Saturday, October 18, 2014

My fitness story + Before and Afters!


Growing up and all through high school/college, I never really thought of myself as overweight. I was never "skinny" or what I wanted to look like, but I wasn't upset with my weight or body type. I was generally between 135-140 pounds. I never worked at it, and I never had good eating habits, but I guess all the dance parties and random outings with friends had me more active and kept me within that weight range. When I got married at the beginning of 2012, it seemed like it was overnight that I gained a few pounds, and then a few more pounds. And then all of a sudden I was 169 pounds. Um, what?! I was super self conscious, hated the way I looked, the way clothes fit me, and my energy levels were dirt!! But did I care enough to do anything about it then? NOPE! I was just super complainy.. (not a word, I know.) POOR ME! I'M SO CHUBBY!!



Then I got pregnant, and for most people, that's when they decide to start eating healthier.. Yanno, for the baby! That wasn't the case for me! I figured I'd been living just fine eating the way I did, and I wasn't about to give up all of my candy and junk food! NO WAY!

But then I had Ty. And when we finally got to bring him home, of course I was tired, I just had a baby! He was eating every two hours! I wanted to stare at him every second! But I was sleeping until 1:00 in the afternoon, taking naps all the time, and just never had the energy to do hardly anything.



I was at a family gathering and watched my sister-in-law's daughter reach for vegetables that were on the table before she reached for the candy right next to it. WHAT?! I didn't even reach for veggies.. EVER!! I thought about Ty growing up and how I wished, more than anything, that he would be a healthier eater than I was, and maybe even enjoy eating vegetables. And that's when it hit me. He's not ever going to learn to love them if they aren't even in the house! I was the one that was going to have to be his example. It all had to start with me.

I tried looking around at different weight loss programs, but I knew I wanted to do something that would help me change my habits instead of going on a "diet". I needed this to be a lifestyle change. Everything that I saw was either super expensive, looked stupid, or I knew it wasn't going to stick with me.


So I decided to look on Pinterest for easy at-home workouts and I thought that I might consider doing. In the middle of June, I was browsing Facebook and came across a post that mentioned this girl who had a workout page where she posted healthy recipes and a few short videos of her working out. I checked out her page and thought to myself, "If I ever get motivated enough to workout at home, these workouts seem like a good start!" I 'liked' her page, and then she messaged me asking about my fitness goals and wanted to get to know me! So we started talking back and forth, I told her that I just had a baby and I wanted to get back in shape, and she told me about a fitness challenge group that she was going to be doing the next month, and after telling her that I suck at eating healthy, she invited me to a "Clean Eating" group that she held every month. I happily accepted, and learned that eating healthy doesn't have to be hard!

I ended up really liking the accountability of having a group on Facebook where I had to say what I ate everyday. There was no way that I was going to let everyone know that I had sugar cereal for breakfast, chips as a snack, pb&j for lunch, and so on. I also got a lot of food inspiration from the other people posting everyday!! It was awesome. So then I asked about her challenge group that she was doing. She told me that I'd need to buy a fitness program, Shakeology, and I'd have one-on-one help from her, be in an accountability group on facebook where I'd need to post everyday, and I would have access to Beachbody's Online Gym!



I was super excited because that seemed perfect for me! If I'm not accountable to someone, I will never finish anything. And even sometimes if I am accountable, I still don't finish. I'm kind of well known (by myself) as the girl who never finishes anything!!  But I decided to give this a try, and I wanted it badly enough that I WAS GOING TO MAKE IT, DANG IT! I started looking around the Beachbody website, looked at the products, and I was kind of reserved on the price, but I knew I still wanted to do it. It looked amazing! I read a ton of success stories and saw a lot of "before and after" pictures, and I was ready!

I went ahead and bought a challenge pack, which came with a 30 serving bag of Shakeology and my workout program; I chose Focus T25. It said it was only going to be 25 minutes a day, and with a two month old, time was not on my side!

One of the coolest things for me was being in the facebook group. My coach had written up a bunch of her favorite healthy recipes and that was the best starting point to eating healthy, along with the sample meal plans that came with Focus T25. It helped me realize that eating healthy wasn't hard, it just took preparation.


I was told to take pictures of my body to have as my "before" pictures. For someone like me that never finishes anything, I was skeptical about the whole thing, STILL, and was worried that I was going to take these INSANELY embarrassing pictures and still look the same a month or two later. BUT, I'm so glad I took them. NEVER skip the before pictures!!!

So I started working out, eating healthier, and drinking Shakeology in place of one meal a day. Because of my serious addiction to sugar, I made the commitment to give up all treats for the first month, which might not be your preferred method to do things, but I HAD to give it all up to start with. And I lost 7 pounds in the first week!! It was probably just water weight, but freak, it was 7 POUNDS! If that doesn't motivate you to keep going, I don't know what will! So I kept going, working out, drinking Shakeology (which curbed a lot of my cravings!), and I just kept seeing the pounds disappear from the scale! One month went by and I was down 10 pounds! And then after two months, with almost consistent healthy eating, drinking Shakeology, and working out everyday, my weight was 151!!! I had lost 18 pounds, I felt A MILLION times more energized, I was so much happier and friendly to my husband, and I wasn't nearly as embarrassed about what my body looked like!

As far as Focus T25 is concerned, I FREAKING LOVED THESE WORK OUTS!! In fact, I'm doing them all over again, and they are still challenging to me! I get bored really easily with workouts, which is why I never stuck with Pinterest workouts or other ones that I found on youtube.. I needed something new everyday, and I also REALLY needed a schedule to follow EVERY DAY. When you buy the workout program, it comes with a rather large calendar with the designated workouts for each day and then little boxes for you to rate how you did during the workout whether you "nailed it" or "barely made it"! I loved filling in each box everyday, and I'll be honest, almost every day was "barely made it" haha. I'm sure this applies to every other type of workout, but I love that I could customize the level of workout I was getting! In the beginning, I was really overweight and couldn't jump a lot, so I followed the modifier and sometimes even went a step lower, but I was still getting a great workout! These workouts really are great for every body in any physical shape!!

Honestly, Beachbody helped me get my life back. I workout every morning and still have LOADS of energy to play with Ty all day long! Sure, I still get tired (because I go to bed around 12..) but I'm no where close to how tired I was when I ate like crap, never exercised, and got enough sleep.

It has now been 3 1/2 months since I started this whole journey, and I am down 23 pounds and have lost 17 inches from my body!! I mentioned on instagram the other day that I finally enjoy the process of going shopping and seeing how clothes actually FIT and look cute, for the first time in at least 2 years!!



I learned two very important things through this process:

1. No one can make you workout or get back into shape. You have to be ready to change and make that decision on your own. 

2. You can't out exercise a bad diet. Seeing weight loss comes from  70-80% eating healthy and 20-30% exercising. So don't think that you can see results with working out everyday and eating mac & cheese, chips, candy, and pizza everyday. (Although a few cheats here and there won't hurt! Key words being "here and there".)

I hope this gives someone the confidence and courage to make a change in their life. If you have any questions about Beachbody, their workout programs, Shakeology, or anything else, I'd be more than happy to answer them for you!! You can email me at shaylingetsfit@gmail.com . If you want to look for yourself, check out their website! Please know that I'm not at the fitness level that I want to be at, but I am still working toward my goal!! Want to join me? What's there to lose? (Besides inches and pounds, of course!!)

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing! Congratulations! It is fun to be able to go clothes shopping and have clothes look great on you:) fantastic pay day! Plus the added energy:)

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