Vacation is Coming

It's kind of strange to think about the fact that in my adult life, I am so focused on working out and eating well. I was always active, an athlete, when I was young. When I stopped playing sports, I got a little lost for awhile. It took quite a few years but that drive to have an active lifestyle is still in me. I love working out. It is fun and satisfying to feel strong lifting heavy weights or holding my body in positions that take core strength and balance. I feel like an athlete again, even if I don't quite look like one yet!

Every summer, my family tries to take a vacation. We don't leave the country, and sometimes not even the state, but we try to take our kids somewhere where they can have a different experience than just staying at home all summer. Any time we go on a trip, we seem to fill up our time with activities from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed. It can be pretty exhausting. In past years, I haven't focused much on making sure I got a workout in. We don't always stay in hotels so there isn't a guarantee that there will be weights or equipment for me to use. Depending on where we go, I can't always take my stuff with me either. Over the past year, I have found that my mindset has shifted a little bit. Beachbody has made it so much easier to take my workouts with me. I have so many programs at my fingertips that I don't even need to take equipment with me if I plan to use one of the many that use body weight. The newer programs have even started to include modifications for travelling. How cool is that? The new program that comes out in October (or July if you want to pay a little extra) even has a "bandifier" which is a person using resistance bands instead of dumbbells for easy travel.  Which brings me to the whole point of this post--there is no reason that vacation need to derail my dedication to my health and fitness.

So, as I begin planning for our trip, I'm considering which workouts I will do and when I will do them. My family gets up early and are usually balls of energy. I am the pokey morning person that doesn't even want to function until I've had my first cup of coffee! My summer plan has me doing A Little Obsessed, but I'm considering doing something else so that I don't have to pack heavy weights. I could do some Core de Force, or pick and choose based on workouts that use just the loops and sliders since those are easy to pack, or maybe just pack my 10s, 12s, and 15s, and focus on form and activating the muscle where I would have used a 25 or 30. Seriously, I'm not even worried about what clothes I'm going to wear yet. It's all about the workouts! I'm hoping to post on my Instagram (@gkup25) throughout the trip to hold myself accountable. I'm more dedicated to this life than I ever have been before. That should help!

Happy Summer!

Fear of the Scale

Throughout my journey to being fit, there is one element that has been a constant battle for me. The scale. If you have followed me on social media, you know that I started (again) nearly 6 years ago with Weight Watchers. One of my major issues with the program is that you have to step on the scale once a week. If the number went down, it indicated success. If it went up, it meant that something went wrong that week. Well, I've come a long way since then and thank goodness I know better now. Unfortunately, I still have a unhealthy fear of the scale. So, for awhile, I just didn't weigh myself. I did fine. I stayed healthy. But I put on weight. About 10-15 pounds. At the time, my clothing fit a little tighter, but my size stayed basically the same. I can't say that it would have continued that way.

When 80 Day Obsession came out, it was exactly what I needed to kick my body and mind back in gear. I learned a lot about myself. One of the biggest lessons was that if I kept myself from getting hungry and ate the right foods all day long, I didn't crave sugar and I could kick my sugar addiction. Another lesson . . . I needed to keep track of my progress. So really the weekly weigh ins with Weight Watchers had some value. At least I knew what was happening with one number. However, weekly weigh-ins are not as helpful for me. Every time I added a workout to my week, I would gain weight that week. It was discouraging. So now, I weigh myself at the beginning and then end of each Beachbody Program I do. This helps, but the fear of stepping on the scale and seeing the number go up is very real.

The group I am participating in on Facebook with Autumn Calabrese is called Path to Progress. It's another group that runs through Autumn's programs and ends with 80 Day Obsession. She's teaching us how to use the timed nutrition eating plan from 80 Day Obsession with her other programs. I appreciate that she is willing to support so many people and take time out of her days to chat with us through Facebook Live. Leaving 80 Day Obsession behind after being 100% on point through the whole thing was a big challenge. I floundered. I lost some control. I worked out every day but took a couple extra rest days and let my life get in the way of my goals a little bit. I feared the scale today, knowing that I needed the number to make sure I use the right calorie bracket for the next program starting tomorrow. I stepped on the scale.

I knew that the chances of me staying at my ending weight with 80 Day Obsession were not high. I had done a deplete week the last week of the program so I knew I would at least gain back some of what I lost that week. This morning, when I was getting ready to step on the scale, I mentally prepared to see a huge weight gain. I thought for sure I had screwed myself by relaxing my nutrition. Well, I didn't really screw myself, I maintained the weight that I had ended at before deplete week. This was good news, but also a little disappointing. I am really glad that I didn't lose all of my results from 80 Day Obsession. I knew that I hadn't because my strength has continued to increase. I'm disappointed that I didn't stay focused and strive to lose more. I'm not where I want to be. I don't have number in mind, but I have a general range. I'm not there yet. So, I faced my fear of the scale and got the number to calculate my calorie bracket for the next program. Tomorrow I start 21 Day Fix Extreme. My goal for this program is to stick to the nutrition at least 95% of the time. If I treat myself, I will plan for it. I will use the containers for those treats. I don't set weight goals on principle, however, for this next program I'm setting a goal to see the number on the scale go down and the inches in my measurements to go down as well. I have already proven to myself that I can do this with hour long workouts and 100% dialed in nutrition. I can do this for a 3 week program. It's 30 minutes of my day and preparing food for the weeks. I've got this.

The greatest lesson I learned in 80 Day Obsession is that my best option is to do the program, trust the process, and see what happens. Someday, I'll be able to do that and not fear the number on the scale. That is my ultimate goal.

I'm ready! Bring it on!

Life Changing

On September 5, 2017, I started a journey that I never imagined would take me as far as it has. I have followed Autumn Calabrese on Facebook for awhile. I believe I saw a teaser video for 80 Day Obsession and was very intrigued by the idea of a workout program that was supposed to be like working with Autumn in the gym. She started a group on Facebook called Prepare to Be Obsessed. I thought about joining this group. I had been doing Beachbody programs for a couple of years at that point and had done all of the programs that Autumn was including in this group. I felt like physically I would be capable of doing 80 Day Obsession but I definitely wanted to be ready. So, I took the step and I committed to the Prepare to Be Obsessed group. I went through 21 Day Fix, Chisel, and 21 Day Fix Extreme. Then Autumn did a live stream recording of A Little Obsessed, which she then included in the Prepare to Be Obsessed group. I LOVED IT. Never in my life have I committed to a health and fitness program for as long as I had to commit to this. I wasn't sure if I could do it. At the end of the Prepare to Be Obsessed group, Autumn offered up another opportunity to be a part of a test group. It would be the second test group for 80 Day Obsession, but it was just for Beachbody Coaches who bought an 80 Day Obsession Pack. We were expected to follow the program exactly as written and share our thoughts, results, and struggles. I commit to this like my life depended on it. I'm still trying to figure out how I did it.

Timed Nutrition
One of the most intriguing parts of this program was the concept of timed nutrition. I had used the Fix containers. I knew how it worked and what foods went with each color container. I will say that the food list in 80DO is a bit more restricted than some of the other Fix programs. I found out the reason for that later. The program materials for this program are extensive. Just like all the Beachbody programs, there is a calculation to figure out which bracket you are in. I knew that I wanted to lose weight during this experience so I calculated for weight loss and found my meal plan. Each bracket has it's own set of materials for the meal plan. It includes both regular and vegan plans. The meal plan not only tells you how many of each colored container you get, but it also tells you when to eat certain containers and which ones go together as meals. Within the day, there is what is called a workout block. Certain containers are eaten within 90 minutes before the workout, then 90 minutes after the workout. The rest of the meal options are spread out every 2-3 hours throughout the rest of the day. This took some planning and prepping each week. It was also a lot more food than I was used to eating. I quickly adjusted to the amount of food and eventually started to get hungry every 2 to 3 hours.

Refeed Days
The reason the food list is a little bit more restricted is because Autumn designed it for people to get the best results possible from following the plan the way she wrote it. However, when you work the muscles as hard as the workouts do in this program, you start to lose that glycogen in your muscles. To counteract that, she did Refeed Days. This is NOT a cheat day, however you get more carbs and fruit on these days. They start 6 weeks into the program and come about every 2 weeks in phase 2 and 3. There are healthier desserts that include more natural sugars, and a list of what she called "dirty carbs." Dirty carbs are basically the white grains and more processed flours. It was just enough to restore the glycogen and kill any cravings that start because of how the program is set up.

The Workouts
The workouts were between 40 minutes to an hour long. Using weights, resistance loops, and sliders, Autumn takes us through three phases of workouts. Each phase you do the same moves in each workout. However, what is unique is that each workout is filmed in real time. The rep scheme for each workout is different each week. The first week, she takes you through a 2x15 rep scheme working through all of the exercises and then repeating the whole thing again. The second and third weeks are 3x10 rep schemes. The second week of 3x10, we did each exercise for 10 reps and then repeated all of them 2 more times for a total of 3 rounds. The third week, we did a 3x10 rep with the exercises in groupings to burn them out and then move on. The final week of each phase was another 2x15 with the exercises in groupings to burn out the muscles again. In Phase 1, the moves were simple but challenging. It was a great phase to ease into using the resistance loops and adjust to the sliders. It was sort of a foundational phase. Phase 2 was referred to as the building phase. The movements became more complex and Autumn encouraged us to challenge ourselves with heavier weights. The last phase was the shred phase. We went back down to slightly lighter weights and more plyometric movements. After building muscle in phase 2 it was interesting to see how much our cardiovascular endurance had improved even though the workouts were more weightlifting than cardio. The last week of the program was called Peak Week. We did 2 workouts from each phase and had the option of using a deplete plan for the nutrition. We had 2 deplete days and 1 regular day followed by 2 deplete days and another regular day. It was basically carb cycling and it was completely optional. I chose to do the deplete days for the end of the program but probably would not do it again for myself. It was nice to see what it was like to give others advice on how to do it and what it was like.

The Results
My physical results were amazing. It had been years since I had actually lost weight and I had even started to gain a little each year. The best part of this program was not the number on the scale going down, though it definitely did with a total loss of 14 pounds. I actually lost a total of 17 inches throughout my body with my legs losing quite a few inches around. My legs are the hardest place for me to lose! The physical strength that I gained was shocking. I went from barely being able to do a push up to being able to do full sets of 10 on my toes with a 3 count on the negative. My cardio endurance went up and I was able to breathe through moves that I used to need an inhaler to get through.

What was even more amazing was the mental strength. I went from January 15th to April 15th without cheating. No junk food. No desserts that were not plan approved. I was able to say no when someone offered me food that was off plan. I packed my food and took it wherever I went. I stopped giving reasons for why I wasn't eating food that was offered. I gained confidence in my choices and stopped worrying about hurting feelings when I didn't eat cake or doughnuts. I didn't even want any of it. I began to see food as fuel and not a source of emotional comfort.

I no longer feel like a slave to my taste buds.

2 weeks later
In the name of honesty and transparency, I am not perfect. I relaxed the first week. I fell off almost completely the second week. Here is what it taught me . . . I like eating healthy. I love how I feel when I use food to fuel my body. I don't like the way sugar makes me feel. I don't like the lack of energy, the trouble sleeping, and then overall feeling of yuck when I don't eat right or don't eat enough. What that means is that I will be going back to the timed nutrition with a vengeance. I'm done being okay with having more than one treat in week. I'm done not planning out what I'm going to eat. I'm still not going to be as restrictive in my food as the full 80 Day meal plan, but I'm going to stick to it about 95% and enjoy pizza or going out for ice cream with my family every once in awhile.

Beachbody might be the best thing I have ever done for myself and my family.

80 Day Obsession-not even day 1

Monday, January 15th brings the release of Autumn Calabrese's new program, 80 Day Obsession. I am looking forward to what this program has in store for me. What I didn't expect was what this program has already done for me. It was announced back in October 2017. At that time Autumn started a Facebook Challenge group called Prepare to Be Obsessed. If you think about it, this was a pretty cool thing to do. She knew that if people wanted to do this new program, they would need a base level of fitness. So, not only does she get people excited for a brand new program, she helps them (us) prepare for it by guiding us through all 3 of her programs from the least to the most intense. When the group was offered, I hesitated to join. Could I stick to a plan like this? I decided to take a small step out of my comfort zone and see what happened.

Get a Challenge Pack and connect with me!

As we went through all 3 programs, the release of A Little Obsessed, and learning about timed nutrition, I started to get excited. I had not paid much attention to my results from the program. When the opportunity came up to be a part of a coach test group with Autumn, I did some serious thinking about what I wanted out of all of this. It's not so much about what the results will be physically, though that is a consideration. My thinking is that I needed a push. I needed to be pushed out of my comfort zone and to change the way I think about my health and fitness. I choose healthy most of the time, but something always holds me back from going all in. I figured out that it's fear and a need to have control. I didn't want to feel like I couldn't have something I wanted. 

Seems kind of silly now. I enjoy planning my meals. I enjoy prepping them. Life is so much easier when all I have to do is grab the right meals and go to work. So I joined the test group. I'm committed to timed nutrition. I'm committed to an 80 Day workout and nutrition program. I had Peter take my before pictures today. I was actually dreading having to weigh myself, measure, and take pictures. There are specific rules when you are in a test group for what needs to be in the pictures. By joining and posting in the group, I agree to allow Autumn and Beachbody to use my results in their marketing. I won't be sharing my before pictures here until at least Phase 1 is done, but the best thing happened. I had someone else take my pictures. I usually do mirror selfies and I get super critical. By having someone else take the pictures, I saw myself through their eyes. And I didn't hate the pictures. I also know that my body will go through a lot of changes over the next 80+ days.

I'm ready to take this leap out of my comfort zone. I want to make it the new normal. I'm ready for that. I'm ready to feel good and full of energy every day. I ate every 2-3 hours for 2 weeks. I felt amazing and didn't crave sugar. It was eye opening. I ate more food over the past 2 weeks than I have eaten in months sometimes. I lost weight. I lost inches. I think I'm going to just trust this process and make it happen!

Check out Beachbody through my website!

Stay connected to follow my journey. You can find me on Instagram @gkup25

A Little Obsessed . . . okay maybe a lot obsessed.

80 Day Obsession

I can't help it. In the last few years, I have finally found a piece of myself that was missing. I had searched for a long time before I found Beachbody. Well, really Beachbody found me. I remember the last round of Weight Watchers I did and how incredibly frustrated I was getting. I had been working out once a week. Every time I added a workout, I would gain on the scale that week. See, Weight Watchers really only cared about the number on the scale. They encouraged taking measurements, but the measurements didn't count toward the overall goal of weight loss. They didn't look at what kind of weight I was losing. They just cared that the scale went down. And if it went up, well, that was okay as long as it didn't keep going in that direction. So, I learned that if I worked out, I would gain weight that week. If I didn't work out, I would lose. Sounds healthy right? I knew that this was not what was supposed to be happening. (Weight Watchers was a great place for me to start and I am not discounting it as a useful program, I had just outgrown the program and needed something else.)

When I was introduced to Beachbody, I didn't follow the meal plans for the programs. I would calculate my calorie intake for whichever program, and then use MyFitnessPal to track my calories. This worked for a little bit. I went down two pants sizes. I still wasn't really getting this whole healthy thing figured out. I decided to really try out one of the meal plans. I did 21 Day Fix. I followed the containers, read everything that was available to me through the program and followed it religiously for 2 and a half weeks. I lost steam at the end and did the workouts but cheated on the meal plan a little bit. I still had great results and it was enough for me to continue with it. When I signed on for the All-Access Pass to Beachbody On Demand, I had so many choices that I just started to pick and choose programs and do them. I'd get great results but I knew it could be better. I started reading everything I could about health and fitness. I learned a lot in a short amount of time. Toward the beginning of 2017, I was in the midst of a pretty bad episode of Seasonal Depression. It didn't matter what I tried, nothing was helping. I continued to exercise but could feel myself giving up with the fatigue that set in around 1 or 2 PM each day. My students started to notice. I was relying on caffeine to keep me going in the afternoons. Finally, I made a decision that helped me find that missing piece. I signed on as Beachbody Coach. I didn't sign on to sell a product. I signed on to get a discount on that product. I watched a video about Shakeology and what the ingredients can do for your body. It's all about gut health. I had already started reading other things that said that everything dealing with our health starts in our gut. If your gut is messed up, your body can't absorb the nutrients it needs. It didn't matter that I was taking extra vitamin D and Vitamin B and Fermented Cod Liver oil. While those things helped my depression and fatigue temporarily, they didn't do everything I needed them to do. After listening to one of the creators of Shakeology discuss the purpose of the shake, I knew that I needed to try it. So, I committed to three months. If it did absolutely nothing for me, I would cancel the orders and go back to the supplements that had kind of been helping me. That was at the end of February 2017. It's now January of 2018 and I'm coming up on a full year of drinking Shakeology.

Each year, it was probably about April when I would be able to keep my energy levels up and I would come out of the fatigue and fog. When I started drinking Shakeology, it was within the first few days of drinking it that I started to see a difference. And this winter, when I normally would be having these symptoms, well I'm still waiting for them to show up. They usually start right before Christmas. I'm still watching and waiting, but I'm still drinking my shake every day. I have not gone one day without it since February of 2017.

Healthiest Meal of the Day

I worried that the fatigue would set in back in October when I joined Autumn Calabrese's Prepare to Be Obsessed group. But it didn't. I have never felt stronger than I do now after doing 21 Day Fix, 21 Day Fix Extreme, 30-Day Chisel, and a hybrid of the three. Then she released A Little Obsessed. I have found that I enjoy pushing myself to do better, lift heavier, and not modify the moves as much as possible. I even asked for heavier weights for Christmas so that I'm ready for the next level while I'm doing 80 Day Obsession.

So, am I a little obsessed? No. I'm definitely a lot obsessed. People ask me what I enjoy doing. The answer . . . I love following a Beachbody program from start to finish. I enjoy meal planning and prepping for the week. I love posting about my experiences and journey. I love taking selfies after my workout and saying a little something about how I felt about a workout or what struggles I am or was having. Do I expect everyone to follow and do what I am doing? No. Everyone is different and different things work for different people. Maybe you enjoy working out with a group of people in person. Maybe you love Boot Camp and wouldn't think of missing it. That is awesome and amazing and I cheer you on! Maybe, like my husband, you prefer to do your own thing at the gym and run obstacle course races and half marathons. Awesome! You are doing a great thing for yourself.

But maybe, just maybe, there is someone out there that felt a lot like I did when I was yo-yo dieting. When I was so worried about the number on the scale that it was throwing me into a horrible mental state every week when it just would not go down. Maybe there is someone who always starts out the new year with another gym membership and swears that this time it will stick. Maybe, like me, that dwindles quickly because life, responsibility, kids, work, and whatever else gets in the way of keeping that insane schedule of leaving the house to fit in a workout. Maybe, there is someone out there that feels defeated and just doesn't know how to fit in time for themselves. That is one reason that I choose to post.

My living room has become my gym. I don't have a special space to workout. It's a part of my every day life. It's right there for everyone to see. In fact, when we have people over, my workout bench functions as seating. I don't have to leave my house to workout. In fact, most days, I don't need more than 30 minutes to get in a workout. I don't have to drive anywhere. I don't have to pack a bag. I don't have to shower in a strange place. I don't have to worry about equipment being available.

I'll tell you what I had to do. I had to commit to myself. I had to invest $99 for a year of access to thousands of at home workouts. I had to buy weights over the past few years. As I get stronger, I buy the next weight. The first time I did 21 Day Fix, I used 3 and 5lb weights, and those 5lb weights felt impossibly heavy. If I do it now, I use 8lbs as my lightest and go up to 20lbs on leg days. I own up to 25lb dumbbells. It took me a year. I asked for weights for Christmas and birthdays, even Mother's Day. And I'm not the only one that uses them. They are available for my family to use and as my boys get older and get to the age that they are able to lift weights, I hope that they will use them as well. Isaac has already agreed to do Double Time with me in April when I finish 80 Day Obsession! I can't wait.

So, I guess my point is that I know I post a lot of workout pictures. I mostly do it for myself. I do it because I have found something I love and want to share that happiness with my friends and family. But I also do it because there might be someone out there that can relate to my story. They might be feeling like they don't know what to do. Maybe they see what I am doing and think, that can't be that hard. If she can do it with a full time job, a home to take care of, a husband and two boys, why can't I?

My Coach Site