Prior to 2017, my fitness regimen consisted of playing volleyball competively in leagues and tournaments, walking the dog and working in our yard. I did not have time to work out as life / work was too busy. To me, I felt I was in shape based upon what I did. However, the one problem I faced is that my weight continued to go up versus down and I didn’t know how to change it without dieting or exercising. I blamed my weight issues on my age, the clothing manufacturers…everyone but myself. I needed a change and had to take ownership of fixing my weight versus blaming everything else.
In January 2017, I joined the six week New You Challenge at Torque Strength & Conditioning and my life changed 180 degrees. I was extremely nervous, but excited about the six-week challenge as our group was made up of all women. I felt like we were all in it together as we had similar goals (lose weight, gain muscle, get healthier, be accountable, learn something new and above all have fun). The one area that I was apprehensive about in the challenge was changing how I ate (we focused on Macro Management), because I don’t believe in diets. If you tell me I’m going on a diet, forget it, I’m done. However, I kept an open mind on the Macro Management technique and told myself to try…what did I have to lose because just maybe they might be right on how I could lose the weight I wanted.
After day one of the New You Challenge, I learned that I was not in shape and I had work to do. Within those six weeks, I pushed myself to do everything they asked of us and more because I wanted to do it. Hands down, I believe that TSC has the best coaching staff around and without them cheering me on day after day it would have been hard to push myself. I walked away from the New You challenge with a whole new outlook on fitness, eating and though losing weight was great, I learned that gaining muscle and losing body fat was even better. All concepts that became engrained in my every day thinking.
I officially joined TSC in March 2017 with the focus on getting stronger and better at all things, CrossFit. However, I feel it’s important to join a Bootcamp or a TRX class occasionally for conditioning, strength and cardio. There are many times I will walk away from a Bootcamp class more exhausted or sore than a CrossFit class – so build them into your fitness regimen if you can. For most of 2017, my CrossFit goal was to learn how do the movements, get better at them and eventually move from doing things scaled to RX. But the key takeaway is that things take time to develop and of course a lot of practice. It was close to a year for me to be able to do a hand stand push up and even longer to do a kipping pull-up. I participated in the CrossFit open this year and I had the best time ever competing against myself to see how good I could do. Besides the exercise, I really began to focus more on what I ate, whole foods and that is where I truly saw the results kick in with weight loss and loss in body fat percentage.
18 months later, my outlook on life is now focused on exercising and eating healthy. My happy place is when I can be at TSC working out (5-6 days a week) and visiting with all the great friends that I’ve met along this great journey. I still have a lot of work to do and I continue to set goals for myself to keep me motivated. For example, when I came to TSC I hated to run. Now, I’m pushing myself to be able to run 2 miles without stopping before the weather turns cold.
I couldn’t be happier on what I’ve been able to accomplish in the time I’ve spent at TSC and that is simply through a little hard-work, motivation and encouragement from all the great coaches and fellow members in the gym. I’m happy to share that I’ve lost over 32 lbs., lost 19.1% in body fat and gained 11 lbs. in muscle. I look forward to continuing my fitness journey because I know there is more I need to work on and of above all have fun doing it.
