My Fitness Journey- the Beginnings

Like many women, I gained weight while having children. It sneaks up on you! And like many women, I was not happy about it, but tried different things. Tried to exercise, but found no time. Tried the gym, but my babies at the time cried every in the nursery there at every attempt to even grab an hour, and the staff would call me after 20 minutes. Tried to eat "right" but what was that, really?

I hit my "wake-up" moment in 2003 when I went on vacation with my family during the summer. Saw the photos later and was shocked that even after having my last child over 2 yrs ago, I was still looking quite round. I was also hitting my highest non-pregnancy weight of 145... and creeping up towards 150 due to the uncontrolled (but family-fun) eating of the vacation. After that, I started working on eating healthier. Counting calories, tracking the breakdown of protein, carbs and fat. Learned how to figure out how many calories I needed to be taking in. Learned how to cut out fats from my diet by replacing fat-free items. Discovered new sources of protein I'd never knew (because I was undereating protein, overeating carbs and fat). And that was also when I learned a big eye-opener! I was overeating by leaps just from not knowing what the proper portion size was! Even when I was eating healthy foods, I was overeating the AMOUNT. No wonder I was gaining weight!!

I lost some weight (maybe about 10 lbs) by doing my own thing, but I was also stuck. My exercise was unorganized, though I didn't know at the time. I "tried everything" but I hadn't really even tried anything. So while the eating part was getting on track, the exercise part was not.

Then I saw an infomercial for Power90 on tv in 2005. I was sooo skeptical!! There's NO WAY those people could lose that weight from doing this workout! Not in 90 days!!! But at the same time, it looked like it would be easy (simple)... just do the workouts and lose weight. How hard could that be?? So I made the plunge. I ordered it and decided I was going to give it the 90 days- and I was going to prove that this infomercial was a gimmick!

The workout arrived and I learned even more about how to eat properly. Nutrition is such an important factor!!! Michi's Ladder was an eye opener to me- but it works superbly as a food choice guide. I discovered the Beachbody message boards- and found a huge group of supportive people there. Some struggling more than I was, some struggling the same way I was, and others who were "there" and achieved their fitness goals. But everyone was there. I loved that online community for support! I still love meeting up with people in WOWY, the online gym- although I haven't been hanging out on the message boards so much lately.

Power90 was such the no-brainer workout. Cardio one day, Sculpt the next. And you just alternate all week- and take one rest day on the weekend. It was not easy physically- but it was easy just because it was Do This. Do That. Do This again. Do That again... no worries or deciding what workout to do, no picking or choosing... just alternate and do it. When it starts getting easy, go up a level, but you're still alternating cardio with resistance training. Sure, it got boring at times, the same workouts over and over- and I could probably STILL quote Tony Horton through each one entirely... but it was truly a no-brainer of a workout program. It was all laid out and there was no guessing.

After the 90 days, I had lost about 10-15 lbs! The previous 10-lb loss took me over a year to do! So this happened very quickly in comparison! And while I wasn't "ripped" after the 90 days... I DID lose a significant amount of weight, and increased my fitness by incredible amounts. I did another 90-day round after that- and got to a weight I hadn't been since high school. It was awesome!!! So some of those huge transformations might not be done in just 90 days- but it CAN be done if you just stick with it. Power90 works!! After that, I was excited to try harder workouts from Beachbody. There was no going back!!!