When I started DDPY in January 2013, I weighed 140lbs, lost 10lbs, then was diagnosed with a parasitizing leiomyoma that weighed 11lbs. Right now, my weight is sitting steady at 152lbs, but my body composition has completely changed. In the last year, I've gone from 33% body fat, to 26% body fat. When I first started in 2013, I was probably closer to 38% body fat.

As far as DDPY and my fibromyalgia, when I started, I had lost about 80% of the range if motion in my arms and shoulders and could barely walk to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. I'd pretty much hit rock bottom and had nowhere else to go. My doctor recommended I start taking medication to help me get through my day, but I didn't want to take that many pills, so I went looking for something else. That's when my husband found the Arthur video. I took it to my doctor and said I wanted to try the program, so we struck a deal - if I showed no improvement in 30 days I'd do the pills, but if I showed any improvement AT ALL, we'd never talk about the pills again.

I cried through my first 14 workouts, but then it got easier and easier. By the end of the 30 days I was able to show my doctor my progress by folding forward, popping back into a plank and doing a pushup. So we've never talked about the pills again.

As of today, I've not had a major flare-up (meaning I'm left on a cycle of heat & ice and inflammatories for more than 3 days) in over 2 years. I have minor flare-ups (heat, ice & inflammatories for two days or less) every few months, but my last one was back in July.

Now I'm teaching DDP YOGA classes several times a week, as well as working one-on-one with clients (I have ended up with more than a few clients who also have chronic pain as well) and mentoring up-and-coming DDP YOGA Level 1 Certified Instructors. In fact, one of them, Kat, led class this morning (I was her modifier) and she KILLED it!

When I was in the military, I had a mission to accomplish every single day. Then I got sick, wallowed around in self-pity for years and sort of gave up. Nowadays, my mission is to help people like myself get back on track to feeling better about themselves and to help them see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that living at 90% is an awesome thing.