As I sit here writing this I look back at the last 9 months and am in awe of how far I have come and all the changes that I have made heck I rode my first century ride last year because of this!
My Fitness and Health journey started last May 2013, I was 9 months postpartum from having my second baby, where I was being active 2-3 times a week, eating what I thought was healthy 60% of the time and had told myself I was happy with where I was mentally and physically, but who was I kidding I wasn’t. A friend of mine from high school who had just become a beachbody coach, was 6 months postpartum from her first kiddo, and reached out to me and asked if I wanted to be in an accountability challenge group run through a private setting on Facebook. If you know me you know I NEVER pass up a challenge, so I said YES and dove right in! She told me we would be working out 5-6 days a week and eating clean! I dusted off my copy of P90X ( that I had used post baby number 1 and maybe lasted 30 days lol) and planned to incorporate that on the days that I couldn’t get to the local barre studio that I was going to.
I have to be honest I participated in the first month but I did not really change my eating I was always under the mindset that calories were calories it didn’t matter what you were eating rather how hard you worked, sound familiar to anyone?? BOY was I WRONG! You can not out exercise a bad diet, I totally learned this the second challenge when I started tracking what I was eating, replaced one meal a day or a snack with Shakeology and stuck to a new workout schedule! For the first time in my life working out was FUN and something I began to look forward to. It became my mental me time and NOT my punishment for eating something that was unhealthy or “unclean”. Come the end of June my body really started to transform and my clothes started fitting differently. For the first time since having kids my stomach was flat and I had ABS! Something I just thought had to be given up after you have kids lol. Mentally I started feeling happier, I wasn’t so depressed anymore, or moody, and I wasn’t tired! I had more energy to play with my kids and didn’t feel like I had to take a nap every day when they did. I also for the first time since 2004 didn’t have KNEE pain. I have had two knees surgeries and thought I was stronger and would just have to deal with the pain, but I realized now after 3 months of really focusing on my health and fitness that all of this was becoming a myth and a lie that I was telling myself. I was down to my pre pregnancy weight but I was never stronger!!
Come July my friend who had been my “coach” for the past couple months approached me and said “hey you should really become a coach” your story is inspiring and your transformation is awesome, the other challengers really look up to you and I think you would be really good at this yourself.” I kind of laughed at her at first then started to say WHY NOT??! Why wouldn’t I be a good coach?? Why couldn’t I help people start to feel as good as I do?? I then began to believe it, just had to convince my husband to jump on board with the idea :). It wasn’t until October 24th that I signed up to be a BeachBody Coach, and I ran my first accountability challenge group the second week of November. I had over 60 women in that first group wanting to make similar changes to better themselves and to be better role models for their children or families. Some had a lot to lose but everyone had so much to gain mentally!
This group was amazing and for the first time I was doing something that made me SO happy and fulfilled. Work didn’t seem like work it was fun! I loved waking up in the morning and seeing everyones progress and posts. I was not only helping to keep them accountable but they were helping me! We were becoming a FITFAM and women I have never even met were inspiring me and lifting others up in so many good ways. These groups almost give you a natural high, a euphoria, a comfort. They are there to pull you out of a funk and push you forward! I am currently running my fourth group and at the end of my last I had a couple challengers make the most drastic changes yet 12 lbs lost, 7.5 inches gone, and all because we were putting in time to sweat and filling our bodies with good clean food. Life is too short to be unhappy with how you look and feel. There is always time for health and exercise. I am not on a diet and never again will I be I have made a lifestyle change and it has stuck because I did it the slow and steady way! I have done things in the past year that I NEVER thought I would be able to do, I rode my first century ride and I am training for my first Mini.
I run these challenge groups every 30 days on facebook and am always looking for new faces to join our journey! Friend me on facebook and I would love to message you more info! 
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