My Fitness Journey

Hey everyone! My name is Joanne and I am so happy to be guest posting for Tula Fitness Tribe today. I am a blogger over at cleaneatingmommy.com and a fitness coach via a partnership with Beachbody and Team Inspire. I wanted to share with you, how I started my journey into fitness.

While I was growing up, I was not into fitness or sports at all. I was the typical lazy, overweight kid. I was a couch potato and spent most of my time watching tv and eating to cure the boredom. I was really shy and did not have a lot of friends at school.  I continued on this route through high school and into early adulthood. I never wanted to put in the effort to lose weight. I only wanted to sit around and complain about it but do nothing to change my bad habits.

When I was around 23 years old I decided to make a change. I joined the gym and set a goal of losing weight to go to my brothers destination wedding in Cuba. I had hit 170 pounds and did not want to have to wear a bathing suit in front of others. My goal was to get into a bikini.  Once I joined the gym and was paying to go, it was hard for me to make excuses not to go. I set the date of February 15th as my start date.

I chose that day because it was the day after Valentines Day and I wanted to enjoy the 14th with my boyfriend at the time. I had one last food binge before starting my new lifestyle. I worked out daily and followed a low carb diet, Atkins style diet. By the time the wedding rolled around in May, I had lost almost 50 pounds and felt amazing. I had never felt so good about myself ever. I had a new-found confidence and a new passion for fitness. It was just the beginning for me and it was not always a smooth road.

I had continued on that path for years and sure I gained a few pounds here and there but stayed around the same weight for around 5 years. Then I was dating a new guy that kept mentioning that I was so much "bigger" than girls he had dated in the past. When he asked me for my clothing size for Christmas presents and I told him that I wore a size 4. He swore I was lying telling me that there was no way I was a small or a size 4 and that he dated a girl that size before. That I was a bigger girl and should accept it. Well this hit me hard and then when he broke up with me it hit me even harder.

I kept telling myself it was because I was too fat.  This is when things took a turn.

I went from having a healthy lifestyle to alternating between starving myself and bulimia.

I would eat a cup of soup a day for days at a time. Then I would start eating and binge and purge often. I lost weight but did not look good. I was tired and unhealthy. Family and close friends had brought it up to me but I denied that there was anything wrong. Not so close friends would tell me how amazing that I looked and asked me for “fitness” advice. I felt like I was living a huge lie.

Until recently I had never shared that with anyone but my husband and my step mother. In the photo below, I was at my worst and really struggling with eating disorders and body issues. Two of the photos were from my birthday party that year. The one candid one, really shows how sad and stressed that I was at the time. In a posed picture I looked really happy but on the inside I was really having a hard time.

Then I met my future husband. He made me feel more happy and more secure in myself than I ever had. I had someone who thought I was perfect and loved me for who I was. Things definitely got a lot better and the starvation and bulimia stopped. I went back to working out and eating a balanced diet.  This really became important after we were married and then obviously when I became pregnant with Emma. I really paid close attention while I was pregnant to working out and eating right. Knowing my past with eating disorders, I was really careful to make sure that I was not eating too little or over doing it. Then came the real struggle, finding balance in motherhood.

Once Emma was born, I dropped 20 of the 25 pounds I gained, in the first 4 weeks. I had a c-section so I was not able to workout for the first 6 weeks after surgery. After being given the ok, I was still afraid to go back to working out. It took me about 2 months before I got back into things. I was breast-feeding (pumping). That helped a lot and was giving me decent calorie burn. I was watching the scale stay the same and I was not really watching what I was eating because I had no weight gain.

Then I stopped breast-feeding (pumping). As soon as that happened, the weight started slowly creeping up on me. I also had stopped at the worst time: the holidays. Not only was I burning fewer calories, I was eating Christmas cookie and drinking an abundance of wine. By the time the holidays ended I had put on 20 pounds. I was almost back to my pregnancy weight but with no baby!

I had picked up Slim in 6 by Beachbody and decided to start right after the holidays. It put me back in the fitness groove. I am not all the way back to my pre-baby weight but I am getting closer everyday. I did lose 10 pounds with Slim in 6 and got a lot more toned. I am continuing to use Slim in 6 and alternate it with PIYO. On weekends and some weeknights I hit the gym. I am getting back on track and my passion for health and fitness is greater than it ever has been. Now that I have shared my continuing journey with you, what started your passion for fitness?

I have joined an amazing group of women in Team Inspire and have also taken a step further in my fitness career by partnering with Beachbody the makers of P90X and Insanity. What does that mean?

I have taken on a role as coach and as a mentor. I have been coaching ladies that want to get healthy and fit. How am I doing this?

I have been running awesome challenge groups via my partnership with Beachbody! I would love to have the opportunity to help you get fit and find a love for fitness. Please contact me via our Facebook page for info about my next monthly challenge!