From overweight mom to bodybuilder: you can be unhealthy whether you're fat or skinny
Health is a journey, not a destination. I tell that to all of my new clients, but it’s not just a saying to me. It’s the truth. I’ve been on each of the extreme ends of the health spectrum and I’ve been in the middle of it and I can tell you that the extremes are not healthy. Health actually lies in the middle of the two extremes. Health is about balance.
What health extremes look like
If you don’t know my story, here's a quick run-down. (You can read my full story here!)
I was a two-sport college athlete. I went from constantly training and playing sports to being a firefighter’s wife - which meant a lot of time home alone. Then, I became a mama and had my three babies, where I gained roughly 65 pounds with each pregnancy. My middle child, also was born with a lot of health problems which led to a lot of emotional and stress eating for me.
After having my babies and being a stay-at-home-mama whose husband was gone a lot, I reached a point where I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I only saw myself as a snack cup filler and reluctant Mickey Mouse House watcher.
I missed the strong woman I used to be. I wanted to be her again. So, I went back to what I thought made me happy - being in the gym. But the gym didn’t feel as good as it used to because I was carrying around so much extra weight. So I decided to focus on my nutrition to try and lose weight.
I wanted fast results. I wanted to feel better now, so I tried it all.
HCG
ItWorks wraps
Isagenix
Paleo
I stuck with Paleo for a while, mostly because I was doing crossfit and everyone else there was doing Paleo too. But after a while, it became too hard to stick to. And I ended up finding macro tracking.
I started seeing the results I wanted while I was eating the food that I liked! It blew my mind when my coach told me I could eat a bagel! The “carbs are bad” mentality was so ingrained in me that I couldn’t let it go right away.
Eventually, I pushed past those old thoughts, stuck to my nutrition and I started to feel alright in my skin again. But, I wanted more. I didn’t look like I had when I was younger, so I pushed for more. I decided to enter a bodybuilding competition. I wanted to really see what my body could do. I was ready for a bigger challenge physically, but I didn’t know what I was actually getting myself into.
Coupling my workouts with my nutrition, I lost more weight, packed on muscle and I looked good. I was ripped.
People would comment all the time about how lean I looked. Or they’d say, “You’ve never looked better!” or “Can you believe how healthy you are?” On the outside I had accomplished what everyone sets out to do. I looked good - and damn, I looked good naked too.
But I wasn’t healthy; in fact I was probably the most unhealthy I had ever been. I had taken things too far. I started to have obsessive thoughts about food. I would daydream about what certain foods would taste like. I’d look at pictures of food to satisfy the cravings. I even went so far as to plan binges when my family wasn’t going to be home. I felt ashamed not only that I wanted to eat the food, but that I’d spend $75 on food just for me and I’d eat every last bite.
After the binge, I’d have to restrict myself again because I had goals and I needed to hit them. Thankfully, I had a coach who cared about me. She saw the signs and was able to reel me back in.
I had no idea that getting lean would take me here. I thought I was on a path to better health, but it took me eight months to get out of the dark place I had been in. It took more time to allow myself to mentally be OK with having a softer body.
There is danger in being overweight and in being obsessed with your body
I was unhappy when I looked fat and I was unhappy when I looked skinny.
Health and happiness have nothing to do with how you look. Health and happiness don’t lie on either end of the health spectrum. Health and happiness lie right in the middle. In that gray area that we avoid because it seems too simple.
Health gurus tell us that we need to follow a million rules in order to be healthy. We should only eat salads. We need to spend 2 hours a day in the gym. We must sacrifice everything to look the way we want to.
But that’s not healthy either! We’ve over complicated health, nutrition and exercise. This old school, black or white thought of “if it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t work,” is exactly what led me to that low point. Disease comes from being too loose with our nutrition and too strict with it. What we really need is to live in the grey.
The grey looks like eating the whole foods, the fruits and veggies. It also looks like having a margarita on vacation or an ice cream cone with your kids every once in a while. It’s about eating the good for you foods and fun for you foods. It’s about living life without guilt, shame or regret about every decision you make with your food.
But what does balance even look like? It’s an individual thing. You can’t expect to eat what your sister eats or best friend eats and have the same results because you aren’t the same person! You have to understand what balance looks like for you
This is exactly what I teach in my Macros Made Easy Program. I teach you how to meal plan and prep so that you can eat a nutritious dinner as you head out the door to take your kids to soccer, baseball and tumbling practices.
I teach you how much food you need to keep up with working out, helping at your kids’ schools and to have energy for your husband at the end of the day.
I teach you to love the skin you’re in right now so that you can live at a body weight that isn’t some made up number, but that works for you. A body weight that keeps your mind and your soul happy.
The missing piece in your health journey is your mindset
Yes, nutrition is important. Yes, exercise and movement are important. But if you neglect to change how you think and feel about yourself, I can promise you, you’ll never get the results you want.
When I decided to enter that bodybuilding competition, I did it because I didn’t think I was where I was “supposed” to be. Even though I’d lost weight and was happy with my nutrition, I thought I needed to be more or to do more.
I still saw myself as the overweight, overstressed mom. I didn’t see who I’d become because I hadn’t changed my mindset.
If you want to learn how to really, truly love yourself, then you have to change how you think about yourself. Your mind is so much more powerful than you realize! How you think about yourself and your health is going to manifest itself in the physical world.
I know it sounds weird, or crazy, or “woo-woo” to say that our thoughts determine our physical health, but there is so much evidence that proves it’s true!
One experiment studied the difference between weight lifting and visualization. The study had part of the participants lift weights and then they had the other part of the participants simply visualize themselves lifting weights. The second group never actually lifted a weight. They just thought about the process.
That second group saw a strength increase of 13-53% without lifting a single weight.
Your mind is powerful. If you’re filling it with negative self talk, if you’re telling yourself you can’t, if you’re telling yourself fat, ugly, worthless, etc, then your body is going to believe it.
Stop talking to yourself like this. You are worthy of love, especially from yourself. If you want to make a change and become healthier you’re 100% capable of doing it. Believe that. It will be the thing that changes your life.
Being “healthy” isn’t about being skinny or looking a certain way. True health is about our physical and mental health. We can’t have one without the other. Our health, just like life, is about balance and we need to focus on nutrition, movement and mindset to actually be healthy.
If you’re ready for growth in your physical and mental health, then book a free discovery call today. With a little guidance you’ll be able to learn what food balance looks like for you. And you’ll learn to love yourself in a way that you never have before.
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