My Story

For my first post, I just want to explain about my journey and how I have made the changes necessary to feel the way I have always wanted to feel. In later posts, I will share specifics. 

     I am 4'11". I was a dancer in high school, so I was very active and fit. I didn't worry about what I ate, because I was young, active, and just didn't care! When I went to college, I continued eating the same way I always had in high school, but exercise was no longer a part of the picture. Not because I didn't want it to be, but because I wasn't very educated on what I could do. I just wanted to dance, and if that wasn't an option, I didn't want to do anything. Little by little, I began gaining weight, easily putting on that cliche "freshman 15". I finally began doing a little more about it, running consistently, but never more than a mile or so, and certainly not very fast. I would do really well for a while and then fall off the wagon. This repeated over and over for years. At my highest pre-marriage weight, I was 150. On a girl my size, that is a lot. In 2007 I left to serve an LDS mission in Peru for 18 months. I started out at 150 and over the course of my mission, with all of the walking (upwards of 15 miles a day sometimes!) and eating lots and lots of fresh veggies and unprocessed food, I came home at 125! Actually, I remember weighing myself the day after I returned home and it said 123! I was so happy! I felt so good and tiny and confident!

      Just before flying home from Peru 2009

     Shortly after returning home (ok, 3 days after) I met my husband and we began dating, and I began getting back into "normal" bad eating habits. When I was married 3 months later in 2009, I weighed 130 and it only went up. In the first 6 months of wedded bliss I gained 20 pounds and was back up to 150, a number I would feel trapped by for years. I started running again and actually ran my first 5k. We soon had our first baby, in late 2010. I had a perfectly healthy pregnancy and only gained a total of 10 pounds. I was back to 150-154 shortly after and stayed there. When my baby was a year old, I really got back in to running and started learning more here and there. But, my running was never coupled with healthy eating. I still had no idea how to do that. I cooked often, but it was always lots and lots of processed foods. That is all I knew.

   My wedding day June 2009

     I ran more and more and did my first 10k in 2012. After that, I got pregnant with our second. It was another healthy pregnancy, with little weight gain, delivering at about 165 lbs. However, after having Maddi in 2013, I was so determined to get healthy and get back to running. As soon as 6 weeks was up, I was out running! I would push my babes in my awesome jogging stroller and it was great. I would also go running every day after dinner all by myself. It was my "me" time. I began getting faster and seeing improvements. I signed up for my first 1/2 marathon in January of 2014 and committed to do my best. I was worried though, that I would never look like a runner. I had still never figured out my eating and could not break out of the 150s.
   It wasn't until February of 2014 that healthy eating finally clicked. I spoke with my sister-in-law, who is a fitness guru, and she laid it out for me so simply. She introduced me to the paleo diet. (She is not paleo and neither am I, this is just what helped me understand food and our bodies.) She explained to me fats, carbs, and protein and gave me simple meals to eat each day. I had a list of about 6 things to rotate between and it was surprisingly easy! I ate perfectly clean for 7 days and lost 3 lbs. The following week I began doing "Southern Utah Bootcamp" with a great friend of mine with whom I had been running. Through bootcamp for 4 weeks, I was awesome with my eating. I was a stay at home mom and had time to cook clean, simple (sometimes fancy) meals for my family! I could not believe how the weight started coming off. In 4 weeks I lost 11 lbs and 18 inches, and dropped a full pant size, plus some. The pants (9/10) were loose on me. I had FINALLY found my recipe for a healthy lifestyle: eat clean and exercise. I fell in love with the high intensity interval training (HIIT), which was most of our bootcamp. I learned so many other exercises, proper form, etc, and my eating was on point. I really began training for my half when bootcamp was over, cross training with HIIT amidst my running. I had an amazing workout bestie who helped me stay accountable and consistent with 5am gym attendance! I was down to 143 at my smallest. I was fit. I could out push-up my husband. It was the perfect situation. I had an amazing routine. Nothing could stop me.

     And then, we moved. Two weeks after I ran my 1/2 in September 2014, we uprooted our little family and moved to the big city, away from my gym, my bestie, my routine, my running routes, and my comfort zone. I also immediately had to start working out of the home again. My fitness "life" crashed down and I was miserable. I was happy we had moved, and knew it was right, but inside I felt so sad. My eating went down the toilet, I began cooking processed foods, drinking soda, eating treats daily, sitting on my butt, and making excuse after excuse. I felt like the only reason I was so successful was because I had my best friend. Because I was a stay-at-home mom. Because I had the money to go to the gym. I was gaining weight faster than you could say, "do you want fries with that?"! My size 9/10 pants were so tight, I had to use the old rubber band to do my pants up, because they wouldn't button.

      My first Half Marathon Sept 2014

     It wasn't until we had two weeks off for Christmas and New Year's that I finally picked myself back up. I had purchased a new gym membership over Thanksgiving with the black Friday deal, but had only gone twice. Over my break, I went to the gym a lot. I had my husband home to watch the kids and I could go whenever I got up in the morning. I started cooking better meals because I had the time. And then, a crazy thing happened: I started feeling amazing! I wanted to keep working out harder. I craved good, clean food. I started to realize that it was ME who worked her butt off all year. I got myself to the gym at 5am. I controlled what I put in my mouth. I decided what food to keep in my pantry. I KNEW HOW TO BE HEALTHY. No one else did it for me. For some reason, I had completely lost sight of that. I had the knowledge I needed to be successful and it had been tried and tested as well! It all started coming back to me and now I am so excited and feeling so great! I can't wait to break back out of the 150s. That number is not a jail to me anymore. I know how to open the door! But, the clincher is that I have to do it. I have to get myself to the gym. I have to control what I put in my mouth. I have no more excuses. 

             12/29/2014 to 1/3/2015!! 

     All along, I have just wanted to be my best self so that my sweet girls will have someone to look up to. I know how to be that mom! But most importantly, I believe, I am doing it for ME. So that I can be the person I know I can be...the person I know that Heavenly Father knows I can be. So, I am also doing it for my Father in Heaven. He knows me and helps me. I am trying to be more  diligent in my prayers to Him; to ask Him to give me the strength I lack to be able to get up in the morning and do what I need to do to be the best me I can be. I know that He loves me and will help me. If something is important to us, it is important to Him.