you know what I mean? Like what's considered a healthy rate. Weight range for me is 120 to one 150.

Clarence Fisher: mm-hmm .

Joy Tillman: And so even working my hardest and exercising five and six days a week, sometimes two and three workouts a day and eating what I felt like was pretty healthy. I just could not break through there's and I don't know if, if guys are like this, but most women have like a number on the scale that if they could just see that number for me, it's, if I could just get under 200 pounds, I would be happy. I wouldn't be happy and I wouldn't be done, but that's like been like a goal of mine for so long. And so I just, I was just literally like, I don't know what else to do at this point. I feel, I felt like I had tried everything. I felt like nothing worked. And so I did this and, and honestly it's a major surgery and I had some not, I wouldn't say, but I struggled with the pre-surgery diet and I was really dehydrated and my kidneys took a little bit of a hit and it was kind of scary.

Joy Tillman: I was a little worried, you know, it was literally, it was like I said, mostly a hydration issue. But as a nurse, when I looked at my labs, I was like, if I saw these labs with no other information, I would think we needed to be talking about dialysis for this patient. You know? And so, so then like, you know, I was telling them in the hospital, I was like, could you please just give me some fluids, please just gimme some fluids. And they acted like that was, I don't know, they just didn't wanna do it. So they gave me like a liter of fluids and then he was like, you can stay another night if you want. And I'm like, no, that's okay. I'll go home and take care of it myself. And I did, I went home and took care of it myself, you know?

Joy Tillman: So, and you know, two weeks later I did, my checkup did labs. Everything was fine, but I mean, you know, that's something to take into consideration is that there are no, you know what I mean? Like just do like doing the HCG from Canada, who knows, who knows what you're injecting in your body going and taking diet pills. Those are not a healthy thing to do, but they work for people. If you're otherwise healthy, having a major surgery, you really need to take into consideration whether or not have you really exhausted at all your efforts. And like I said, I lost over a hundred pounds, but I still hadn't gotten to where I wanted. I still wanted to lose another like 30ish pounds or so. And then COVID hit, I haven't been in the gym and over a year I've been traveling. So there's been a lot more eating out, a lot more eating on the road, living out of hotel rooms. And so I tried to come home as much as possible. And I'm in school full time this year I have three teenagers so, so I've gained weight back. I've gained a, a good 20 to 30 pounds back then now I need to like get back off again. And so it's just, you know what I mean? Like there's no perfect scenario. There's no one size fits all.

Clarence Fisher: That's what I was gonna ask you is I know you're a nurse and you've got children now, you know, and like how it's, it's crazy. Like, I don't have any of those stressors in my life and it's still difficult. So yeah. So how the heck did do, did you lose, you know, I know the bypass and everything, but like, how do you, how do you eat? Well, especially like with kids, I mean, the way you, the way that we ate when I grew up was whatever could feed all of us pretty economically. And that was not necessarily the best stuff to eat. So yeah. You know, my mom ate that as well. So like how do you make it work?

Joy Tillman: Yeah, it's hard. You know what I mean? Like, especially when I was single mom with four kids going to nursing school, little Caesar's pizzas are five bucks and two pizzas would feed us and that you, I really couldn't go make a healthy meal for 10 bucks, you know, at the grocery store with fruits and veggies and protein and healthy carbs. I mean, it's just, and the time that it took to do that, so it's incredibly hard. I think that's why it fluctuated so much. And then, like I said, of course, when I had the bypass surgery, you physically cannot eat. You will damage yourself or get sick . So that forced me to eat in an extreme calorie restriction because for the first week, or I can't remember how the diet goes, but it's like a week or two, you can only have liquids and then you can have soft foods which are like soups.

Joy Tillman: And maybe like, I feel like I ate cottage cheese and Greek yogurt and, we fried beans. Those are things that you could eat. You could like, it had to be like a puree diet. And I was not about to puree chicken in the blender that did not sound good to me. And so that really kind of got me down to where I had, but I had been there before I had been, because when I had my bypass surgery, I weighed, like I said, I was at my top. I wanna say, I wanna say 328 or something like that crazy high amount right? And like I said, that got me down to, I think I lost like 75 ish pounds, real easy, real easy, real quick. And then I wasn't doing what I knew I needed to do, but so in 2019 before COVID a girlfriend of mine was like, I wanna get back into CrossFit.

Joy Tillman: I wanna get back into working out. And so we joined a gym together and we were pretty consistent, you know, working out four to five days a week, eating well, I had a trip planned to Jamaica at the end of the year. So I was very motivated. I did some weight loss challenges with some friends, drank protein shakes for a couple meals a day. So it's such a mind thing. I know what to do, and I know how to do what I need to do. So if I want to do it, I need to just do it. You know what I mean? Like protein shakes, they're not the end all Be all, but they're great for busy people who don't have time to meal prep, you know, and don't have time to do it. There are plenty of things out there you can do. They sell these like tuna and chicken packages that have like anywhere from like 10 to 15 grams of protein and around a hundred or less calories.

Joy Tillman: And they're about a dollar at Walmart. So it's doable. And the more knowledge that I've gained and the more like, I guess, work that I've put into it on learning how to eat healthier and learning shortcuts to being able to eat healthier. It is doable even when you're busy, even when you're a single mom, like I personally like a can of tuna, which is what 50 cents or something.

Clarence Fisher: Mm-hmm .

Joy Tillman: And I don't mind mixing it with without mayonnaise, but if you do mix it with mayonnaise, that's not bad. And whatever you like to mix your tuna with, and I'll dip carrots in it, you know, that's something that I don't not enjoy. So there are ways to eat healthy and quickly on a budget. You just have to be willing. You kind of have to get some knowledge, because I, it's not a knowledge I had because growing up, I grew up without a lot of money.

Joy Tillman: Our, our meals were not healthy, a lot of fried. That's what my, my parents liked, you know, and my dad was not overweight. So like, you know, we'd eat fried things. Vegetables for us were like corn. You know, I don't know that I ate even broccoli for sure. Not asparagus until I was an adult, things like that. And so I don't know that I had many salads as a kid, or, you know what I mean? Like it just, I did not have a variety of food of healthy food and I didn't know how to eat healthy. So it's something I for sure had to learn. And you don't even really learn it. Like I, yeah, I'm a nurse, but you don't even real. I mean, I had to take a nutrition class and I don't even think I had to take that for nursing.

Joy Tillman: I think it was an elective that I chose to take. I mean, so, you know.

Clarence Fisher: ,

Joy Tillman: It's really sad how poorly we educate people with health and nutrition and we just don't make it a priority when we're younger. And even when we're older and, and our life is so busy, that's something that I was talking different about the other day. I think, as Americans, I don't know. I feel like when I talk to people, they're like, man, that just, that just, you're just always busy. And I'm like, I am always busy and I have always been busy and I don't know how to not be busy. So I am gonna have to make my life work around that

Clarence Fisher: Yet. And you have in it, and it it's a couple of questions. Did you, have you noticed, and this was just kind of a weird thing when you said, do you don't know if guys have a number we do. you know, we have a number I have not hit my number, but it is something that you're right. Like if I could just touch that, I don't really care if I bounce back 20 right now, you know what I'm saying? I just need to touch that. But years ago it was probably about, mm, I don't know. It was about 12 years that I got to my lowest in adult weight that I can remember. But I, I do remember almost I was getting frustrated internally because I saw people actually treat me differently. And I couldn't tell if it was in my head.

Joy Tillman: Oh, yeah.

Clarence Fisher: Or did I'm do you, have you experienced that?

Joy Tillman: Oh my gosh. Yes. Clarence I'm single. . There's a huge difference in what I looked like before and what I looked like now. And even though I'm not where I wanna be and bless their little hearts. They don't know what this looks like without clothes on, so sweet of them. But I mean, when you've lost a hundred pounds and had four children, things just don't sit the way they used to. Right. But yeah. And, but it not just guys, it's not just guys. I mean, I feel like I, I had some friends and again, bless their hearts. I remember being a hundred. I mean, even now I'm overweight. I am not at a healthy weight still at this point in my life, I still need to do have more work to do. And my friends will be like, you're not fat or you're not this, or you're not fat.

Joy Tillman: And I'm like, I love that you see me in a good light, but that does nothing for me because it's not true. The fact of the matter is I am overweight and I, you know what I mean? Like I had one girlfriend who was like, oh, you're blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said I think I had posted a meme with someone holding a sign for like a runner. And it said, remember when you were fat and now you're, you know, you're running this 5k or whatever. And I was like, I need somebody to do this for me. She was like, I'll hold the sign, but you're not fat. And I was like, oh, but Abby, I am. And so some people, and I showed another friend of before and Arine, she's like, I don't ever remember you being that big. So there are people who love you and don't see your size, but the general public sees your size.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah.

Joy Tillman: And they do look at you a little bit differently. I feel like, you know, you feel, and, and some of that could be my own insecurities for sure. But I do feel there's a little bit difference in the way people treat you, doors that get held for you, you know, and things like that. Even. I mean, so

Clarence Fisher: It's real. I was just wondering, cuz I was like, people were being nicer to me, like yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, is this is this is this real, you know? And then, so it's true. I closed more sales, you know? And, and then I got frustrated, like, why is that? Like, why? But I guess.

Joy Tillman: Think of it because of this. I feel, this is my theory. We look at overweight people as lazy and it doesn't necessarily mean they're lazy. We think of them as not caring about themselves. I mean, think of it. You can't call someone that fat, lazy, blah, blah, blah. Right. That's negative connotation. You can't be like, oh, that thin girl, you know, I mean, nobody's gonna take that as an insult. So

Clarence Fisher: I do. I talk about skinny people all the time.

Joy Tillman: yeah. I'm like that person over there. Oh, they're disgusting. You know, but seriously, I mean like we, it is an it's, there's such a negative connotation with being overweight and the majority of people are not over. Some of 'em just don't care, you know? I mean, and, and they're like, whatever, I'm fine. There's the whole, oh my gosh. I can't even think of it. Like, there's the whole love of your body at every size and health at every size and all that. Right. And I'm not trying to discount me that you should love yourself because I mean, man, it's hard. You can't hate yourself better. Right? You can't hate yourself, better. Something that you hate is really hard to put out time and effort into. Right. It's much better to love yourself better.

Clarence Fisher: Yeah. I, yeah. I, I agree. So that, so the other, and you're a nurse I gotta ask you is COVID real?

Joy Tillman: Yes. It's very real. I have done mostly working in COVID ICU for the last year. Cuz I have a skillset and I was able to, I did some traveling just around Oklahoma. Oklahoma city, Tahlequah Midwest city, Tulsa area. But yes, very real. I think a lot of people, so many people , I've gotten into conversations about it and it, some of them have gotten it heated because it's one thing. If somebody is asking me, like you ask me, and then I, I had a guy ask me one time, but is it real? And I could tell the way he asked me that he just, he didn't believe it. And I'm like, yeah, it's very real. I mean, it's not just the flu. It is, it is a bad virus. It's a highly contagious virus. It's a new virus. It's a virus that we didn't know how to treat.

Joy Tillman: And so it was scary. When it got to Oklahoma and I was working with COVID patients, I sent my children to go live with their dad for a month because I didn't know, we didn't know what was gonna happen. And our plan was for them to stay with him until two weeks after my last COVID patient. Well, thank God we didn't do that because a year later I still wouldn't have seen my children.

Clarence Fisher: Wow. Wow.

Joy Tillman: So I finally called him after a month and I said, there's not gonna be a last COVID patient. And I can't not have my kids with me, so I'm gonna do everything I can to keep them safe. And if you're concerned about them bringing it to you and your wife, then they can stay with me and you don't have to take them. But I can't not have I can't.

Joy Tillman: I know that I can't live my life without my children in it . And so I, you know, and I worked ICU, so I had a little bit more protection than maybe somebody who's like first line, like, you know, your first responders in your ER and your urgent care workers, because they don't know what's walking in. By the time they came to me, usually we had a good idea that they were COVID positive. And then we finally got rapid tests available every now and then those every now and then there was some fails that happened. And we didn't find out until after we already had 'em that they were code, but we usually at least had an idea and we could, you know, prepare for that. And I did everything as far as I know, I haven't got, got it, had it or my children haven't had it.

Joy Tillman: None of us, my oldest son got it, but he doesn't live at home. And he's, and he's was 22 at the time. And it was still scared for me as a mom, because I had seen 30 year olds die from it and I'd seen 90 year olds recover from it. And it felt like kind of just playing Russian Roulette with who was gonna live and die from COVID because we really we're just guessing and grasping at straws on how to treat it. There were some studies that some medications worked and some therapies worked. And then the majority of those things at some point are refuted, but that's kind of how medicine works. Medicine is we think this works. We're gonna give it a try. And then it either works well. Or we come back and we're like, oh no, wait, actually that's not working.

Joy Tillman: We don't, it's like there a placebo effect or they just got better. But you know, I've seen people that were otherwise very healthy, be very sick from this virus. And I have worked everything from ICU, oncology, palliative care hospice. I worked on the floor at St. John's, where they sent all the people who were comfort measures and dying. So I've dealt with a lot of death and dying in my nursing career. And this was the most death that I had seen. And, you know, we had weeks when it got really bad when our death toll was really high in Oklahoma, where we were literally tagging and bagging bodies every night, meaning that, you know, somebody would die every night and we were preparing them for the morgue or the funeral home. I worked at a small hospital. It was purely COVID, but we ran out of, we were running out of refrigeration one night.

Joy Tillman: If one more, we had stacked people and if one more person had died, then, then there was a possibility that they would have to be out in the hall until we could get someone to come and pick them up. So it was rough. It took its toll on me mentally and physically, I have questioned whether I've made the right decisions with the traveling that I've done and the work that I've done and being away from my kids, as much as I have this year, it's been a rough year for them with distance learning and other tragedies that have just happened. And so it's just been, it's been hard. It's been a hard year I decided it was, I would go back to school. So I've been in school full time. I've worked full time, sometimes 50 and 60 hours a week. My kids have been distance learning. We've lost people close to us, you know? So it's been a lot.

Clarence Fisher: This is, um, it it's crazy. I, I would see kind of on Facebook, some of the, some of the posts that you would make and then, and I've told you, thank you. And I really do thank you for just doing it. It's kind of, I look at it kind of like, you don't really understand what nurses and doctors and even soldiers and like do when crap really hits the fan and you have to, and you lace up and you go to work and I'm super grateful and thankful. And I, yeah, I don't get to, you don't get to talk or I don't get to talk very often to somebody who's like, like you said, you, you in the ICU, which means thankfully this whole time, my wife or I don't believe that we've had it and we've lost a couple of family, but they were kind of fringe family. And I have a lot of family who are like, Hey, when it's your time and no, I'm not getting vaccinated and stuff like that. So it, over time, I think a person can think, is it real? Like everything that I see, I'm seeing numbers on a piece of paper I'm being told this, but unless you can get a real story from someone, I think who is, who is actually seeing what's happening, it is kind of hard to you're sheltered basically. Yeah.

Joy Tillman: And I think it's confusing for the general public too, because you have healthcare people who have come out with inaccurate information and who's to say, why, why should you believe me over somebody else? You know? I mean, I understand that I can only speak to what I know. I feel like for the most part, we did the best that we could with a situation that we weren't prepared for. And, you know, I can remember the beginning. People like, like for teachers, even wanting them to get back in the classroom and teach and nurses, and they were like, this is what you signed up for. And I'm like, no, no, it's not what we signed up for. We did not sign up to work through a global pandemic. I signed up to do a lot of hard things that a lot of people don't wanna do.

Joy Tillman: And I get that. I'm not complaining about all the gross things that I have to do on a regular basis, but man, and everything we'd been taught, that was one thing that was frustrating in the beginning when there was such a PPE shortage. So the N95s that we wear, the most common thing that people are gonna know is we wear those with tuberculosis patients. I can count on one hand, the amount of times I've taken care of a tuberculosis patient. So the fact that I haven't even had to wear N95s that often, and then now it's like, every time I go to work, that's what I'm putting on. And, you know, I had friends, I worked at a facility where they gave us an N95 to make it like until when. And then there was one night when I had a patient and we didn't have any of the correct fitting in N95s for me.

Joy Tillman: And I was taking care of him that night. And I was like, well, let's just hope. Let's just hope it works out. I mean, he was intubated. So I felt like it was pretty well contained. Wasn't blowing around in the air, but it's still, you know, it's a scary thought to think. I don't know. You know what I mean? I don't know. And we didn't know. We didn't know whether how it was most likely. I still think we don't know. And I still think there's information out there that is either not given to us or we just don't know.

Clarence Fisher: Mm-hmm, , mm-hmm, ,

Joy Tillman: It is contagious. It is more contagious than the flu. I don't know if it's always airborne or if it's aerosolized. I mean, I still don't know these things. I'm grateful that the people that I love and that I have stayed healthy through this that my kids have stayed healthy, my close friends at work and stuff and stayed healthy.

Joy Tillman: But yeah, I mean, we're taught our whole life that, you know, these, these masks and these gowns and the, and gloves you put 'em on, you get in the room, you get out of the room, you do your, you know, you cluster care, you do as much at one time as you can. So you spend the least amount of time exposing yourself to whatever it is, you know, and then you throw them away. You get a new one the next time you go in, and that's not the, the case anymore. That's not the case anymore. You know what I mean? We're reusing masks and there's no need to wear makeup anymore because you're just making 'em dirtier. . So it's just so different. Like, healthcare has changed so much for me in the last year. I still love it. I still wouldn't be doing anything different. I'm grateful the skill set that I have, but I feel like, I feel like certain things are never gonna go back to the way they were before. I think the next time we have a TB patient, they won't care if we reuse our N95s anymore, you know, so.

Clarence Fisher: Oh, wow. Do you think that I, you know, I don't think that we probably would've even taken the precautions, which is crazy. I, as much as I watch these numbers, I don't know that I would have taken even the precautions that I took if I had not been overweight with comorbidities.

Joy Tillman: Yeah.

Clarence Fisher: But even hearing you speak, it's like this crapshoot of how, who dies, who, who get, who only gets sick, who doesn't show any symptoms, you know, like there's like this, but one thing that I did see, and I don't know if it's true or not was that being obese is a major issue.

Joy Tillman: Yes. Yeah.

Clarence Fisher: Okay.

Joy Tillman: Yeah. For, for sure. The maj and I, and I don't want it to sound like just super healthy people were, were not making it through because the majority were, and the majority of people that died were obese. That was one of the biggest factors was obesity, but obesity also is one of the biggest factors to that predisposes you to diabetes and high blood pressure and high cholesterol. And so other comorbidities that also made having COVID worse. Right? Surprisingly it wasn't my like C O P D and asthma patients that I felt like were really getting hard, hit hard with COVID. It was your obese patients, your diabetics, those were the ones who really seemed to be having the hardest time with it. I expected everybody that came through and okay, they're in with COVID pneumonia, they've got a history of C O P D asthma, other breathing problems, lung problems.

Joy Tillman: And it just wasn't the case. And so it was these people with diabetes, not well controlled, these obese people. And then people's kidneys were taking a hard hit, and these people are on dialysis, you know, and, and things like that, you know, and having other, like having heart damage now. So that's the thing. A lot of people, there are tons of people that recovered, but there are a lot of people that have recovered that have all these other issues now, you know, that they didn't have before and obesity, diabetes. That's a high indicator that you could end up with some kidney disease and end up on dialysis. Same thing with when your blood pressure's high. It can cause kidney issues, you know, and other things like that and heart issues, you're at a higher risk for stroke. We saw weird clotting things with people with COVID that you wouldn't expect. They were more predisposed to blood clots and things like that.

Clarence Fisher: Mm-hmm .

Joy Tillman: And so was it the COVID on top of all their comorbidities? Was it the, was like, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, I, I don't know. It was almost like, it just kind of made everything worse, everything that was wrong with them, it made it worse.

Clarence Fisher: So do you think that, I mean, just in my mind, in my personal mind, like, it's just, it's been this, this, what can I say? This motivation even more so, because you said something you just said just rocked me was we're not going to see our last COVID patient.

Clarence Fisher: And I thought, ah exactly. Which is why I'm like, okay, if there's ever been a, a time to at least get out of obese range, maybe this is it.

Joy Tillman: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, obesity and being overweight is such, it's just gotten worse and worse and worse. It continues to get worse in America. And it is, and though it's hard, it is a modifiable risk factor. You have modifiable risk factors, things that you can do something about like your weight, smoking, diet exercise, those are things you can control. And then you have things you can control, like a family history of heart disease. You know, African Americans are more predisposed to high blood pressure and diabetes and high blood pressure's harder to treat in African Americans. And those are just, those are just facts that we know and African American males. So, I mean, if there was ever a time for people to really wake up about their, their diet, their exercise, and even just losing a little bit of weight, I mean, you know, they've said 10% of weight can make such a huge impact on your health with your blood sugar, your glycemic control, your blood pressure.

Joy Tillman: All of those things can be improved with just a small amount of weight loss when you think about it. And so I think for most people, the best thing to do is to set a small goal, hit that goal, maintain at that goal for a little bit, and then set your next goal. And, you know, kind of like come up with the plan of action to hit that next goal so that you can be as healthy as possible. And that's one of the things that I told my friends, you know, I had friends that were like, what should we do? And I was like, listen, I'm not through this whole pandemic. I'm I was never someone who was like, lock everything down and quit living your life. I mean, yes, we needed to stay home as much as possible, but I'm like live, live your life as safely as possible, eat healthy exercise, take your vitamins.

Joy Tillman: The other thing that the majority of, Americans are, is vitamin D deficient. And that was something we were seeing, you know, like everybody's vitamin D deficient. And that seemed like, so we would throw people with COVID on vitamin D vitamin C, zinc melatonin for some reason was helpful. Melatonin is a sleep aid, your body naturally makes it, but some people take a little bit to help them sleep at night. It had some anti-inflammatory effects with COVID for some reason, I read the studies, but I don't remember the reasoning as to why they were saying it had the anti-inflammatory effects. So that's what I would recommend to my friends or the friends that got it. I'm like, you know, and who weren't sick enough to go to the hospital. I was like, you know, do this, take your vitamins, eat healthy, rest, deep breathing, blah, blah, blah, all of that good stuff, you know, but I think now more than ever, if this isn't a wake up call, I really don't know what is because, you know, I mean, when you're overweight, you're at a higher risk for everything from stroke, heart disease.

Joy Tillman: It's, it's hard on every part of your body to carry the extra weight and it's hard to lose it. I get it. I've struggled. I have struggled my entire adult life. I like, I we've talked as we've talked about this hour, I've done it all healthy and unhealthy to try to lose weight. And I do believe that you can be overweight and still be healthy, but the closer you can get to a healthy weight, buy a blood pressure monitor. You know what I mean? They're 20 or 30 bucks monitor your blood pressure. Know these numbers, you know, know what your, not just your BMI is, but know what your body fat percentage is, as opposed to your, you know, your muscle mass, know the ratios there if you can. I just bought a scale off of Amazon that I think is pretty accurate. It was 30 bucks and it measures your BMI, your body fat percentage, your bone density, like 13 different indicators of not just your weight.

Joy Tillman: And I have a blood pressure monitor and I keep an eye on my blood pressure, go to your doctor, get A1C strawn. If you are worried about diabetes. So you know what your numbers are, you know what I mean? Just do what you can to keep yourself as healthy as you can, because whether it's COVID or whether it's the flu or whatever it is, if you can start at a healthier place, you have a better, if you get cancer and you're healthier, when you get cancer, as opposed to unhealthy, you have a better chance of coming out successful and your quality of life, your quality of life is better if you're not having to take a million medications and you don't just feel bad all the time.

Clarence Fisher: Hmm, man. That's good. So like, I was gonna ask you, you know, about the tools and all that stuff, you know, kind of wrapping up that's that's man. That's perfect. Thank you for sharing all that stuff. So as we, as you go forward, what are your, your plans like as, as you're cause keeping it off is to me, I imagine is going to be even harder.

Joy Tillman: Well, my plan is to get back on track, to lose this last bit of weight that I wanna lose. I am, COVID is slowing down. I'm very happy for that. The need is not as great as it was. So the place that I'm on contract right now, that contract actually ended last week. And I was like, okay, applying for jobs back home, I was gonna just stay home and get back on my routine of going to the gym every day and cooking at home and meal planning and everything mm-hmm but they are desperate. Just they're just in need of nurses. They just don't have staff right now. So they've asked me to stay. So I'm staying there for 12 weeks. The contract that I was on was four nights a week. So I was working 48 hours a week minimum. Sometimes more. Usually I picked up a couple extra shifts every now and then when they needed it and was working 60 hours, I told them, I said, I need a week off to catch up with life.

Joy Tillman: And so, and then when I come back, I'm only doing three days a week. I can't commit to four days a week. So it starts with that. It starts with you, if you say yes to something you've said no to something else, you only have so much time, so much energy, so much money. You only have so many resources to give in any 24 hour period. So every time you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else, so that yes needs to really matter. Like I said, I'm, this year has been good in a lot of ways. I've been able to be in a good place financially better than I've been since I've been divorced. And so now that I've kind of set myself up in financially, well, now I need to get back to taking care of myself.

Joy Tillman: I feel like, you know, one of the things I had a lot of mom guilt from being away so long, cuz I mean, my kids are 15, 17 and 19. So they're perfectly capable of being home a few nights a week while I'm gone. And I was in and out and their dad and their brother are nearby, but the 19 and the 15 year old are doing all the grocery shopping. So there's a bunch of just snacks in the house. so, and I was, I felt guilty about just not being home, but what I have seen in the past year is all of their relationships have improved because they couldn't get out and hang out with friends. And so they've got, I see their relationships blossom being, and being good friends and really caring about each other and having each other's back.

Joy Tillman: I feel like we have gotten stronger as a family unit, financially we're in a better place. And so now it's like I gotta get back on track with my personal health and taking care of me. I made the decision to go back to school this year. And so with school full time working full time and being away from home as much as I have, it was rough. And so now I'm like, it's time to slow back down and to take my physical, personal health off the back burner. Because like I said, I can have it all, but man, it's really hard to do it all at the same time. So my plan is to manage my time better, say no to some things so that I can set start saying yes to me. I know what I need to do nutrition wise. So I'm gonna, we're gonna get back on track as a family and start eating better and cooking at home and, and that sort of thing.

Joy Tillman: And I'm so I, I need to get back in the gym. I miss it. I enjoy, I don't like, like cardio and Zumba and all those, all those classes I like to go and I like to lift and I like to be strong. I like to know that if my patient needs me to move them, I can move them. You know? And so that's probably the only thing that's kept my muscles from atrophying this last year is how much, how much turning and pulling up of patients I've had to do. But yeah, so my plan is to get my nutrition on track. And one of the things that I believe is you can't, I mean, you know, I'm not gonna deny myself, but I just want to, I just wanna make a plan. I just wanna have a plan for things, you know, and if I'm going to go out with friends, that's not gonna be a big deal, you know, but I don't wanna do it every night. We can't eat pizza and eat out every single night we can eat out every now and then, but for the most part, we need to have a plan in place for nutrition, a plan in place to make time in my day for the gym or just going on a walk. So it's about just saying yes to myself and putting myself back in the position that I deserve and that I need to be in.

Clarence Fisher: Hmm. Yeah. Thank you. I've got, so thank you for sharing all this today. I've got so many notes and then, and things that I wanna revisit as, I listen back to it. Do you have any final kind of words or wisdoms that you'd like to pass on to everybody who's listening right now?

Joy Tillman: I think the only thing that you can do is I used to reiterate that whole, I know that for me, the biggest struggle is my, is my mind and getting my mind in the right place. You know, I kind of touched on the fact that I have struggled with depression. I've struggled with loving myself. And like I said, you cannot like, it's so hard. You can't, you can't work on a relationship with another person that you hate. You know, if you hate someone, you're not gonna work on that relationship with them, you're gonna just write 'em off and be done with them. And so this journey of self love and self-acceptance, and self-esteem, and just taking care of yourself, it really does have to come from a place of love. I still struggle with that. I still struggle with my self-worth.

Joy Tillman: Do I, am I do I deserve it? Am I worth it? I know in my head, like we talked about, I've got the head knowledge, I've done the work. I know that I deserve this. I know that I'm worth it. I know that I have so much more to me than the number on the scale as a human being, as a mother, as a nurse, I have so much more to me than the numbers that I see. And so my self worth has to be tied to the knowledge that I have about me, not the way that I'm feeling, because our feelings skew our reality and what we think and believe and feel is what our reality is. Even if it's not the same reality that somebody else is living. So we have to keep those things in check. We have to keep our feelings in check and we have to stem off the knowledge that we have and whether that's writing it out, whether that's having mantras that you say to yourself on a regular basis, notes on your bathroom mirror, whatever it is that you need, you have to figure that out because you've got to come from a place from love.

Joy Tillman: So that way, if you, you can't hate yourself better, you've got to love yourself better. So

Clarence Fisher: Love it. And joy. Thank you again for taking the time and sharing your story and you know, helping me and everybody else get there. I enjoy the, the support you give us in the group. And of course I'll reach out and ask you more. more stuff there as it comes to my mind, but thank you very much.

Joy Tillman: Oh, you're welcome. It's a journey. I think we're relational beings and it's very, very hard to make it through this life journey, no matter what your struggles are without a group of people around you.

Joy Tillman: Thank you joy and thank you for listening. Thanks for tuning in. I appreciate you so much. Go and please subscribe to the show. And if you have time, head over to iTunes, leave us a rating and review. Next week, we're gonna dive deeper into the gastric bypass process with Sarah Teague from Teel Tough Fitness. She's also a long time friend. So it got crazy.

Clarence Fisher: You were 275 pounds at 14.

Sarah Teague: At four 14. Yeah. So as actual grown adult, when I started my weight loss journey, I was 325 pounds.

Clarence Fisher: Wow.

Sarah Teague: Oh yeah. And I'm 5 11" to give context.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. All right.

Sarah Teague: Awesome. Not like 6 5".

Clarence Fisher:

Sarah Teague: Might have been better if I was 6 5". I'm where I need to be now. But back then. Woo

Clarence Fisher: Right, right, right.

Sarah Teague: That was a lot. It was a lot to think about.

Clarence Fisher: I can't wait to share the next episode with you next week until then go to 100poundparty.com and join the free newsletter for more tips and strategies on how to lose 100 pounds or more and keep it off for good. If you loved this episode, take a screenshot, share it on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn tag me Clarence Fisher to use a #100poundparty and subscribe to apple podcast. Well, that's it for this episode until next time, remember slight right to success. Make it fun, make it easy. Celebrate often, and you'll win.