What does a 90 day + 18 month transformation look like?

On my day 1, I was 28 years old and trying to do everything at once!

I was a mom to a toddler, working full time as a high school teacher, working part time as a college professor, while also thinking I had the bandwidth to enjoy renovating a house. I had gained 10 lbs in 3 years.  My body had grown soft and tired. Whenever a jolt of motivation would hit me, I’d run a 1-3 mile loop around the block on a weekend or randomly after school. I was rarely eating breakfast because I binge eating at night.  After 2,000 calories of granola bars and cookies, being hungry for a well balanced breakfast goes out the window!   While I packed my lunch for work, it was often done in HUGE tupperware containers.  I thought a huge lunch would “save me calories” by preventing a snack at 4pm to bridge me til dinner.   Instead my protein and veggie devoid lunch would leave me starving at 4pm despite the calories.  I’d snack on more crackers til dinner and top off the evening with 2-3 glasses of wine before bed.

My habits didn’t change overnight, of course, so neither did my body!  It took about 3 years for my weight, size, softness, and fatigue to creep up to uncomfortable.

It took time to lose good habits I’d been taught growing up and replace them with less than healthy habits as I increased my pace of life into adulthood.  

I was CLUELESS to the weight gain though because even on a small frame like mine, 3 lbs over a year is rather unnoticeable.

It was when my “fat jeans” became my “skinny jeans” that I realized OH, SNAP if I don’t do something about this, these jeans won’t zip up soon.

With my 10 year high school reunion looming, I remember thinking, “I don’t want to show up frumpy.”

Of all the desperate ways I could have tackled transformation, I am proud to say I kept a level head and chose a BASIC but proven approach…

A.  I hired a personal trainer to:

1. take the “think work” out of the gym for me.  If I could just show up and follow instructions I could get things done!
2.  take away my self doubt of “looking like an idiot” and doing things wrong.
3.  to TEACH me how to lift weights correctly in the gym so I could get results and not get hurt.

And so I resolved to have a 2 drink limit on Friday and Saturday nights and be dry Sun-Thursday. 

I began to read food labels and served myself only what the serving size said on the package.

10 chicken fingers turned to 6.

Gobs of french fries turned to 13.

While the approach was SIMPLE, it was a true challenge to do consistently.

Ya’ll I would SALIVATE at night CRAVING my daily dose of wine!!!! The urge to go back to habits that didn’t serve me were unexpectedly STRONG.

But I had 8 weeks to trim down and, in the end, my fears of being frumpy over powered my urges to go back to my old ways.  

In addition, I was not juggling 1,000 food rules at once!

My commitment was singular. It was clear.

Do this ONE thing.

NAIL this small commitment tonight.

90-ish Days later I can tell you I FELT confident and beautiful in this dress.

Scale weight: I was down to about 132-134.

Maybe many would say 4 lbs is sad but my skinny jeans were my fat jeans again.

My energy was spectacular.

I slept well.

I gained muscle and loved my weight training time!

So… I kept going…

When I’d plateaued at wine and food labels, I added a small set of new basics.

I traded chicken fingers for unprocessed chicken breast. I replaced canned green beans with frozen and fresh veggies.

18 months in I was undeniably athletic and strong. In the pic above I was 123-125 lbs.

Full disclosure for those who don’t my FULL STORY… I did take my fat loss to a very scary place, eventually hitting 105 lbs soaken wet.

I didn’t know how or where to stop.

I kept getting smaller and smaller because I’d never been introduced to the world of adding muscle to an already lean body.

But, those details are for another time and place.

What I wanted to do today was SHOW YOU how impactful it was for me to:

• get help weight training in the gym 
• and change one small thing in the kitchen at a time.

I reduced overwhelm WHILE adding gym time to my life because I invested in support.

It’s because of this humble beginning that sweatlocal puts forth so much effort into

• creating a program where people can just show up and lift.  No think work.  
• teaching people proper form and how much to lift so they get the biggest bang for their time buck.
• creating an environment where you can enjoy learning and working hard at the same time. 

It’s not “just another group training class’ where you pick up weight quickly and set it down.

Our training is centered around coaching proper form, finding weight that will challenge old boundaries, and creating a weekly schedule that keeps you balanced not broken.