In February of 2014 my guy(bringing him into this story will make sense later in the post :-D) started working out on our Elliptical faithfully 3-5 times a week and struggled with loosing and gaining the same 5 to 10 pounds. I joined him on the cardio-junky roller coaster with the same results(down a few pounds, up a few pounds). But one decision in May of 2014 marked the beginning of the change in our progress and brought results beyond our expectations. With the help of my co-worker Nicole from hopepraysweat.com (because lets be honest, walking into the local gym for the first time all alone is insanely intimidating!) I joined the a local YMCA & started a weightlifting routine. In the first two weeks of lifting I GAINED 6 pounds! YUP! GAINED….WHAT THE HECK! I joined the gym to get fit! NOT to watch the scale go up! ok…ok…I slapped myself back to reality telling myself it takes time to loose the “flab”…. I knew I gained some muscle but I kept the weight on without losing a pound! After lifting & doing cardio faithfully every other day for over 3 months, combined with Jeff’s inability to lose the weight he wanted to, I knew something had to give. Our struggle spurred me to google “clean eating”. HOLY COW!!!!! Can you say OVERWHELMED with information!! But I read for an entire weekend on clean-eating, what exactly was clean eating, how to convert, what we could and couldn’t eat and came to the conclusion “Clean Eating” has MANY different levels and you have to choose the level that is right for you and your family. I won’t get into all of that today, but the following Monday I went to work & asked my friend Nicole her opinion on clean eating. She informed me she had recently started clean eating to achieve her goals and she suggested I go to bodybuilding.com – Jamie Eason “LiveFit” trainer, I found Jamie Eason’s Live Fit Trainer breaks “getting fit” into three simple phases of lifestyle change….after reading all of Jamie Eason’s information and watching a few of her video’s I was ready to focus on getting healthy. We made the jump to clean eating in September 2014 and have not looked back. Within one month I had lost the 6 pounds I had gained when I started lifting and lost an additional 5 pounds as well as lost inches and gained solid muscle. I have never been in this shape in all of my 41 years! Jeff has lost to date 50 pounds!!! I am so proud of him for not giving up! We now hit the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and are still faithful clean eaters. It truly is a lifestyle change that has changed the way we look at food!
I am not a nutritionist and have no degree or training in fitness. Everything on our journey has been learned by researching online(reading, watching tutorials, looking at blogs) and talking to people who have way more knowledge than we did. Through our fitness journey I have learned so much and hope I can help inspire someone else to get heatlthy. This is my/our personal fitness journey and what has worked for us. Getting fit doesn’t come from a pill or a fad diet…it comes from determination, dedication and never giving up…..
One of the first steps is accountability….we downloaded the “Lose it” app on our iPhones, iPads & Macs and we logged everything we ate….YES EVERYTHING! Even when we took the wrong turn for a day…log it and watch your progress. This is a great way to learn what works for you & your body.
My “before” pictures below are after 4 weeks of lifting weights 3-5 times a week. (I am KICKING myself for not taking “before I started the fitness journey” photos.) But we can’t go back….I highly recommend taking before pictures.
Left photo – Before Right photo – After
After almost a year of hard work…Never give up! I have never regretted dragging my but out of bed at 4:30am and going to the gym.