health+fitness

Over the past year and a half I have been on a life-changing journey of transforming my health and fitness. In a year I had lost 100lbs from working out 6 days a week and eating real food. Think "paleo" and "whole 30".  As I began creeping up around the 9 and 10 month mark, my progress halted and I switched to a really low calorie diet to continue seeing the progress I wanted to see, lower numbers on the scale. I didn't pay as much attention to what kind of food I was eating anymore, but more to the calories. Initially it worked! I absolutely did lose weight doing this and I hit my goal of 100lbs just before my daughter turned a year old. But then my body stopped, totally and completely. I was still working out, still eating low calories. I got frustrated after weeks of no movement and began working out even more. When that didn't work, I lowered my calories again.  It eventually got to the point where I was nervous to eat more than 1100 calories a day and as low of a carb intake as I could, while burning a minimum of 300 calories working out and my progress did not move, not an inch or a pound for 6-7 months of this.

My mindset completely changed from wanting to be healthy- to wanting to be small and I knew I had to change it all. My diet, my mindset, my workout routine needed completely revamped. I woke up one Monday morning at 4:30am- half asleep tossed on workout clothes, brushed my teeth and laced up my sneakers to be at our nearest Crossfit box for their 5:30am class. I needed something different, this was different. An entirely new world of barbells, box jumps and my dreaded fear...carbs. After class one I was hooked- I had never been pushed like this before. I had never been told: "50 box jumps, you can leave when you are done", or have a coach get on the floor and finish my last 20 burpees with me because I was this close to either dying, puking or giving up and he made me complete it. Because 5 weeks in, I could back squat 160lbs! What?! What is a back squat!?! I was feeling great, I was PR'ing and seeing such a progress in what my body could do- but in my head and on my scale...nothing moved still. $#@*(%&(*! That's how I felt.  Food- of course, it just HAD to come down to food. So I reached out to one of the coaches for help, and my mind was blown!

I had let my body go into "metabolic adaption", fancy for: my body was so use to being underfed that it held on to every morsel and every inch of fat I was giving it so that it could function, especially under the amount of physical activity I was putting it through on top of just basic body functions! Not "starvation mode",  I wasn't starving, I had just adapted. This explained why I had not seen progress in almost a half year. I needed to EAT, and eat a lot more than I had been. A diet high in protein with a healthy amount of carbs and fat. Carbs- people...I have been eating oatmeal almost every morning and it has been glorious. So I began to slowly increase my intake and watch my macros (macronutrients: the amount of protein, carbs and fat you eat/should eat daily) increasing by 100 calories or so a week to build up to my maintenance level (the amount of calories you should eat for you to maintain your body weight) to get to my level of 2200. It's a struggle to begin with and I seriously wondered how in the world I ever got so big to start if I am barely able to eat 1800 calories a day! Once I hit my maintenance level, which should be in a week or so...I will stay there for 3 months. Oye. Three months! Then, I will be able to start cutting fat by dropping my calories again but slowly- never ever close to how low they have been.

What a crazy journey full of bumps and twists and turns and halts. So much information coming from so many sources, so many different ways to lose weight and exercise and so many mental blocks along the way. If you are in the middle of a similar journey my advice would be to focus on full body health. What you put into your body matters more than just how many calories it has, eat REAL food.  Give yourself grace. I know I am way too hard on myself. The only person who is honestly going to care or notice if I've lost 5lbs this month is...ME. Don't let this consume you. Find a box if you can. Its expensive but so worth it, friends. You will be pushed and challenged and you WILL change if you don't give up!