My Lifestyle Change

I didn’t start educating myself in the health and fitness field until 2018. Sure I cared what I looked like and “worked out” before that, but in 2018 was when I got immersed in it and started to live a healthier lifestyle. If you are waiting for the time to be “perfect” to start your health and wellness journey you are going to be waiting forever, something is always going to come up that’s why you just have to start where you are. It was an unknown time in my life when I started my health and fitness journey, I had just got married, moved from Missouri to California, and had no idea what I was doing with my life.

August of 2018 (me on the left) was when I started working out. I moved to the middle of nowhere Californian and was expecting a $10 a month Planet Fitness membership to be right around the corner but that was not the case. So I invested in one of the only gym memberships in town and made the choice that if I’m going to spend more than $10 on a monthly membership I might as well push hard and give my workouts my all. I didn’t know what I was doing at first. I knew that progress was a combination of lifting weights and cardio so I did just that. I also knew that progress was all about what you ate as well so I started to be more mindful or at least I thought I was. I was doing all the things I saw on social media. No, not a good tactic but it was a learning lesson. I tried everything, lemon water detox routine, smoothies for lunch, nothing but salads for dinner, and cutting out the “bad foods.” What quickly happened was I learned that was not sustainable. I cut out those “bad foods” but then ate them in abundance on the weekend leading me to be frustrated that I was not seeing results. Because of that, I was trying to compensate at the gym and work out even harder. A vicious cycle that I finally got out of.

In September of 2019 (the middle picture) was when I started viewing working out as less of a chore and fell in love with the quote “moving your body is a celebration of what you can do, not a punishment for what you ate.” I also found a program that I love and proud to be doing it still today. It’s called GirHuslte founded by Kristie Barker. Yes, I did find her through social media but her program stood out to me. GirlHustle is all about the physical aspect of life but also the mental aspect of life, and the program is a combination of mind and muscle. What I learned was that mind and muscle go hand in hand, to see progress through muscle you have to exercise your mind, and to feel good mentally you should exercise your body. GirlHustle has great workouts that I have loved and even purchased Kristie’s supplement workouts like her Ab’s Accelerator that strengthens your whole core and your lower back, her Built at home upper body program which can be done literally all at home with 1 set of dumbbells and her leg program. The biggest thing I have loved and have learned so much about was food. GirlHustle does not have a specific “diet” plan. I have learned to kind of hate that word because it can have a bad connotation. “Diet” does not mean you have to restrict foods or limiting the amount you eat. The word diet simply means the way you eat and GirlHustle teaches macro counting and tracking as a way of eating and it completely changed the way I view food.

GirlHustle doesn’t believe in restricting food that’s why Kristie and the whole coaching team teach macro tracking. What are macros you ask? All foods are a combination of micronutrients which are vitamins and minerals and macronutrients which are carbohydrates, fats, and protein. Your body needs a combination of all three macronutrients to live a happy life.

Carbohydrates give you energy
Fats product your bones and organs
Protein helps builds muscles

Counting/tracking macros leaves no room for restrictions and there is so much food freedom with it. If one day I want a bowl of ice cream I can have that bowl of ice cream and not feel like i “cheated” or feel “ guilty, like I fell off the wagon.” Instead, the bowl of ice cream is part of my eating for that day. I log whatever I ate on an app called MyFitnessPal and see that it has a certain amount of macros and I eat around my given amount of the rest of the day, so much freedom!

Which brings me to the picture on the right, which was last week. Happier feeling confident that I know that I can eat whatever I want to as long as it fits my macros. The last 365 days with GirlHustle I have learned so much about health and fitness but I have also learned who I am as a person and what it truly means to dig deep and be stronger than your excuses. I have learned that tracking your food or macros doesn’t mean you have to obsess over numbers. To me tracking my food and macros has been an eye-opening experience and I have learned what it means to listen and understand your body when it reacts to certain foods. MyFitnessPal is literally a diary of all your food, if you notice that you have reactions to certain foods then you can go back and see what you have been eating and not eat as much of it. I have learned that having an “all or nothing” mentality is terrible, if you have a bad day with your eating or workouts you don’t have to wait to start over on Monday, or on the first of the month or January 1st, you have 365 days of new starts and that in itself feels good! I have learned that when you eat things from the ground your body craves more things from the ground. I have also learned to fall in love with running again, that lifting weights as a girl will not make you bulky and that my favorite meal consists of grilled chicken and veggies with a bowl of ice cream on the side.

This program has changed my daily habits and routine. I may not be “perfect” every day but there are a few things that I do every single day without fail no matter what. Every single day I plan my meals in MyFitnessPal as much as possible, I drink a gallon of water every day and every single morning I set an alarm for 15 minutes and spend it listening to what God has to say to me for the day and journal. Read that as in you don’t have to eat salads, drink smoothies, or workout out every single day to see results. All you need is a solid and simple plan, maybe a program you love and people around you to support and encourage you along the way and I have found just that. The scale and measurements are just a tool to and a number but they have helped propel me forward. I am not defined by those numbers but I am proud of that. Since August 2018 I have gone from a size 14 to a size 8 and I have lost 45 lbs. I know what you’re thinking “45 lbs in 3 years, that doesn’t sound like a lot” but to me, this is progress because what I have found is not a quick fix, it’s not a shake or a tea or a pill and BOOM it’s gone. This is a lifestyle change and a lifestyle change is for life. There is still work I want to keep doing physically and mentally but I am proud of how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learned.

If you are still reading this far I would like to offer some type of advice. Find a routine that works for you, whatever that may be, and fall in love with it. Invest the time in yourself and stick with it no matter how hard it is to fight for yourself do it anyway. Oh, and one more thing, life is a marathon, not a sprint. Find joy in the journey of running your race and encourage others along the route.

As Always,

Abi