A new year sometimes brings a new perspective.

I am blessed to have the people in my family's life that I do. Last month a longtime friend shared her story with me and you and this month I have 2 other friends that I've known for years with a similar story to share. There are more people like me, Sharron, Rachel & Steve out there that as we've gotten older struggle with staying fit, losing weight and keeping it off. However, their stories are truly inspirational.

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 4^th 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....)