So here's the deal... I am fat. I was a little chubby growing up, and in high school I slimmed a little doing JV basketball for a year (regardless of how much cookie dough I ate at the end of each practice). But the real transformation came in college. The Freshman 15 was good to me and through diet, quasi starvation and intense cardio classes several days a week I slimmed down to my hottest body ever! Then I met my hubby, got comfortable and became a foodie. Still I didn't plump up too much, and I felt I could loose 10 lbs, but at the end of the day I was still happy with myself and my future. I slimmed back down 6 weeks before my wedding doing South Beach Diet and more cardio, lost the extra weight and had to take my wedding dress in. Super cool I know, and reinforcing the idea that diet restriction and cardio does a woman good. So here I sit, 7 years later with a crazy preschooler wrestling a toddler at my feet, so chunky I haven't recognized myself in the mirror since I became pregnant almost 5 years ago.
Well that is almost true, I started recognizing myself earlier this year and that was my breaking point. When you start believing that the big girl is actually who you ARE life get a whole lot more depressing! But climbed out of that hole and started making changes. Following what worked in the past I cut out the carbs and tried upping the cardio. But for some reason the exhaustion, migraines and irritability kept derailing me! I wonder why... That was what women do, cut calories/carbs/food whatever and do endless cardio. Every magazine I saw toted that and all my friends and family reinforced that belief. But, wimp that I am, I couldn't handle starvation and hours of work on no sleep (baby with reflux and milk allergy) and VERY active preschooler. II did this time and time again. And every time I "fell off the waggon" I took it harder, ate binged out on candy, cr@p and soda even more. Until I weighted MORE Than I did after giving birth!
WTH!?! I was obviously doing the wrong thing. So I tried Weight Watchers- no bueno... Paleo- lasted 1 1/2 days... South Beach (again)- 10 days of HELL until I got to phase 2 and porked out on whole grain bread, and stopped completely. Nothing I tried worked, calorie counting was my last hope and that was even too hard. SO here I am fat and NOT happy, confused why I couldn't starve myself and go cardio-crazy to loose the 75 pounds of "baby weight" I put on (2 pregnancies involving bed rest and the misbegotten notion that breastfeeding melts the fat off, found out I was immune to that and GAINED weight while breastfeeding!)
So where does that leave me? Depressed and alone? No I had my loving husband to get by butt in gear!
He too had put on some baby weight was was trying to loose it and get back into shape. His method was triathlon training. But training soon took a backseat to family time and injury lead to a complete reversal of progress. Then he stumbled onto weight training.
He purchased the book "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe, and got to business. Losing weight and trimming his stomach within 6 weeks my curiosity was peaked, and my own weight training has started. So I am starting this blog to document my transformation (in progress) and help any other women... or men for that matter... struggling with the same insecurities and fear of the iron. Wish me luck, and let me know what you think about the program. I will post my trials and successes, and hopefully my process will someday help someone else. I know I continuously troll the interwebs for success stories and their process... I anxiously await the point when I am included in that category (and when I get to the point that I can post before and after pictures with pride).
