WS Chronicle

By Busta Brown

In her youth, Aisha Felder was a physically fit high school and college athlete. But that all changed as an adult. 

“I wasn’t obese until I got older. I never really ate healthy. When you leave those habits of working out twice a day, it was a fast before-and-after. When you eat unhealthy like that, and then stop working out as you get older, it catches up to you,” said the mother of two. 

As an adult, those bad eating habits caught up with her and the weight became noticeable. It affected her mental and physical health. “After college and as an adult I had gained so much weight. My highest weight was when I had my baby – I was the same weight afterwards. That was a problem and the alarm went off in my head, I got to do something now. 

“I didn’t feel good about myself, Busta. I didn’t like being that size. I was inching up to a size 3X. I didn’t want to be walking around with a big back,” she said, and then playfully laughed out loud. Aisha added, “A 3X is a big back! I didn’t want a big back. I didn’t like how it made me feel or look. I couldn’t believe I was that big. I was obese, and that was a problem.”

During her journey, Aisha said that she tried to lose weight too many times to count. “I tried keto, to Weight Watchers, to paleo, to Atkins, to HCG, B-12 shots, and Jenny Craig. I could go on and on. I almost did the gastric sleeve, but my husband of 16 years was not on board. I was desperate. I just kept being a weight loss failure. So every program you try and fail makes you skeptical to try anything new and makes you lose confidence in yourself,” shared Felder. 

“It was time to reach out for help, so I hired weight loss coach Carmen Oquinn and also joined an extremely strict accountability group. We met daily in person, and as a bigger group weekly on Zoom calls. We signed an agreement to do what we said we were going to do or risk being kicked out of the program. High accountability!” said Aisha. 

She joined a local boot camp, Transform HER, where she lost the weight with a group of supportive women who focused on transforming from the inside out. “The group was led by my fitness coach, Keya. I invested in myself and was surrounded by the right coaches. You can’t make big changes without a financial investment. We are a group of motivated women who encourage each other in all aspects of our lives. We worked on forgiving and other things that drove you to become an emotional eater.”

When you’re on a journey such as this, it’s a must that you have a support system at home as well. Aisha had the perfect cheerleader. “My husband supported me this entire journey and cheered me on. He was tough on me as well. Before I started getting up early, he was up at 4 a.m. I asked him to wake me up. He said, ‘No, if you really want this, you have to get up.’ I really appreciated that, because he didn’t hold my hand. Yet, he pushed me to do what was needed to lose that weight.” 

Aisha’s good friend Tammy Watson, who introduced her to the program, was also a huge reason she achieved the weight loss goals. “Tammy and I help people lose weight as coaches. She’s my accountability partner, because you need that friend that will be really honest with you.”

Aisha’s support team, along with her husband, helped the weight loss coach lose 100 pounds. “I weighed 266 pounds. After I lost all of the weight, it didn’t get easier to keep it off. You’re relearning healthy habits and changing that toxic relationship with food. I had to stop using food to cope with life. Sometimes my body using muscle memories tries to go back to old coping mechanisms. So it’s a fight! I can’t go back to what I used to be.”

Aisha is sharing her testimony in hopes of helping others who suffer in silence. So I asked, with so many people struggling in silence, what words of advice do you have for them? “Don’t give up on yourself. Tammy and I started fiercely focused and fit to help reverse the trend of bad health. Medication and disease is normalized in our culture. Sometimes you feel like everyone is diabetic with high blood pressure. But I’m here to tell you it’s not true and you can be the change you want to see.” 

She added that it all starts with consistency. “It doesn’t have to be flashy, just a basic hard workout is the first step.” My phenomenal Person of the Week is Aisha Felder. “There’s no better feeling than to look good and feel good. It feels good to be a winner.”  

Felder can be reached on social media platforms @fiercelyfocusedandfit.