I have a confession to make guys.
I don’t see the point of eating healthy and working out regularly.
I mean, if I'm working out I feel like I should be able to eat anything I want.
Makes sense right?
However, I'm getting - ahem - older and it’s much harder to work off the food that I've just inhaled.
AKA - cookies, hamburgers, tamales, tacos, cake ... I could go on and on.
My pants weren't fitting like they used to and I knew I had to do something about it.
I decided to do a two month challenge with a group of people who shared the same goals as I did, including my husband.
And you know what? It wasn't horrible.
It was nice because I wasn’t the only one being held accountable for what I consumed. I had to be held accountable to my group because we wanted to win. We weren’t winning anything personally for ourselves - meaning money for us. We were actually going to be winning the right to choose which charity we wanted our "buy-in" money to go to.
Not only were we helping ourselves get healthier, we were also helping a charity of our choice.
If I cheated on a meal or I cheated on a work out, it wasn't just me I was cheating on but the entire group as well. And that appeared to be the consensus throughout the group.
I suggest getting with a group and try to earn towards a goal together. Especially if you really, really, really want to meet your goal.
Anyway, we had to take pictures every week to show the scale number and also pictures of our body. It was not a pretty sight because I couldn't look at myself, let alone show others what I looked like. My body has been so stretched over the years that it is really hard to be proud of what the body can do. It truly is amazing that three children were MADE inside me and I'm so proud of that.
Confession - Though, a part of me will always grimace at the sight of the stretch marks or the sagging skin. (I'm really working towards loving myself the way I am.)
Let me tell you though, taking pictures every so often to show your progress is what everyone needs to do to visually see what is happening to your body. It's not all about the number on the scale!
I told my coach that I wanted one of those awesome before-and-after pictures that I see all the time on TV or through health groups. Even though my change wasn’t significant within those two months of the challenge, I could see a difference and that’s what kind of pumped me up.
I ended up losing quite a few inches around my waist and some pounds. I was (and still am) pretty proud of myself. I was proud of my husband. I was proud of my team. We had all done really well. (even though we didn't win)
What really got me was when a Facebook memory showed up. It was a picture of me holding my six week baby girl at one of my recent workout groups. Yes, I had just been cleared to workout and yes, I just had a baby. But I quickly scrolled over to another recent picture of me at one of my running group meetups. The change was amazing.
It was crazy. I could see the difference. I was rounder in the before and I had defiantly thinned out in the more recent image.
The weekly pictures from the challenge showed my slow progress. But the year difference photo showed my success!
Take your progress pics guys. It will pump you up!
A picture doesn't lie!
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