![]() When you try to be perfect, a lot of the time, it ends up backfiring. Eating very healthy 24/7 or doing your hardest workout every time you go to the gym isn't possible. With fitness and food, you don't have to be perfect all the time. Spending time with them while doing something good for my body is the best kind of multitasking.īan perfection. I like to go on runs and take fitness classes with my friends. When you have weight-loss goals, it's nice to see your friends without going out to dinner or drinking. When I first started losing weight, running was a crucial part of my weight-loss plan because it didn't feel like work to me. I'm also going after my personal training certification. Since losing the weight, I've become a certified running coach. ![]() I learned I can be really disciplined and stick with the training, and it's also helped me stay motivated to stay in shape. It's been such an amazing way to show myself what I'm capable of. I've done marathons, half marathons, and a few triathlons. Running races has been one of my biggest rewards. Just two months before that race (about one year after I'd set out to lose 50 pounds), I hit my goal weight of 137 pounds. ![]() Afterward, I decided to go after the Army 10-Miler-and I even signed up for the Disney half marathon. When I finished a 5-K about two months into losing weight, I was so proud of my time, which was just under a 12-minute mile. But soon, I fell in love with running and started entering races. At first it was so hard my trainer had me doing what felt like nearly impossible high-intensity interval treadmill workouts. I was also doing strength training twice a week and cardio three or four times a week. Surprisingly, doing a complete overhaul all at once made it easier to stick to my diet because I had simple guidelines to follow. Since I'm kind of an all or nothing person, it really worked for me. The hardest thing about my new eating habits was cutting out dairy, but I told myself that making this drastic change would be worth it. Basically, he cut out grains, dairy, and ramped up the amount of fruits, veggies, and protein I was eating. He immediately prescribed a new diet for me. And he said, "I think you need to lose 50." I was kind of shocked but decided to go for it. When I decided to get serious about losing weight, I met with a trainer and told him I wanted to lose around 30 pounds. I wanted to really enjoy the trip and the wedding-and that included feeling confident about how I looked. I was 26, and I wanted to wear a cute bikini without hiding under a cover up. The final straw was when one of my friends asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding in Aruba. So, I told myself, "Okay, I'll buy these now, and I'll make them fit." A few weeks later, I went on a trip with my friends, and I noticed that I took up more of the plane seat than I should have. They were just a little too small to button. For example, I was shopping at a vintage store and really wanted this pair of jeans. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to playĪs time went on, my weight started to bother me more. I didn't want to feel like the girl at the gym who was huffing and puffing while everyone else was keeping up. I would get on the elliptical and not add any resistance or take a cycling class and fake turning up the intensity as much as the instructor told us to. I did start working out, but I still had no clue what to do. So I just thought, "Well, I'll just keep doing what I've been doing," and kept going to happy hours and out to dinner with my friends. That's when I started to pack on the pounds.Īfter I graduated college, I was pretty unhappy with my weight and how I looked, but I didn't even know what to do to start losing weight. Then, like a lot of college students, I discovered beer, takeout, and all that fun stuff that's not good for you at all. The concept of unstructured exercise was foreign to me, so I wasn't working out at all. When I went to college, I was at a normal weight, but I wasn't in any organized sports-and I definitely didn't really know how to work out in a gym. Plus, I had that awesome teenage metabolism I never had to think about what I ate. I was never super skinny, but I played a lot of sports like tennis and gymnastics.
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