My Story-the whole story

Well, I'm 32 years old and in April of 2013 I weighed 270 lbs. and I was still gaining and I felt horrible. I would have a bar and a bag of chips and candy and coffee with lots of milk and sugar most every morning for breakfast. Lunch most days was McDonalds followed y homemade fries for supper with a can of coke and then an after supper coffee-lots of sugar and milk again and after the kids went to bed it was movie time with a big bowl of popcorn and another can of coke.

I've tried to lose weight before. I tried cutting down my portion size. Once I tried adding in exercise. I've even tried a nice regiment of laxatives and weight loss pills. Nothing ever worked. Or, if it did work it was too hard to stick with or I got frustrated with it or something-either way in the end it didn't work.

At 270 lbs. and eating the way that I was starting to feel it in my healthy too. But the problem was I didn't realize I was feeling unhealthy. I just thought I was feeling what it felt like to be old and a very busy mom! I live in a two story house and I had a plan of pileing up everything that needed to go upstairs during the day and then bringing it up at bedtime so that I only had to go up the stairs once a day because walking up the stairs made me so tired. I was always tired and rundown. I usually felt like I was walking through quick sand like ever step I took was heavy and weighed down. I was into a size 18-20 stretchy jeans that I could only get at the plus size store around here. I didn't pay much attention to what I looked like in mirrors and ignored little things that I was seeing (like when the bath towel wouldn't fit around me) and my husband kept telling me that I look great and I haven't put on my weight and things like that (when we met I was a bout 150 lbs.) But he also has a habit of speaking about everyone else's weight gain behind their backs-but didn't notice mine. Maybe love is blind!

I wasn't feeling good anymore either. There were times when I would get up from a meal and feel so full that if I burped I might throw up because I was so full and there were times that I was eating something greasy and my chest would hurt-but I kept on eating. And I have about every eating problem going: I like the sugary sweets, I'm an emotional eater, I'm a boredom eater and a habit eater.

It was even getting hard to shave "down there" (the whole story remember) and I had to do it in front of the mirror because no matter how much I sucked in my stomach I still couldn't see it anymore.

So, what changed?

The stupidest thing lol. I saw a commercial for Hip Hop Abs. I'm such a sucker for an infomercial lol I've bought the craziest things from infomercials lol. I was already on the computer when I saw it-on sale for $20! Woot Hoot. I had $20 that I could put into something I was going to fail at lol. So, I ordered it-even before the infomercial was over. During the ordering I was asked if I wanted to be given a free Coach and that got me very excited-I love free and now I was getting into the mind set that I'm really going to try to do this!

So, I was emailed my Coaches name and e mail address and I e mailed her right away and she e mailed back pretty quickly and I told her my story and then I didn't hear back from her for a week. That didn't work very well for me. I went onto the website for the company where the Hip Hop Abs was coming from and found a chat room and in that chat room I got my questions answered by a guy who then invited me to his facebook group. He was in there talking to Connie-another girl in the group. It was a Friday night and I was getting ready to watch Supernatural. He told me that in the group there were 2 rules: post a picture of your post workout sweaty face for accountability that you did you're workout and post a picture of your lunch to prove that you are eating healthy. So, I started doing that. I downloaded the Hip Hop Abs DVD's because I couldn't wait to get started! I had no idea what I was doing with the nutrition part! The exercise I could figure out-just do what the buy on the DVD says to do! But other people were posting their food too so that helped figure some things out and I asked lots of questions and he was able to answer them for me. I switch my Coach. I figured if I was going to have a free Coach it should be the person who was helping me anyway!

Everytime I had a question he and the group would answer it and I would do what they said. Over the course of lots of questions and a few weeks and learning what to eat and what not to eat here is what I was doing: eating 1600 calories per day, 100g of protein and 160g of carbs divided into 5 meals a day. All from healthy foods. I had completely cut out the junk foods. No coffee, no sweets, no take out, no chocolate-all one! And within just a few days of cutting all that stuff out completely I started to feel better! I had more energy and it didn't feel like I was walking through quick sand anymore.

Then after a few weeks this got boring. I started losing weight right away-in fact in the first 2 weeks I lost 10 lbs. but it wasn't fun anymore and I missed the foods that I liked and was sick of doing the workouts and I went through a long time where the only reason that I ate healthy and did my workouts was because I had to post those damn pictures! One thing that I was determined to do was to be honest. So, I couldn't lie and say that I had done it-so I had to do it because I was afraid if I didn't do it that my Coach would be mad at me and kick me out of the group! So, I did it everyday and didn't like it. I didn't like it for a LONG time.

I finished the schedule for Hip Hop Abs and then I went on and did Slim in 6. Didn't enjoy that one very much either (what kind of sadist developed squats anyway?!) But I was still losing weight. I think by now I had lost about 30 or 35 lbs. Then I started with ChaLean Extreme and Shakeology. I will be quite honest, I think I got talked in to the Shakeology by my Coach cause I really wasn't interested in it lol. and the first time I tried it I said I would never try it again-it was GROSS!! And my Coach told me to try a different recipe-what an *kitten* he is to keep pushing me into things I don't want to do! I tried a few more recipes and finally found one that I loved and I very quickly realized that I love weight lifting and intervals training. So, I had found 2 new things that ended up being the winning combination for me! The Shakeology and ChaLean Extreme.

This all started for me with my first workout on April 14, 2013. Now, I'm down 83 lbs. so far and still losing every week. Still doing ChaLean Extreme. Still listening to my Coach (and have become one myself). I've started adding back in some unhealthy foods ocassionally. I have only missed 1 workout since I started in April-even when my daughter was in the hospital I did my workouts. And I have not had 1 full day that was unhealty. I have had some unhealthy meals along the way and some unhealthy meals for fun but no days where I caved and just 'went back to the old ways'

I miss it. Sometimes I miss it a lot. I probably miss Coke the most. I love warm Coke in a can! But I feel so much better now. I feel strong and able to do things. I don't pile things up at the bottom of the stairs anymore-I could walk those stairs 100 times a day and it wouldn't make me tired now. Maybe the best part has been feeling like I'm doing something for me. It's so easy to get caught up in being 'wife' and 'mother' and 'housekeeper' and 'nurse mom' and 'lover' that sometimes I think I forget that I'm 'Amie' too. But, this is for Amie and I'm glad that I've carved out some time from my schedule for me too!

So, what's the moral of the story? There IS a way. There is absolutely a way to do it-you just have to find it! And the most important think to remember is-consistency. When you find it-stick with it. Everyday.