I now introduce you to Rachel and Steve:
Part
1 – The Ickiness.
In
2012 my family took our very first family vacation along with the Braunlich
family to beautiful Bear Lake, Michigan.
I knew that this meant I was going to need a new bathing suit, and for
the first time ever, I HATED shopping for one. I must have tried on 50
combinations settling for one with a tank top and a little skirt to hide all
the things I didn’t want to see. I
thought about all those times other people in my life complained about this experience
each spring and I never understood until that moment.
Growing
up, I was always thin and never had trouble eating whatever I wanted, although
I actually like healthy foods and will often choose a salad over other options
because I really WANT a salad. So that
probably helps. I also have some good
family genes passed down from my dad who is 5’10” and 125 lbs. Hasn’t changed a bit in the 35 years I’ve
known him.
In
2007, my husband Steve and I had our first daughter, Avery, and then in 2010
Peyton joined our family. After that, my
body just wasn’t the same (imagine that?).
It wasn’t that I had gained a lot of weight or that my clothes didn’t
fit, I just didn’t look the same as I had before. The few pounds I put on settled in different
ways and I just felt icky – that’s the technical term. I didn’t know just how icky until that Target
dressing room a few days before vacation.
Vacation
week came and we saw Bill for the first time in a long time. HOLY COW!
What had happened to our friend?
He looked fantastic, and I think Steve and I both were shocked at the
transformation and his fitness story.
We
all had a blast that week swimming, playing with the kids, telling old stories
and laughing, but when we arrived home that icky feeling crept back in and I
couldn’t shake it. Steve and I talked
about wanting to make changes, but how in the world do we do that when we were
barely keeping our heads above water as it was with just the everyday things in
life that have to be handled. There was
no time for working out and I refuse to get up early to do it. If there’s anything I know about myself it’s
that I’m really not an early-bird. I’ve
tried many times to change this pattern, but I just can’t get motivated to do
anything at 5:30 in the morning, let alone sprints and diamond jumps. No way!
So I stayed icky.
Fast
forward to 4th of July 2013.
No vacation to Michigan this time, but the Braunlichs came down to visit
us for the weekend at our house. Of course Bill and Ry are both looking and felling great, and Steve and I, well
let’s just say that not much had changed since the summer before. They told us all about the Insanity program
that had been working for them and I had never even heard of it before. I believe someone said something about it
being a little like cross-fit and that sounded way too crazy for me. Again I pleaded the ‘no time in my life’
excuse. They left that Sunday, the
ickiness didn’t.
The
very next day, I was up late, watching TV and wouldn’t you know, the
infomercial for Insanity was on. I half
watched it while checking Facebook, pretending I really didn’t care. The next day it was on again and I must have
watched it three or four times. Could I
DO this? At one point Steve, who was
half asleep, picked his head up off the pillow and said something like, ‘So you
want to try this or what?’ We DVRed the
infomercial and watched it together the next day trying to formulate a plan for
how we could make this work. We decided we could work out in the evening after
the kids were in bed and convinced each other that 60 days wasn’t really that
long.
The
following day I placed our order on the Beachbody website. It felt good to know that we were going to
try and take this step to better ourselves and say goodbye to the ickiness that
had taken control for so long.
Looking
back, I don’t think we had any idea what we were getting ourselves into, how
unfit we realized we truly were and that more than six months later we would
have a completely different perspective on our own health and well-being.
(To be continued....)
