Suzanne Friolet, CLC- Certified Life Coach
Consultant Rachelle Wood Nutrition, Summerside
As a child I was small frame and build and very skinny. I never struggled with weight. However never needing to pay attention to nutrition or what I ate created poor habits later in life.
In my early 20’s I had severe endometriosis and underwent several treatments and surgeries. Some of these treatments caused weight gain but I still never worried because when the treatments ended I usually lost the weight. 
When I got married I weighted 112 pounds. Nothing to fear! When I managed to get pregnant I gained 56 pounds and after delivery of that pregnancy I was diagnoised with hypothyroidism. After the baby I really struggled for the first time with losing weight. Three and a half years later when I had my second pregnancy I was already up 18 pounds from my first and I gained 72 pounds with the second pregnancy. After the baby, (who was nearly 10 pounds!), my weight was around 145 pounds. This was huge for my little frame. I had never been that heavy. With my slow thyroid it was a constant battle. I joined aerobics, went to Weight Watchers but it was still a huge struggle. My weight went up, then down, then up more and more.
My thyroid levels never were accurate and my doctors moved my medications up and down monthly. This went on and on. But I was not eating much, couldn’t miss a day of exercise and lost motivation quickly when a simple cold could throw my thyroid off and 5-10 pounds back on again.
Then came my hysterctomy (a full one), and although there is some weight drop after surgery, reality set in and my already slow metabolism was now even more erratic with my hormones going crazy.
My weight bloomed again up by 20 more pounds! This struggle became a battle and a mountain sometimes too high. It was easy to exercise each week, and in a month drop 10 pounds then stop. Fatuque is a horrible side effect to hypothyroidism as well as depression. Combine the two and you really can loose energy that you need to motivate yourself.
I began to motivate my, “insides”, by starting with my head. A positive attitude takes as much energy as a negative one. It is so easy to hide behind, “your story”, so to speak. I had once been a happy go lucky and always take time for me. A family, a business, a thyroid can become, “your story”. It was easy to blame my health on all that.
I began researching my thyroid options after a trip to South Africa where I read an amazing thyroid story by, “Mrs. South Africa” and her life time struggle. I could see me on so many pages. Excited to learn more I went to my own family doctor (who is also South African!), with my notes, print outs, statistics and my book! He listened and said ok we can try it your way. I’m now taking both a T-4 and T-3 hormone drug. Of course statistics are not on my side but I FEEL better, and that’s a start! Every thyroid condition is individual and different and we get lumped as one to often.
It’s still a challenge to loose weight and still have a few pounds to go. But after meeting Rachelle at a seminar, and through obtaining my Life Coaching Certification (Quantum Leap) I can see the gift in every experience even bad ones. I’m on the road to a healthier lifesytyle and I know the weight loss will come!
I now visualize myself healthy and happy. Not everyday is sunny but I now know tomorrow is a new day and new beginning. Besides, joining Rachelle’s team will keep me on track and helping others will in turn help me!
You have mnastered life when the”how to’s”, become irrelivant.
Suzanne Friolet, Certified Life Coach
Rachelle Wood and Suzanne Friolet, September 2009
