Get Fit: Chelsea

This week, I am proud to feature Chelsea! She is a great friend and fellow teacher, and her dedication to getting fit was one of the biggest contributing factors and motivators to my own success story.  Now, before you read this, understand that Chelsea is serious.  She is hardcore. She is tough. She is disciplined. She even calls herself "harsh" - and the truth is, that's the approach you have to take if you are going to be successful.  She tells it like it is - one of the qualities that makes her a phenomenal teacher, and certainly why she has gotten such great results.  Thanks for sharing, Chelsea!

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Let’s start with the facts and a nice, solid before/after pic.  I’m 5’8”.  I started losing weight when I hit 175 on the scale (Size 12). I was 28.  As a New Year’s resolution, I committed to a diet and lost 33 pounds in 18 weeks which put me at 142 (Size 4).

Before: Taken July 2012

After: Taken September of 2013...after 4 months of successful maintenance

Look at the arms. You can tell everything from the arms no matter what your body type is (in my opinion).  I took this particular “after” picture because I could see my oblique for the first time. That shit in the after picture is good. I’m so proud of it.

I’ll try to summarize my experience, although my blog records all of it from the perspective of “after.”  I didn’t know I would be so successful, so it didn’t occur to me to blog beforehand.  Here is the full story on why I was DONE BEING FAT here.

Basically, I’ve been in the 150s my entire teen and early 20s life. I was an athlete. I had no problem being a strong size 8/10.  I never felt like one of those thin little fairy girls that could wear string bikinis and joke about how fat they were while enjoying a pair of size 2 shorts, but I felt good about myself. Good enough. On my wedding day I weighed 153. I normal number for me.  I was in the transitional year of post-college life.  I didn’t have the lifestyle of an athlete anymore. I was married.  I was VERY busy teaching, coaching 2 sports, and falling in love with The One.  I gained about 5 pounds per year. When I hit 175 and saw a few pictures of my ass and thighs, I realized I was losing myself.  And I didn’t even have the excuse that I had popped a kid out.  After Christmas Break of 2012, I was just beside myself. I couldn’t believe that I had a hard time wearing any of my clothes. I didn’t want to go out and buy Size 12 pants or Large tops because I was horrified that my body was that size. So, all of my clothes were way too small and I was very uncomfortable.  I knew I needed a black and white plan.

Eat this. Do this workout.

So I signed up for FitOrbit because I saw the program advertised on Twitter. I did it and NEVER cheated.  You see the results above.  FitOrbit gave me 6 months of an online trainer and meal plan for $300.  I think paying the money helped me stick with it at first.  There is an app with detailed workouts and recipes. You enter your goals and it makes a plan made for you.  So, no radical plan that cut out food groups or had me drinking juice only. Just good, solid clean eating.  Who knew?

Keys to My Success (in no particular order):

*NOTE: Some of this will sound harsh. I am delivering the same matter-of-fact attitude that I delivered to myself on January 1, 2013. Maybe it will work for you too.

1.     Commit to a meal plan and don’t play around.  I didn’t put one morsel of food into my mouth that wasn’t supposed to go there.  I know most people don’t have that discipline, but I’m fit and you aren’t.  Try it.

2.     Pack all meals. Prep all meals. No rash decisions.

3.     The family needs to be on their own.  Separate meals unless you have a fittie family that won’t fight it.  Don’t set yourself up for guilt or too much work. It takes a lot of time to plan and pack meals for yourself.

4.     Tell a few close (honest) friends what your goal is. They will keep you on track in times of weakness. (Thank you, Jen & Christa!)

5.     Make working out a priority. If you think you are too busy, you are lying to yourself. You aren’t. You just choose to make it an excuse.

6.     EAT CLEAN, UNPROCESSED FOODS.  Learn about it.

7.     Water only.

8.     Find a fit person and pick their brain.

9.     Don’t feel the pressure to eat socially. Go to weddings. Go to baby showers. Go to birthday parties. You eat beforehand.

10.  Be open about it socially if it becomes awkward. Tell people you are on a diet and you aren’t “cheating” today.  My opinion: if you do this regularly and people don’t see results, they won’t respect it. They will think you are a yo-yo dieter who is skipping out on their party food, but will binge on brownies at home. If you say you’ve lost 13 pounds by being disciplined and don’t plan to quit now, you will gain instant respect and they will leave you alone.

11.  Measure everything. Don’t eyeball it.

Please feel free to explore my blog if you want more of my perspective on losing weight.