Decide. Commit. Succeed. One Girl’s Story of p90x Determination.

Growing up I was always skinny.  I never really had to worry about “eating right” or dieting, and to be honest a diet for me never really lasted longer than about 2 hours.  But really, they would have lasted longer, but then I would get hungry and eat whatever was in my fridge or pantry.  I’ve always been really active so, being lucky, I never really had to worry about my weight.  Then about a year ago, I really started to get self conscious.  Since I had been out of college for a couple years and most of my day was spent sitting, instead of playing sports, or walking across UConn’s enormous campus I was noticing that had put on a few (ok maybe more than a few) extra, unneeded, lbs!  My clothes started not fitting right, and it was at that time that I vowed:  I will NOT buy bigger clothes to make myself feel comfortable.  I WILL change my life to feel comfortable in the clothing I own.  After all, isn’t that how people get fat?  They eat too much, get uncomfortable in their tight clothes, buy bigger clothes that have some spare room, and repeat cycle.  It all starts innocently enough, but before you know it you’re not allowed on amusement park rides and are buying two plane tickets for yourself.  And that, my friends, is no way to life.

Anyways, back to my story:  About a year ago, I really started to notice changes in myself and I didn’t like it, but since I had always been active and never really dieted (my idea of a diet was having only 4 slices of pizza instead of 7), things didn’t really start out so well for me on the weight loss front.  I tried exercising in the form of running, but I’ve been an avid runner since the age of 11 so that didn’t do anything for me.  No seriously, I trained diligently, and rain a full marathon (26.2 miles) and was literally the exact same weight after.  I also tried every “diet” out there:  Atkins, South Beach, Veggie Cleanse, Smoothies, Juice Diets, Slim Quick, Fasting…They would work for a short period of time, and then OF COURSE because they are only a “quick fix” I’d be right back to where I started…sometimes even worse off!  Turns out the only REAL way to lose weight is diet and exercise, muscle confusion to be exact…who would have ever guessed!

So, thanks to my patient boyfriend’s encouragement, I decided to try p90x.  I had already been through months of boot camp classes, and not for nothing, because they were amazing, but I really needed more.  More intensity, more times a week, and unfortunately I really couldn’t afford more than 2 times a week at boot camp.  May 6 was my day.  Decide. Commit.  Succeed.  The initial plan was to go from Adele to Jillian Michaels (*see bottom)  in 90 days…needless to say, that didn’t happen, but I’m proud to say that I for the past 13 weeks I have done every single main workout (60-90 minutes) and all but 2 of the ab workouts (16 minutes) in addition to running, biking, and hiking.  I’ve also tried my best to stay on track with the p90x nutrition guide.  Of course I’ve failed many times, but I’m only human, and I can only learn from these experiences.  I’m not perfect, and I’m no super model, but I’m definitely much stronger both mentally and physically now than I was before.

It’s funny because as I started the 90 days, I thought to myself…wow this is so easy!  Not easy in the sense that the workouts were easy (they weren’t) but easy in the fact that I enjoyed working out and the workouts were similar to those that I have done in bootcamp and other classes at my gym so it wasn’t difficult to motivate myself to do the workouts.  It was about week 6 that I hit my first wall.  I was tired (most days I had to get up around 4:45AM to fit it all in) and to be honest I just wanted to be lazy.  But that wasn’t an option.  How could I be mad when nothing was happening to my body if I wasn’t doing anything differently!  I’ve seen that with too many people, and quite frankly I find it annoying so I chose not to let myself fall into that category.  I mean like anything, there were some days that were way easier than others, and some days that I literally hoped I would fall and break my ankle so I wouldn’t have to continue.  In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t break my ankle or any other body part for that matter, and am even more glad that I stuck with it and am on my way to reach my goal.

To say that I did it alone though would be lying, so I really have to give credit where it’s due.  Of course, thanks to my loving boy who encouraged me every single day for the past 90 days . Next, I have to thank an amazing co-worker, Andra, who was nice enough to take a look at my food log every single week not only to keep me on track, but also to give me some helpful tips and motivate me. She also helped me get on track with some great vitamins and supplements! She rocks!  Then of course some of my girlfriends, Liz, Carrie, Erica who have gotten up at ungodly hours to do workouts with me and forced me to believe that I could get through it when I was mentally or physically fried –  Especially Erica who would do extra workouts with me just to keep me company on a low day!  Additionally I found motivation through fellow bloggers, loseitbig, roundtoravishing, and theblissproject whose blogs I found motivating, inspiring, and many times entertaining! (I especially appreciated loseitbig – he’s hysterical!)  Finally I gotta thank my bestie Stef.  She’s so far away (I’m in CT and shes in CO), but since we both have the same mind set and similar goals and are both working out and eating right so we look to each other for support, and it always means a lot to me.

Feel free to read more about my exercise regimen, food log, measurements, and success on my page Eating Clean & Getting Lean!  I’d also love to hear some of your own personal success stories or challenges!  cheers!