Let’s Talk About Fitness
For the majority of my life, I have not been a healthy weight. Nor have I lead a healthy lifestyle where fitness was a focus.. Think lots of junk food, processed everything, basically what is referred to as the Standard American Diet or SAD. With my weight issues came a lot of mental health problems. It was so hard to be the “fat” sister growing up, to be bullied relentlessly, to never feel like I had any worth. Not all off the feelings I had were related to my weight, but the weight definitely contributed to those feelings being exacerbated.
The weight loss I experienced with 80 Day Obsession was not the first time I lost a good portion of my weight. Fall of 2008-Spring of 2009 I lost a total of 40 pounds, through the at home fitness program 30 Day Shred. My husband at that time was on his second deployment to Iraq and I was lead to believe that when he came home we were going to keep trying for our own child. Loosing weight was a necessary thing at that point. Obviously, that marriage thankfully didn’t work out lol. I am not gonna get into that too much cause my life now is so much better.
Fast forward several years. I’m remarried to Aaron, have a child of my own now and gained a TON of weight postpartum thanks to Domperidone I needed for breastfeeding issues. A little of the weight fell off naturally when I stopped taking the dom, but not enough. I dabbled a bit with 21 Day Fix when my sister was a coach, but nothing stuck. A year or two after that I met my coach Cassie on FB. I signed up for her fitness challenge group and eventually became a coach myself, mostly for the discount. Who doesn’t love saving a bit of money?!
I started to see a little bit of progress with daily workouts, though I never stuck to one program too long and my nutrition was still mostly garbage. Fall of 2017, I started hearing about this awesome new program by Autumn Calabrese, the creator of 21 Day Fix, 21 Day Fix Extreme and several other programs. It was going to be 80 days long. Different workouts every single day, with nutrition that was A LOT stricter than anything I had ever done before. I was a bit intimidated to say the least.
That intimidation only got worse as we started prepping for the start of the program. Timed nutrition, what’s that?! Look at how much food I have to eat every day, I can never eat that much! Doubt was starting to creep in. I wasn’t sure if I could commit to it as a stay at home Mom. 1 hour workouts! Oh. My. God.
Then, I realized that was my fear talking. I was part of the Coach Test Group on FB and noticed that everyone was in the same boat as me. Thank goodness for that group because I got a TON of amazing tips. Like this one for remembering when to eat and which combos for my plan:
It was a serious lifesaver. This was the schedule I followed for the entire program. You do get to reevaluate your food plan at the start of Phase 2, but because of my goals my plan didn’t change based on the calculations. At first, this was a lot of food. After the first couple of weeks, you quickly realize you need this amount of food to fuel your workouts. Your body starts getting in line with the schedule and you will know it’s time to eat again *before* the alarm goes off.
I had amazing results with this program. I lost a total of 22 pounds and a whole bunch of inches all over my body. I saw abs for the first time in my life! The most important thing though, was all the non-scale victories I had: more energy, more confidence, better sleep, clearer skin, increased strength, and increased stamina. I was able to start doing push-ups without modifying too.
I bawled my eyes out on the last workout, right along with Autumn and the rest of the cast. I had freaking done it! The whole thing, without giving up, without cheating on my nutrition, and not missing a single workout. I think you can even tell I was crying in the picture above. I was so proud of myself.
After finishing 80 Day Obsession I took a little break, and fell off the nutrition wagon. Which is such a bummer because I worked really hard for those results. I played around with some other workouts until another awesome program came out toward the beginning of summer 2018. It was the perfect workout for a busy summer with Wildchild, NotSoLittleDude, my niece, and my nephew all in the house. 30-40 minutes a day, 4 times a week. A combination of weight lifting and high intensity interval training, called LIIFT4. I quickly fell in love with yet another Beachbody program!
I have completed 2 rounds of LIIFT4 since this summer, with dabbling in Shift Shop in December and other fitness programs in between. I even did Shift Shop, while I was having a flare up of my Multiple Sclerosis. I am currently on another round of LIIFT4 right now. It just really fits into this season of my life with Wildchild, homeschooling, taking care of chickens, and before I know it summer will be here again. It allows me to make fitness a priority, while not taking away from the other things in life.
So where am I at today? Here’s a pic:
These are obviously not professional photos by any means. I don’t have all the special equipment that most coaches or bloggers have. These were snapped quickly by Aaron after breakfast this morning, also a huge no-no when taking progress pics, but I had to get it done. Am I as shredded as I want to be? No, but I love tacos, coffee, and other yummy foods. I know I need to buckle down on my nutrition and I will get there eventually. Right now, I am just enjoying the fact that I haven’t gained all the weight I lost back, and how much stronger I am.
With LIIFT4 I have gained even more strength and stamina. I actually need to go buy heavier weights soon because 15 pounds is starting to be a bit too easy on some moves. When I started 80 Day Obsession, I only had 3 pound weights available, then 8 and 10 pounds toward the end. That’s a heck of a lot of progress!
This process has changed me so much that I signed up to be a coach and am currently studying with NASM for their certified personal trainer exam. If you ever have any questions about health and fitness, I’m your gal. I love bringing people along on this crazy journey, fitting in motherhood, homeschooling, and whatever else life throws my way.
- Barbara
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