My transformation story...

There is not much more personal to talk about for a woman than how she looks - more specifically her body. This may be the case for a man, but I'm not male so I really don't know! :) It's easy for me to talk about nutrition, how to feed my body, and the workouts that I love. It's not so easy for me to talk about how incredibly unhealthy I've been, and to point out my flaws and where I struggle. But, I think it's time for me to open up about my transformation story.

I've never been knows as the "skinny girl." As a young child, I was never overweight. I have always had a rounder face, and was always a little bit chubby. I thinned out as a cheerleader, but never lost my chubby cheeks. High school came, and so did the extra pounds. I went to an all-girl high school. I, along with the other girls, would get to school and grab breakfast. Breakfast would ussually consister of a Dr. Pepper and some powdered donuts. I remember a friend of mine driving me to school and we would each get 2 packs of Burger King's Cini-minis. (My stomach hurts just thinking about this!) Once lunch time came, if it wasn't pizza, baked potato, or chicken nugget day then I hit up the vending machine for chips, a candy bar, and another soda. Of course, I gained weight pretty rapidly. I had absolutely no clue how to feed myself properly. At home, my mom always cooked very healthy foods and refused to get any junk food. In my mind, all food was created equal. At this point I had done a few 5k's, but I was more of a walker than a runner.

Let's fast forward to 2011. At this point, I was going through a divorce. I needed something to embrace to keep myself busy. I wanted a healthy habit. I was fond of exercising at this point, but I still didn't know a lot about nutrition and I was definitely not a runner. I got the idea in my head that I wanted to be able to run a 5k. I started a training plan and much to my surprise I quickly was able to run the full 3.1 miles. I then decided I wanted to be able to run a half-marathon. Through out my training and dealing with injuries during training, I was able to learn so much about nutrition and how it affects my body. Along this journey I learned about my intolerance with gluten and about the power of protein.

Life got busy with being a single mom, graduate student, having a full time job, and having a parent that was sick with cancer. It was getting harder and harder for me to get to the gym and get a decent workout in. The kiddo had homework, and by the time that was finished it was just too late to get to the gym. A friend of mine was a Beach Body coach and introduced me to my first program - Slim in 6. I completed it pretty quickly, because I had been doing fitness boot camps. Next I did p90x, and finally I found (and fell in love with) Turbo Fire. If you've been reading PLPB for a while, then you know I just LOVE Turbo Fire! In a matter of about 5-6 months, I went from a solid size 12, to a very small size 6. Yes, it was due to Turbo Fire, but it was also due to MINDFUL nutrition. The following pictures show the transformation. The first one was in November of 2011. I was well in to my running at this point, but my diet hadn't changed. The second picture was once I started focusing on my nutrition, drinking Shakeology, increasing my protein intake, and using Turbo Fire. This is such a good remind to me that it doesn't matter where you are in your own fitness journey, as long as you are ON the journey then that's what counts. Respect the process, and love yourself enough to live a healthy lifestyle.