2 years down, forever to go!
On this day, two years ago, I felt a little nudge to start my own business as a health and fitness coach.
I just started work as a brand-spankin' new physical therapist. And while it was something I had DREAMED of doing since I was 17, something about being solely a PT working in a clinic just didn’t feel quite right. So when an opportunity popped up 2 weeks later to start my own side health and fitness business while also working on my own health journey (which I’d been working on seemingly FOREVER), initially I hesitated, wanting to put it off for a year…until I felt that little nudge.
So I jumped right in and reorganized my current fitness/health regime. I joined a community of women online who were doing the same thing. At the end of my November 2015, I FINALLY broke through the plateau that was my nemesis. I was ECSTATIC and felt great! This is when I started sharing my journey publicly through social media and invited friends to join me.
I started running an online fitness accountability community of my own from that point on. The first few months (December 2015-Feb 2016), I co-ran with a friend. Starting March 2016, I felt ready to start running them on my own, and have ever since. The structure has changed a bit since then, but am so happy and oh so grateful that it’s still live and running! In this online community of women, I share tips and answer questions. Each season (weather wise in business-wise), there is a different focus, and for this fall season, I am focusing on nutrition and nurturing a beautiful relationship with our food.
My personal health journey over these past two years has been a bit more of a rollercoaster, and has been a little bit more all over the place than I would have liked it to be. However, I am at a place of “live and learn” and hope to use the lessons I come away with to help other women in their health journeys. It’s not easy, but it shouldn’t be this hard or emotionally exhausting. Let me explain:
Growing up as a high school athlete, my weight was never an issue and I could really eat whatever I wanted. During college, I gained the freshman 15 and had trouble losing, despite various efforts. During PT school (2012-2015), I knew that if I was going to preach “movement is medicine,” (and wanted my patients to listen to me) I had to be an example. So I worked out regularly and had some results, but it was a ‘5 lbs down, 5 lbs up’ kinda dance. It was really annoying and I couldn’t figure out why I just couldn’t stick to the habits that got me 5 lbs down in the first place (loved wine and beer WAY too much and hated that feeling of restriction/deprivation ;) )
After my first accountability group in November 2015, I was down 7 lbs and felt like I had FINALLY achieved a sense of balance. From then on through May 2016, was able to maintain my progress. I was amazed, as this was the FIRST TIME in a long time that this happened. I was at a place in my health journey that felt like I arrived ‘home’. I found my groove.
But after that point, something ‘switched’ and there was a slow increase on the scale. I can’t exactly put my finger on what it was specifically or when it happened, but I started getting comfortable. Like I said, I thought I found balance, so I wanted to show people what balance was…a fun size candy bar here, a decadent mug of rich hot chocolate there. My ‘balance’ that I found was soon turning into a “let’s see what I can get away with” kinda thing. A few months later, I headed out to Nashville with a friend July of 2016. We ate, drank and were merry, enjoying all the city had to offer. We had an amazing time, but also came back feeling bloated and ready to return to our healthy ways of eating.
But when I got home, it was hard to get back into the routine; it seemed boring, tasteless and bland; plus work at the clinic was stressful, so I kept up the convenience of eating out that I found so fun and soothing in Nashville, telling myself that “next week” would be the week of getting back on track…and we all know how that can go.
Then, in August/September of 2016, I had an AMAZING opportunity to be an indoor cycling instructor at a new local studio in town. I felt the need to switch things up and thought it was great timing to do this, as it was always something I wanted to do. The new studio opened October 2016. Around the same time, I was also hired for a seasonal position at Lululemon. Suddenly, what I thought would be exciting additions to my life turned into adding more to my plate than I could handle. I didn’t have as much time to focus on my business, my health or my family as I had wanted to. And because I tried to be as efficient with my time as possible, eating out and take out became the saver of my time, but not waistline. I remember I would drive straight from work to go teach a cycling class twice week, stopping at Starbucks for a pick me up of caffeine and a treat, thinking it wouldn’t do any harm…until my pants started feeling a bit tighter (this was two times a week for several months…such a bummer), and would eat out for lunch during my lulu shift. Add on to ALL of that a stressful impending election (read: feeling down, not wanting to workout on my own, share my journey as much, and instead choosing a short workout followed by a glass of wine on the couch to relax), and well, it’s easy to see how by June/July 2017, my weight was up higher than it had been when I first started, even though I maintained a pretty consistent workout routine. Time flew by and this all seemed to happen so fast. I knew I need to turn things around, and have been on a mission ever since to figure out what happened and get back to my groove, but truly, I know it all came down to nutrition. I was done with my seasonal position at Lululemon in January 2017 and wrapped up teaching classes by March 2017, but even then after, I just had a hard time finding that balance that I once did November of 2015.
When I first saw the scale go up, I first started out sooooo disappointed in myself and blaming this weight gain on the product and state of our world being so dang depression. But I know deep down, that’s not true, because if it were, that means that I’d have no power to change this around, and that’s not a truth I want to live with or believe in. I’ve since quit the blaming (thank God!) and have taken responsibility to start working towards a solution to see what the next step is. That is:
Being SOOOOO grateful for the insight I had when I first started my journey, and know where I want to get back to….feeling good, comfortable and confident in my clothes and skin. Feeling strong and lean. Unfortunately, consuming sugar does not do this.
I’m lucky to have the love and support of my husband, doing this alongside me, so that includes us figuring out and being intentionally mindful of what foods make US feel AMAZING and which ones make us feel like shiz (congested, bloated, lethargic, and sometimes, actually manifesting into physical pain…no bueno)…and then not consuming these foods/ingredients. Seriously, I don’t know why this is so hard to do, it seems like a no-brainer, but it is…And the unfortunate part of this is A LOT of the foods we love go into the ‘make us feel crappy’ category-i.e. beer, flour tortillas, flour in our red chile, cheese, dairy, etc…buh bye. However, we HAVE been feeling better the past couple of weeks giving these up.
Being open to other ways of eating…as long as it feels good for me to do so. I’m not one for fads. I’ve PREACHED about how silly it is to eliminate an entire food group, but now, I’m like, “hmmm….maybe I should check into this a bit more” and am finding some MIND BLOWING THINGS! The one thing I do want to do is to try things myself first and see how it feels before sharing, but FINALLY feel like I am onto something again for the first time in a long time.
Taking my time with my health journey and not being in a rush. I love my body, I only have one, and there are a lot of adventures I want to take it on and do. In order to do that, I need to be healthy, inside and out. So taking the time to care for it and find what it truly needs, what makes it truly feel good (and not rushing to the destination) is so so important to me.
So here I am, on the two year anniversary into my journey as an entrepreneur and being transparent about my health journey, sharing all about it with you. There have been ups and downs for sure (but it's given me lessons and a community of amazing women that I wouldn’t trade for anything), and it’s a bit scary sharing it with you, but it also feels so right to do. Because of everything I’ve experienced during the past two years, I definitely feel more resilient than I ever have in my life, so that’s pretty neato! ANNNNNND both my business and health are unending journeys that will continue to grow, and am excited to share with you what’s to come. Let’s see where this next year leads us, shall we?!
