My Story

Who Am I?

My name is Mary.  I am an ordinary person just like you.  I’m 35 years old, mom to two crazy-wonderful little girls and I teach kindergarten 3 days a week at a private school.  More recently, I’ve become a BeachBody coach.

 What’s My Story?

It’s simple.  I’ve struggled with my weight and fitness all my life.  Literally.  There are pictures of me as a chubby toddler.  So I mean, all my life.  I was a pretty happy, confident kid.  Until one day in first grade, a boy turned and pointed to a picture of an elephant on a wall, looked at me and said, “That’s you.”  Though I chose to not to believe him then, it was the opening of a door, a downward spiral of being teased and made fun of, and the slow deterioration throughout my youth of any confidence I had.

However, by the time I hit college, I was the fittest I’d been in all my life.  I didn’t see it, though.  I wish I could have appreciated it then, but I didn’t.

Fast forward many years.  I was married and pregnant with my second child.  Since getting married, my weight had steadily climbed to quite unhealthy levels.  Not owning a scale, I didn’t realize just how bad, until I went for my first doctor’s appointment at just 7 weeks along.  I was horrified seeing just how close to a dangerous threshold I was.  I watched what I ate – didn’t diet, but didn’t splurge on a lot of extra calories – and continued walking through that pregnancy.  It paid off and at my appointment on my due date, the day my water broke, I weighed in at the point I did not want to go past.  It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.

Despite not going past that point, after my second daughter was born, I found myself in a very bad place.  I was under a lot of stress, as we were having to sell our home.  Keeping a home presentable for showings with a newborn and a just-turned 3 year old was no easy task.  I had no energy at all.  Sitting on my bed, folding a load of laundry, I would have to stop to lie down and rest.  I was so miserable there were times I would just sit on my kitchen floor and cry, my 3-year-old patting my arm.  I’m not sure what was going on medically, though in retrospect, I think perhaps I was experiencing blood sugar issues.  I will never know for sure.

This picture is from Easter 2009, when my second child was a few months old.

What I do know is that I had enough.  I joined Weight Watchers for a few months, until we could no longer afford it, but it helped.  I lost 20 pounds and it was enough then to give me more energy than I’d had in a long time.

However, I was still pretty miserable, knowing that in all reality, I need to lose a good 50 – 70 pounds.  Over the next few years I tried, my weight going up and down, but thankfully, never to that scary place again.  I had found the most success a couple of years ago when our Y started offering Les Mills BodyPump classes.  I’ve always enjoyed lifting weights, so I found myself in love with this class that made me hurt so bad I could hardly walk. 

A year later, when I started teaching at my current school, I just couldn’t get to the classes like I had.  I could make it to only one with any regularity.  At one point, I had searched online to see if there was a home version, but nothing I found then indicated there was.  So in February 2013, when a friend posted on Facebook about doing a challenge group with Les Mills Pump – the at home version of BodyPump – I was ecstatic!!  I jumped on it right away.

Through the 90 day challenge group, I lost 12 pounds, many inches, and gained a ton of muscle.  It was a great feeling, being a part of a group that helped keep me motivated, even when I didn’t have a ton of it myself.  I’ve since lost almost 20 pounds and am still looking forward as I work towards my goals.  My story is not finished, I am writing new chapters each day.

This picture was taken the end of June 2013. 

I still have further to go, but you can see the difference.

 

Why Am I Doing This?

Simply because I know what it’s like.  I know what it feels like to be miserable in your own body.  I know how it feels to be always wishing for a stronger, healthier version of yourself.  To always be thinking about food – what you did eat, what you didn’t eat, what you should or shouldn’t eat, what you want to eat and feeling guilty for eating.  And I want to encourage you.

I’m not a miracle worker – I can’t do it for you.  But I can walk beside you, we can walk this road together, pick each other up and keep going when we fall.  Because we will.  And that’s okay.  It’s continuing on that’s important.  If I can help you, I want to.