Blogging wasn't a thing 20 years ago, so here is the hopefully short story! Who am I kidding, I am my mother's daughter- we can tell stories. July of 1999, I started Weight Watchers. I knew that my diet was lacking severely. I was the junk food junkie. In hindsight, I believe I was also depressed with regards to my 1st marriage at the time. I was married to a man who said a number of times, "If you blimp out, I'm gone." I think he said it enough times that I finally figured that I better do something about it. I went to WW completely expecting that it would not work for me. I even told the leader (my dearly departed friend BobbyJo) at my first weigh-in, "this isn't going to work for me, I don't eat any vegetables." She asked me a few questions & reassured me that I would be successful. I began my journey.
All my life, I've struggled with a little extra weight. I was teased in grammar school, I was never "FAT" during my school years, but I always had some extra padding. Once I started to see results with WW, I wanted to start getting active. The "rule" with WW is that they don't push activity on you until you've lost 10% of your starting weight, but I was eager to get started. I joined 24 hour fitness and went to my first BODYPUMP class. I was the student in the back of class, not sure what to expect & God forbid if I couldn't do it all, I did not want to be up front for everyone to see. I fell in love with the program & began going 3 times a week. In addition to class, I started going for walks in the neighborhood. By the end of 1999, I had lost close to 40 pounds & soon hit 50 pounds a few months into 2000. July of 2000, one of my favorite instructors (Elizabeth) gave up her Saturday class & there wasn't an available instructor to take it over. That is when I inquired about what was needed to become an instructor. As luck would have it, there was a training in July up in Fairfield, back to back weekends. I signed up & was on my way! In between the two training weekends, I visited a weeknight class taught by Elizabeth & she called me up to teach the Bicep track in her class. I just about died, but I did it. It was amazing! As I was driving back from Fairfield at the end of training having a provisional pass until I submitted my certification video, I received a phone call from Elizabeth asking if I could sub a class Monday at 930am. Not many instructors get the chance to teach a full class all by themselves the day after completing training. The confidence that Elizabeth had in me was amazing. She talked me off the ledge & I agreed to teach the class.
The rest as they say is "history". It didn't take long before I had several of my own regular BODYPUMP classes. Over the years, I took training in a variety of other formats & at my peak I was teaching 18 classes a week ranging from BODYPUMP, yoga, aqua aerobics, turbo kickboxing, boot camp, spin, etc. I had a pretty awesome & busy instructor schedule.
Because my husband was an avid triathlete, I encouraged him to get certified to teach Spin class. He did & he started to teach classes at the gym. Eventually, that suggestion backfired on me but in hindsight everything works out for the best. He met a personal trainer at the gym & they had an affair. I found out pretty early in the affair, we separated and a year later we were divorced. I met Bill a few weeks later, we knew right away that we were meant to be together. We were engaged a year later and married the year after. We have now been together for 16 years.
Eventually, I scaled back on my classes when they started to conflict with my new life with Bill. For a long time though I had maintained between 5-10 classes per week & we went dancing 2-3 times a week as well. I was in the best shape of my life. But then you live the good life of eating out, wining and dining, staying home more because you just love to be together and the weight starts to come on. I did pretty well at maintaining a 20 pound gain for a long time & I was very healthy regardless. My Doctor has said on many visits that all my test scores are where they need to be, it's just my weight that doesn't fit what they like to see.
Then Menopause happens....TWICE. Yes, twice! You are officially in Menopause if you can count 2 years without a period. I went 23 months and then bam, my ovaries came out of retirement for two months. After that I was back on track & officially made it to full on Menopause. Well one of the side effects of Menopause is weight gain. I gained 10 pounds with round one and started to lose it when round two arrived. With round two, I gained close to 20 pounds. I kept teaching classes, though not as often. But it helped to keep me accountable. We were still dancing 1-2 times a week, so I was active.
I started consuming Isagenix products, which I know have made me healthier. I love them & they did help me lose about 20 pounds, it is a lifelong commitment and it can be a challenge. I don't always want to have 2 shakes a day, but I'm not always making better choices if not a shake. Covid-19 has presented me with a whole other challenge. March 11th was the last time that I taught BODYPUMP, over 4 months ago. I have been eating crap, drinking more often than normal because I usually don't drink when we go out dancing, which was 2-3 days a week. I stress ate, I stress drank, it's been a rough couple of months. I have had little to zero motivation to work out. Though the scale says that I've only gained 4 pounds, I know that I've probably gained 10 pounds of fat and lost lots of muscle. I am VERY fluffy, flabby, whatever you want to call it. I DO NOT like the way that I look in photos and a photo surfaced this weekend at a group line dance gathering and OMG.
20 years ago, it took me seeing a photo of myself to see how bad I had gotten. Here we are again with a photo telling me I need to get my crap together- AGAIN. But now more than ever it feels more urgent. Covid-19 is no joke. If I were to get sick, just being obese puts me in the "at greater risk" for a less than favorable outcome. I'm actually not entirely convinced that I didn't have Covid-19 back in January. I have never been so sick & I had the main 3 symptoms: fever that was hard to get rid of, persistent cough for weeks and shortness of breath in situations that would normally be easy like going up the stairs.
I need to get serious AGAIN. I need to get on the weight loss train. Back to measuring portions, logging all food and beverage intake & limiting the empty calories: i.e. wine and ice cream! And getting my ASS moving again! I will get back to doing BODYPUMP at home 3 times a week & start my walks or do my line dancing to get my 10k steps per day. I know that part of me has held back at doing these things because I feel as though I'm so out of shape, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
I don't know when my gym where I taught BODYPUMP will resume classes, it may be awhile & I'm OK with that. I'm not eager to rush to the gym anytime soon. They are just about to open with outdoor fitness options only. At this point, I'm embarrassed to go teach. I would not feel comfortable in front of a class right now. It may very well be time to retire from teaching fitness, but I think I need to get comfy in my own skin again before making that decision to make sure that I'm making it for the right reasons.
Original Journey before & after:
3RD JOURNEY STARTS HERE!! HEAVIEST THAT I'VE EVER WEIGHED & I'M DISGUSTED THAT I'VE LET MYSELF GET TO THIS POINT.
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