Oh girl,
If I had a dollar for every time some one told me "I'll just do it alone" I would be swimming in a room full of money.
Let me give you a little run down of my story, because I was quite possibly the most stubborn person when it came to losing weight, getting healthy, and pretty much anything else to do with fitness.
Not because I didn't want the support, but because I was so unhappy and embarrassed by my situation that I didn't want anyone to see me let alone know enough about me to give me advice.
I started this journey for one reason, to lose weight (like I'm assuming most of you). I had just had a baby in 2012 and I was extremely depressed. When I was growing up I put very little effort into staying thin, I just naturally was. So gaining that amount of weight in such a short amount of time, messed with my mind as well as my body.
When I started out I would quite LITERALLY try anything... Here are just a few of the "diets" I tried. MIND YOU, I did all of these alone.
With no guidance from a trainer, nutritionist or really anyone who had any idea what they were doing.
I basically did what I could either Google or find on Pinterest.
*LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR, NONE OF THESE ARE HEALTHY OR A REAL SOLUTION TO WEIGHT LOSS*
• The HCG "diet" : FAIL. This is that one where you eat 500 calories a day, so you for all intents and purposes starve yourself and then you put three drops of this HCG stuff on your tongue to lose weight. Of corse I lasted 4 days and any weight I did lose immediately came back as soon as I started eating a normal amount again... • The Lemon + Maple Syrup + Cayenne Pepper "diet" : FAIL.
Yes, this is a real thing and YES I tried it.
This is exactly what it sounds like, you make a VAT of lemon water and add maple syrup and pepper to it and that's all you drink for like... 15 days.
ANNND again, I made it 48 hours before I was ready to chew my arm off and I stopped.
• The I just won't eat "diet"
I literally told myself that if I just didn't eat that would be a great way to go about losing weight.
I would go on binges where I would eat and eat and eat, and then get so depressed and feel so guilty that I would PUNISH myself by just not eating for a day.
Which of course didn't do anything but further the problem.
Have you figured out yet that I was obviously desperate?
I mean, WHY ELSE would I have tried all this crazy shit!
In addition to the things above I bought carb blockers, weight loss pills, wrapped myself in everything I could and spent THOUSANDS of $$$.
If you are in this mindset PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read the next portion of this blog post, because I promise you there is hope...
So what happened next?
After a while I started to get completely defeated, so I did what every rational person does when you get to this point. I had a LIGHT BULB MOMENT.
I decided the only thing that could ever possibly work was exercise. Now I would not on Gods green earth give up eating the way I did but I would workout.
So I went and bought a gym membership, and honestly for a while I did great! I would go, run and then do a 10 minute "ab" workout that I found online and I DID lose a little weight, but after about a month and a half and 7ish lbs down the scale wasn't moving, in fact it was staying in exactly the same place.
I couldn't for the life of me figure out why, once again ON MY OWN I decided I would jump into something more intense, which is when *BUMB BUMB BAAA* I found my very first Beachbody Program, Insanity.
Did she see the light? Nope not quite yet.
My husband convinced me that if we were going to do this, we should do it TOGETHER!
Support right? YES, this is what I needed to stay in check and who better than my husband right?
SO WRONG.
Now I'm not saying everyones spouse will do this but this is what happened with mine. We started the workouts on three different occasions.
The first time we made it two days before my husband came home on day three and said "I'm to tired, let's just skip today" we then proceeded to not do any workouts for the next two months.
Go around number two, we started the program AGAIN. This time we made it 2.5 weeks before I got the "I'm to tired, let's just skip today" which then led to another 3 month hiatus.
The last time we tried it together we made it HALF WAY through the program, a full month in and we both were actually seeing some major results. But, once again "I'm to tired, let's just skip today" turned into months of nothing.
Here was the difference between my husband and myself.
I WAS unhappy with my body : He didn't really care either way
I WAS depressed and never leaving the house : He didn't really care either way
I WAS ready : He was NOT.
So this is when I finally figured it out. I found a friend at a local mom group and we decided to try T25 together. I told her my story about my husband and how I really just needed someone that would commit with me. Someone I could check in with, talk to and just all around be connected with that was going through the same things with me.
The one thing I did do, which made my husband furious was I told him he was kindly uninvited to my workouts. I said, "it's to hard because you don't want this so just let me do my workouts and leave me alone. If you want to workout you can, but you can't just pop in and out when you please at least not till I make it through a full program"
I did ALL THREE MONTHS of T25 and never missed a workout, I still hadn't changed my eating but I committed to working out every single day. I checked in with my friend until she dropped off about month 2ish, but I didn't care. At that point I knew I could make it to the end, I saw the finish line and boy did it look good.
After that, I was hooked.
I knew there were other people out there that shared my need to continue on, I just needed to find them. Because I had already done a Beachbody program I figured I would roll right into the next, and this is when I finally found my people... I got plugged into a support group and started rolling.
from that point on I went on to complete...
T25 • PiYO • 21DAY FIX • INSANITY MAX 30 • 21 DAY FIX EXTREME • SHIFT SHOP • COUNTRY HEAT • CIZE • BODY BEAST • INSANITY ASLYUM VOLUME 1 & 2 • HAMMER & CHISEL • CORE DE FORCE • TRANSFORM 20 • MORNING MELTDOWN 100
I've done more than one round of some of these programs, I've done other workouts that have popped up on the Beachbody radar, but one thing I have not done is ever gone back.
I found a group of people that understood and supported me ALL the time, even if they did fall off they always seemed to jump back on and come back.
I've learned so much about nutrition, exercise, and community. It' become a life changing journey and obviously I built a business around it in the process.
I'm here to tell you though THERE IS SUPPORT.
There are people in the same place as you right now that need help... the only difference is they asked for it and took the leap of faith to trust someone else to help them.
------------------------------------- You can always check out our next group, we have something to plug you into ALL the time. Just fill this out for our most recent group. I'M READY TO STOP WISHING AND START DOING OR for more information on getting started please contact me! I would love to help coach you 1-1 and get you started to your own results - lauren@thefitlaw.com