Hello There!

“My Fitness Journey” will be a series that I will be posting every Tuesday for the next three weeks.

Why you may ask?

Because IT’S AN IMPORTANT ONE!

I wanted to share my fitness journey with you guys before I started sharing too many meals,  fitness tips or acting like a know it all about healthy living. I think it’s important to share this information because I am not a registered dietitian or a trainer of any sorts. Yet, I am a person who lost a significant amount of weight, has kept it off and has dedicated their life to living a healthy lifestyle.

Some of you have watched and have been there for my journey since the beginning, while others are reading about this for the first time. To put it out there plain and simple though, I lost close to 30 lbs when I was 16 years old. While that may not seem like a huge or significant number to some, on my tiny 5ft frame – it was huge. Throughout my whole journey, my heaviest was 140 (please remember how short I am) and my lowest was 100.

I’ve had ups, I’ve had downs. I’ve gained, I’ve lost and I’ve learned. Everyone’s journey is different and this is mine.

The beginning

When I look back at grade school, there was no doubt that I was the chubby girl. While I wasn’t chubby my whole life, I was for as long as I can remember. Even as a young child I knew I was heavy. I knew. At eight-years-old, I would stare in the mirror with disgust in my eyes, as I looked at myself. I would cry to my mother because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be thin. Why I was different.

While as a child it hurt, I was still a child, I was confused more than anything. As a teenager, it probably hit harder, but yet, I didn’t do anything to change it because I didn’t know how. I mean, I wasn’t doing anything different than all my friends. We ate the same food, drank the same drinks, were in the same activities and sports…. So why was I so much heavier?

When I was 16, I decided to make a change and start to do something about it.  I realized that I was different and couldn’t eat like my friends could. I didn’t have a fast metabolism, I wasn’t going to just wake up one day thin and there wasn’t going to be a magical pill that would make my weight melt off. If I wanted to lose weight,  I needed to start really working for it. Right around this time, I had just gotten my drivers license (Fall 2008) and my mom was finally letting me drive to and from school by myself, so I drove to the YMCA and I got a gym membership.

When I first walked in, I had no idea what to do in the gym, nor where to even begin, but as time went on, I figured it out. From that point on, every day after school, I would go to the YMCA and I would make myself run for a full 10 minutes. To you, and to myself today, that is nothing, but at that time, it was the hardest 10 minutes of my life. I would then go down to the matt, I would stretch, do a series of ab exercises, and then I would do weights. I had my own little routine, and I would normally do full body exercise every day.

Nutrition wise I cut out all bread, all fast food, and all sodas.  This started after reading the book Fast Food Nation (everyone should read it!) I also started incorporating a grapefruit day…. (I call it the magical fruit). At this time, I was not counting calories at all, but I was very careful about the amount I was eating, and what I was putting in my body. I would watch the scale go down every week, every day, and that was all the motivation I needed.

I didn’t starve myself and I didn’t try some crazy fad diet. By solely cutting junk food out of my diet and dedicating myself to 45 minutes at the gym 6 days a week, I lost 20 lbs in less than a year.

**NOTE**

 I don’t want you to read this and think I am just posting this for praise…. because I am not!!! To be completely honest, it actually gives me severe anxiety putting this out there and for being so vulnerable….I mean, even Colton has seen very few pictures of me at my heaviest. Please know that this is not because I’m “ashamed” of the fact that I was once heavier. I truly believe that all sizes are beautiful…..it’s just that in my story and my journey, it has more to do with the fact that it wasn’t a happy time for me. When I think back to that time and I see the pictures…. I remember that little girl.

Anywho….I want to stop here because this truly was only the beginning of my fitness journey.

Also because I want it to be motivation for you guys, who are just starting your own fitness journey. I want to show you guys that it doesn’t happen overnight. You have to make the first step, you have to stop eating JUNK, and you have to get your body moving every day! It’s the little things that make the biggest difference.

xo,

Lauren