For those who are blessed with the privilege of raising a little one (or two, or three, or more) motherhood is the single most wonderful, delightful, challenging, rewarding, exhausting, and overwhelming of life experiences. No questions! And if that isn’t enough, somehow feelings of guilt end up in that pile of emotion. There are enormous expectations from society, media, family and friends about what mothers “should be like” and what they “should do.”

“Mom guilt” kept Julie Valdez from taking care of herself. A perceived lack of time and energy meant she didn’t prioritize her nutrition, and she let her fitness slide. As a result, by the time her two daughters Augustine and Isabella were born in 2016, she had reached 210 lb. at 5 foot 4.

She knew it was time to make a change—not just for her own sake, but also for her children. This is her amazing story of getting healthy, losing 80 lb. and getting rid of her “mom guilt”!