My fitness journey

I’ve been putting this post off… but I’ve made documenting part of my journey, so here we go:

I was never a “skinny” kid, one would not have described me as “thin” or “lanky,” but I never considered myself overweight. I was average, and I was happy with being average. I was an active kid. Soccer, softball, gymnastics, dance, color guard were some of the activities I participated in during my K-12 years, not to mention my elementary school shenanigans of playing kickball and tag and that cute game where you would sock the guy you like in the arm and run away… what? No one else played that? Ok. Moving on. I never paid much attention to what I ate because I was so active, I never really needed to, to maintain my weight, and I honestly never thought about what I was putting in my body. Here enters college. 

In addition to no longer being involved with active extra-curriculars, I picked up a hobby that proved to be extremely destructive to my health… online gaming. That’s another story in itself, so long story short: My sleeping became erratic, I replaced water with Mountain Dew, and was constantly ordering out, because there’s no time to cook when you’re part of a 40 man team trying to take down a dragon... obviously. Over the course of a few years, I easily gained 60 lbs. I worked out hard with a trainer and lost 20 of that before my mom's wedding in September of 2011. Shortly there after, the trainer I had been been seeing moved cross country and I lost the bit of motivation I had mustered up. 

Just over two years later I reached the heaviest weight and overall unhealthiest point of my life. That was just this year, January 2014. I'm completely embarrassed to say my weight reached the all-time high of 224 lbs. Just yikes! Maybe it was the hight of that number, maybe I had just had enough of feeling like crap, or maybe it was something else all together, but alarms started going off and something finally clicked. I needed to get my shit together. 

I contacted an old friend on Facebook that I knew was very fit and was an Herbalife health coach. She got me set up with a full package of formulas and protein shake mix and vitamins and teas... the whole shebang. After three months I had lost 15 lbs and was pretty happy with my progress. I had hoped the experience with having a "coach" would have been more like when I had a trainer: more checking in with me, keeping me accountable, and helping me stay motivated on the fitness ends of things. None the less, I was happy with my progress. 

That progress ended as quickly as it started. After three months it was like I hit a wall. I tried everything to push past it and just couldn't seem to make a dent. Around the same time another old friend contacted me about a fitness "challenge group"and I decided to look into it. I was skeptical of Team Beachbody at first, but I heard her out and did a ton of research myself. Eventually I decided this just might be the change I needed. I bought a "challenge pack" which came with a without program and a 30 day supply of a protein shake powder.

I will be starting my fitness program this upcoming Sunday and am beyond excited since I really need someone to just tell me what to do when it comes to working out. I started replacing one meal a day, breakfast, with a Shakeology shake last week. I've been doing my normal daily walks and nothing else. 

I've even pigged out on pizza and wings one night... but I can proudly say that this morning the scale said 204.8 lbs! I'm moving along again and with the motivation, accountability, and support of the Beachbody community, I will have my"success story body" soon. Can't wait to be able to show off my own before/after photos. 

Coming soon: my FULL REVIEW of several protein and meal replacement shakes I've tried!