Long post ALERT. 🙂 I decided to start out talking about my fitness journey so far — where I started and how far I have come.
I have always been a bigger girl, even when I was a kid I wore “husky” pants, and then growing up I was always in a 10-14 size pants.  I was interested in soccer, but I only played rec soccer through North Metro Soccer Association during the summer. Through high school, I had a couple instances where I joined Lifetime and would go there a few times a week and get some cardio in on the elliptical, and I would lose some weight, but once I stopped I would gain it all back and then some.
Before my husband and I got married in 2011, I was doing a TON of cardio and sometimes lifting light weights — my dress was a size 14 — I didn’t fit in it when I bought. I wasn’t too concentrated on what I was eating — I was trying to work out enough that I could eat whatever I wanted. (This is not what you should do, but I didn’t know.) When I think about it after the fact, I think I probably shouldn’t have added that much extra stress on myself before my wedding, but I did it!! I was able to fit in my dress for our wedding. After the wedding, we went on our small honeymoon and ate and drank whatever we wanted. I then gained the weight back and then some.
These two instances above were not very balanced as you can see. My husband and I lived in Ramsey, MN at the time and were just enjoying life by eating and drinking whatever we wanted.
In 2013, I wanted to start trying to get pregnant. We got pregnant nearly right away, but I ended up miscarrying at about 8 weeks. I was devastated. All I kept doing was thinking it was all my fault because I was unhealthy. I was a size 16-18, and almost 250 lbs. I knew I needed to do something, it was then that I joined Koru Fitness in Ramsey.
I loved working out at Koru. I loved the people, the atmosphere, and the workouts. It was then that I fell in love with group fitness. Since Dan and I didn’t have any kids yet, I ended up going to Koru nearly every day. Some days I would do up to 3 classes. I was starting to see changes in my body, but I still knew that I needed to get my nutrition more balanced and under control. Fall of 2013 is when I decided to join Weight Watchers.
I really enjoyed weight watchers, because it held me accountable to have to weigh in every week with someone and also it helped me start learning to track all of the food that I ate. When I started weight watchers, I was still working out a lot at Koru. The pounds started to fall off. I ended up making it under 200 lbs, I was so proud of myself and I felt so good. That was all made possible with learning how to balance my diet with my workouts.
Summer of 2014, I got pregnant with Killian. I worked out a little bit, but was generally too tired to work out. I also had to stop weight watchers. I started eating whatever I wanted — whatever my cravings were — ice cream, cereal, and crackers. After having Killian in March of 2015, I tried to start working out at Koru again and tracking my food myself using MyFitnessPal, but I couldn’t get fully back into either of them. I felt like I was missing out on something with Killian if I went to workout in the evenings before he went to bed, and the morning classes weren’t early enough for me to do before going to work. It was with sadness that I had to cancel my Koru membership.
We moved in to our current house in Coon Rapids, MN in May of 2015. I re-joined Lifetime Fitness and would work out there sometimes late at night and sometimes early in the morning, but I couldn’t get into the groove of things. I was never certain what workouts I should do, I knew I needed some type of group fitness. That is when I fell in love with yoga.
In January of 2016, I decided to pursue the 200hr yoga teacher certification. I’m so glad I did. I learned so much more about myself, I met amazing people that I probably would not have met otherwise, and I learned more about how to balance my life. Yoga has taught me so much more which I will have to share in another blog post. 🙂 I planned to start auditioning to teach yoga at a gym in the Fall of 2016, however in late summer I found out that I was pregnant with Porter.
Being pregnant with Porter, I was able to keep my pregnancy weight gain a little more under control. I was smarter with my food choices, because I didn’t want to gain the 65+ lbs that I had gained with Killian. Also during my pregnancy with Porter I was having to chase Killian around which was my exercise.
After having Porter in May of 2017, I was starting to feel more and more like I was just going to be fat the rest of my life. I was feeling very down on my self, and new I needed to be able to find a way to balance fitness, food, and my family. I looked close to home for a gym and came across Farrell’s eXtreme Bodyshaping in Andover, MN.
In October of 2017, I started the 10 week challenge at FXB. My starting weight was 231 lbs. I love the instructors, the wide range of class times, and especially the workouts. Through the 10 weeks, I learned more about nutrition and was able to get my eating back on point. I had a cheat meal once a week and didn’t have to feel bad about it because it was on my plan the rest of the week. I ended the 10 week challenge in December at 213 lbs. In my 5am class time, I made so many friends with current people going through the challenge, and also FIT members. I felt very accomplished for how far I had come, but I knew I had more to lose so I decided to join the year long 10K challenge.
I will be posting more posts regarding each challenge along the way of the 10K challenge, so be sure to sign up for email notifications for when I make a new blog post.
I am so happy with how much I have learned about fitness and nutrition on my journey so far, but it is just the beginning. I have so many goals that I am currently working towards. 🙂 Thanks for reading!!! 🙂