How I lost 100 pounds

I'll try to keep this post a concise yet as detailed as possible.

June 2011: I took that "before" picture in a bikini that I shouldn't have been wearing. I did not wear that outside the house, EVER. I weighed 249lbs. I was absolutely disgusted with myself. What I see in those pictures is not what I saw in the mirror. And it wasn't at all a reflection of how I felt. But that number on the scale and seeing myself in pictures were big factors in my motivation to change.

So I started trying to watch what I ate. I tried to be more active, but I didn't really have a plan so my progress was pretty slow. Here is when I tried something that did not work at all. Isagenix. If you haven't heard of it, it's a meal replacement "detox" multilevel marketing weight loss  product. It's not cheap but I decided my health was worth it. Then I learned what a mistake it was. On the isagenix plan they suggest a shake for breakfast, another shake for lunch and a 400-600 calorie dinner.  So on this plan I ate 900 to 1100 calories a day. DO NOT DO THIS. I was starving myself. Cutting calories that drastically will not help you lose weight. It will kill your metabolism and put your body into starvation mode. 

So for 6 weeks I starved myself. At the same time I was doing workout DVDs at home 6 days a week and working hard. The first week I lost 4 lbs, the next 5 weeks I lost nothing. Not a damn thing. I was crushed. I didn't understand what was going wrong. Why I wasn't losing 10 lbs a week like people on tv.  This is when I went to see my first trainer (fall of 2011) She was amazing! I absolutely couldn't have lost the weight without her. She told me I should be eating twice as much as I was. I changed my eating, worked out with her every couple weeks and got down to 220. Then I found out I was pregnant. 

January 2012: I continued working out but not as strenuously and focused on eating healthy.  I lifted weights, did yoga, Zumba and even the dreaded cardio machines. September 2012 had my youngest daughter. Weighed in around 200 after giving birth. I felt pretty accomplished and motivated to keep going. 

So after I was released to start working out. I resumed training. I still struggled with my diet. I also lacked discipline to workout between training sessions. Working with 2 kids at home, finding the time to workout was tough. I quit the gym I was going to and stopped seeing my trainer. I joined a gym with a child watch room hoping that would help. But I still struggled to actually go and I hit a 6 month plateau. I discovered Instagram more during this period and was inspired by weight loss success stories. I wanted to be one too. 

In April 2013 I joined a Facebook challenge to lose weight. I was more conscious of my diet and got a bit more active I lost some weight,but I didn't see a lot of change. I was calorie counting and getting some results, but I hadn't really figured out nutrition. That summer I discovered bikini body mommy (@bikinibodymommy) . A program by personal trainer Briana Christine. She has a free 90 day workout program that can be done at home. (She actually is working on here third challege)  I did her program and around the same time I discovered IIFYM (flexible dieting). Here is my day 1/day 90 photo 

During that 90 days. I really developed a love of fitness. It was so hard but I wanted to keep doing it. I felt so accomplished when I could do more reps or go faster or decrease my time on "mommy death march" (100 walking lunges in 4 minutes or less).

It was toward the end of that 90 days I started going to the gym more. I was a little intimidated by the weights so I would go in and do cardio. Maybe try a machine or two. Then I found a weightlifting program online. It was during this time when seeing a trainer initially really helped me mentally. Her words of encouragement during our time together stuck with me. I would talk myself through the struggles. "You can do this" always repeating in my mind. That fall, I found the awesome Zoe Rodriguez (IG @zoelivelovelift) who helped me more with my nutrition and her 12 week weight lifting programs are awesome and really reasonably priced. I continued weight training and iifym and hit that 100lb mark in early 2014.  The day I hit that mark was full of emotions. I was so excited to do a comparison photo. I felt very accomplished. I reached a major milestone. Yet I also felt a lot of negative feelings when looking at that before picture. I was reluctant to post my accomplishment online. I feared hearing criticisms, that's a topic for another time. I did post it though. I have found the positive far outweighs the negative. I've since been honored to be able to inspire and offer advice to others struggling with weight loss. My number 1 piece of advice: Never give up. You can do this!