Many people wherever I go ask me how I lost 88 lbs and have kept it off for 15 months and counting. I start to explain my journey and by the time I am 1/3 of the way into the explanation they have a glazed look of someone who has been fed way to much information way to fast.
So to share my story more easily I thought that I would break it down into blog entries. So bare with me:-)
My Journey to fitfab40 began in Feburary of 2009. We had been living in a small community up towards Stevens Pass. My commute was 45 minutes each way so I was forever cooking in the crock pot which in and of its self was not bad. We were eating mostly wild game which again in and of its self is not a bad thing. However because we were pretty broke I was cooking side dishes that mostly had to do with an Idaho girls favorite, you guessed it POTATOES!
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With every dinner we had some type of potatoes which I totally love. Now because we were low on money I made sure to make enough for lunch for my husband Kevin and myself. So basically I was not eating breakfast because I left the house so early every morning, then by lunch time I would be famished and I would eat leftover meat and POTATOES. Every day at least 5 days a week.
On weekends I would bake bread, cookies, cinnamon rolls anything sweet that the boys would eat to take their minds off of not being able to go to the store and buy stuff. I am a great cook and so in short I was using my homemade goodies and great cooking to lull us into not thinking about being able to afford the stuff that we wanted. In February of 2010 we made the decision to move from Baring were we had been living to Monroe, WA.
Now I was closer to work actually 7 minutes from home, we had more money due to the fact that my husband got a raise and a company truck and because I had an extra 1.5 hrs to prepare food I stopped using the crockpot so much.
I wanted more than anything to do back country hiking and start exploring the alpine lake region of the state. So in March of 2009 we did our first Alpine Lake of the year, Barclay Lake. This lake is a short hike and not to strenuous but by the time I did the 4 miles round trip to the lake and back I was bushed and spent the next week nursing sore muscles and an ache body.
I remember thinking then that it should not have been that hard on me. I took a good long look at myself in the mirror and had a long private talk with myself and acknowledged for the first time that I weighed over 200 lbs for the first time in my life, at 5' 7" I was seriously overweight. I am not sure why it took me so long to notice, I was probably in denial. What ever the reason I decided at that very moment that I was going to do something about my weight.
My first stab at trying to loose weight left me eating salads for lunch. I took off a few pounds but that was about it. I started researching diets that would help you to loose weight quick. The message here was to cut your carbs and limit your calorie intake to anywhere from 450 calories to 1500 calories a day. This caused me to stop and think....hmmmm how many calories am I taking in a day? So, and this was a fateful moment in my life I kept track of my calories for 2 days. I was taking in anywhere from 2300 to 3000 calories a day! Wow! OK that had to stop and stop right now.
So I took my first step on the road to learning how to eat healthy and started eliminating things from my diet. First to go was my beloved McDonalds sweet tea. I thought that I was making better choices by drinking sweet tea, right? It wasn't soda I told myself...well that sweet tea had more calories in it that a soda. What a moment that was for me. So sweet tea was gone for a week and then I moved on to my next challenge. Coffee! Coffee again in and of itself is not a bad thing but I drank it all day long with lots of half and half and sugar. No fake crap for this girl....right? So knowing that I would really be miserable if I gave it up cold turkey due to the caffeine and being so addicted to it so I started drinking it with almond milk and Splenda in it and for the first time I limited myself to 4 cups a day. 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.
After about a month of no sweet tea and limited coffee I jumped on the scale because my jeans were about to fall off of me and low and behold I had lost 15 lbs. This brought my total weight loss to date to just over 20 lbs. Cool....right? Just by eliminating those 2 things. Now I knew that I had a long way to go to be at my goal weight but for the first time I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. I kept it up and nothing more really happened....? Things that make you go hmmmmm? Why wasn't I still loosing weight?
So...back to the internet I went. Ok I had my calories under 1500....? What was the problem? I found a sight that gave you good vs bad carbs and meal plans to help you loose weight. This was another pivotal part of my weight loss journey because it was the first time that the idea of not all carbs being created equal came into my line of sight. This was also the first time that I had ever heard anything what so ever about clean eating.
I guess this would be a good time to tell you that I have the adult form of ADHD and I tend to be a little on the obsessive side when I get somthing in my brain. So along with all of the other information that I had gotten off of the internet, it recomended lifting weights as part of your diet. The first magazine that I bought was Prevention and it had a pretty simple weight circuit in the issue that I bought that promised results if you practiced clean eating. I started doing this in June of 2009. By July 4th I had taken off another 10 lbs for a total weight loss of 30 lbs. WOW but even better than that was that I had gone from a size 14-16 jeans in Feburary of 2009 to a size 10-12 jeans by July 4th, AMAZING RIGHT?
On July 4th we had planned a 10 mile round trip hike with a hiker friend of ours up Taylor River which is towards Snoqualimie Pass. I was 30 lbs lighter had some muscle tone and was super excited to try out my new fitness on the trail. The trail was mostly easy and partially graveled with almost no elevation gain.We made it to Otter Falls which was essentially the end of the hike and I was in GREAT shape. Ok so there was one little misshap long the way I was rock hopping to get across a creek and ended up face down in the creek about 2 miles in. I didnt get seriously injured but I did take a pretty decent sized hunk of skin off of my shin and I was drenched in Alpine water which is generally speaking around freezing at that time of year but again I was in good shape. We continued on past Otter Falls because it was an amazing day in the 80s in the low lands and we were in the mood to explore. We came to a sign that said that there were two Alpine Lakes within 2 miles. We tried and failed to reach Norbert Lake due to the trail being out so we doubled back and decided to hike up to Lake Snoqualmie which the sign said was 2.4 miles further. NO PROBLEM we all said....and started out.
The trail went around switch backs and we climbed slowly up the mountain. We rounded a curve in the trail and the trail headed up....I dont just mean kind of up I mean 1.3 miles of straight up over roots and rocks finding and picking your way along. I had to stop a lot getting up that trail that day but I made it to the lake. Once at the lake we shared what we had brought along for food which was mostly granola bars of the grocery store variate and some beef jerky. Our friend had brought along 8 pieces of turkey bacon and a huge hunk of cheddar cheese. I remember thinking after I had finished my granola bars and jerky about wrestling her for that cheese and turkey bacon. I was famished, I don't mean just hungry I mean my body was crying out for nutrition! Somehow and I don't really remember how I mastered my hunger and we headed down off the mountain.
We got back to the trail head for the Lake and thought OK we have about 5 miles left to get back to the car. I remember thinking fondly of the rest of the box of granola bars that I had left under the seat that morning by now it was about 4 pm. All I had eaten that day was 2 granola bars, lots and lots of water and 1.5 ounces of beef jerky. WE walked and we walked and we walked and we walked.....My feet had blisters on them from ill fitting cheap hiking shoes, I was so hungry I had hunger pangs and a horrible gut ache and in short I was miserable.
We finally got back to the parking lot around 7 pm and thankful for food and cold water started for home. Our friend had ridden with us and she had plans for the 4th with other friends so we had to take her to her place and then home to Monroe from there. The trip took about 1.5 hrs. All I remember thinking about was going to Buzz Inn as soon as we got to town and eating the first thing that I saw on the menu. I ordered a grilled turkey and Fries with a salad and oh please bring the salad first. We got home around 8:30 pm and showed and went to bed. Honestly I dont even remember my head hitting the pillow and I never heard even one firework despite living in a big neighborhood. I was one tired girl!
I woke up the next day and looked at the hiking book....it appears that what we thought was a 15 mile hike was actually a 21 mile hike. YIKES but again, I hurt all over. I spent the week working out and cringing every time I had to bend over or stand up. Why was it so hard for me to get into shape? 21 miles was a long way but this was ridiculous. I HAD to find a better, harder more challenging working out to get me into better shape QUICK because we had planned a huge hike to Ingals lake as an overnight backpacking trip on Labor day weekend this hike was different than the rest that we had been doing. It had 2000 ft of elevation gain in 3 miles on the trail which is daunting in and of its self but, you rose to almost 6300 ft at the end of the hike at the lake. WOW it was for seasoned hikers.....by this time we had been hiking for 2 years. But I knew that I had to step up my workouts. So I went to Safeway on my lunch hour and started looking at workout magazines. I stumbled on Oxygen Magazine.They had a total body workout that would rock my body to the core. I started walking for 5 minutes and running for 5 minutes on a 1.5 mile loop and doing this total body workout.
I dropped another 10 lbs but even better I shrunk to a size 6-8. The differences in my body were amazing. I had a waist for the first time in years. My leg muscles were becoming defined, I felt like a new person. I had switched over to eating clean about 50% of the time, started taking vitamins and I felt amazing, like I could take on the world. Well I was wrong again!
On Labor Day weekend we left late in the afternoon and headed for Cle Elum to find the trail head. We couldn't find the trail head and wandered around for quite some time before we found the trailhead. Looking back I know that it was much much to late for us to start the hike and we probably should have stayed the night in a camp ground and started the hike the next morning fresh and ready to go. But, like most people we wanted to have our adventure as we planned it so up the trail we went.
The first mile of the trail we gained a 1000 ft of elevation. It was hard on me but I was doing it. In the next mile we gained 900 ft of elevation. I was sucking wind and my legs were shaking but I was still eager to get to the lake. Another mile and we were at the trail fork where we needed to branch off and head for Ingals lake or head up to Longs Pass.
Due to a mistake in reading the Falconer Guide by my husband we headed for Longs Pass. This mean that in another long mile we gained another 1000 ft of elevation. I remember making that climb and thinking to myself that I might die on the side of that mountain. We met some fellow hikers who were headed down that night. It was almost dark and the climb was switch backing around on its self and getting scary. The hikers said it was about 5 tenths of a mile further to the top so we kept going....up....up ....up.
We reached the top and quickly realized that we were not where we were supposed to be. It was late we were tired, hungry beyond belief and exhausted so we made camp. We ate cup of noodles, protein bars and beef jerky and gazed at the starts and Mt Stewart across from us. Mt. Stewart is a huge draw for Mountain climbers. They have base camp and they climb it by trail and straight up rock walls. We could see the climbers in their hammocks on the mountain when their headlamps glowed in the still night air. That night as I went to sleep I was in so much pain and I remember thinking, yet again...hmmmm. I am going to have to step my game up even more to get back into the shape that I want to be in.
We woke up the next morning and confirmed that we needed to hike well over 2 miles back to the fork in the trail and then ascend again to 6300 ft at the lake. I almost cried because my legs were shaking and I felt like my bones had turned to jelly. We broke camp, hiked the mile back down to the steam and got water and when we got back to the fork in the trail we ate more food. This improved my outlook on life considerably. As we started the assent to Ingals Lake I felt good if tired and thought I could finish the hike off.
We took frequent breaks on the way up that day. It was warm and sunny and after getting back on the trail my muscles worked their way into the load and the climb and by the time we reached the designated camping area we were all in high spirits. The guide said that the Lake was about a mile further on and that the last little bit was a rock scrabble. I have never wanted to be a mountain climber because I am terrified of heights.On our way to the Lake we ran across a mountain goat which provided a nice distraction for about 20 minutes.
We kept going and going and going. We crossed over into a baren rock strewn alien land with no trees and only a trail cut into the side of the hill out of shear rock. We started to meet hikers who were on their way back down from the lake and said that the lake was not far. We kept going and going and going yet again. Finally the trail disappeared all together and we were now left to follow rock carin piles to guide the way. I started to get upset when we reached and area where we had to go up 100 ft with 50 lb packs on our backs with nothing but footholds cut into the rock. we rounded the corner and met a set of 50 something women who were headed down from the lake. I remember thinking...if they can do this...so can I!
After another 100 ft rock scrabble and another 50 ft climb straight up we topped out and walked down to the lake.I was so happy to be at the lake I could have cried. We ate more food drank lots of water and filled up our water bottles. I even soaked my feet in the icy water for a little while. I remember dreading the hike back down off of the cliff more than I can even explain.
We left the lake after about an hour and headed back out of the back country knowing that we had hiked about 13 miles and had at least another 8 to go. There was a low trail about a mile from the lake that took us down through amazing flower covered fields with steams running though it and besides it gave me tired sore legs some more time to rest.
I guess now would be a good time to point out that my husband and are hiking partner were in much better shape than me and had no real problems with this hike, but because they love me and felt bad were willing to take it easy on me. We finally reached the part of the trail where we needed to head back up. I remember thinking what goes down must go back up. BUT this was straight up. I told my friends that I wasn't sure I could make the hill. My husband said...."Lisa, we have to make this hill or turn around and go the long way back around across the rocks. So up up up we went I had to stop multiple times and almost cried once, but I made it to the top.
From there on in it was mostly downhill or side hill and we stopped often and ate and drank a lot. We got back to the parking lot and were a pretty happy group as we headed for Cle Elum and warm food. All I could think of was juicy meat. I thought I could eat half a cow at that moment. We had huge sloppy burgers with ham and bacon and full and happy headed back to Monroe.
So this experience made me realize that on top of lifting weights and eating right I needed to add cardio drills to my training. I started researching cardio drills on the internet and ran into HIIT. HIIT was for me I decided so I bought a used elliptical trainer and started getting up and 5 and doing 35 to 40 minutes of high intensity cardio drills. In about a month I could tell the difference in 6 weeks the difference was dramatic. I had shed 20 more lbs couldn't eat enough even with 6 meals a day and I had been hooked as a hardcore fitness junkie.
It was sometime along about now that we decided that we were going to get married on December 23, 2011. I set my sights on being a size 6 on the day I got married and so I trained hard. Most days I did Cardio drills morning and night and lifted weights at lunch time. On December 1st I went dress shopping and wow....I got a standing ovation in a dress at Davids Bridal and one lady asked me how got such amazing legs. I looked her in the eye and said....I am a hardcore hiker chick and I train 6 days a week to hike whenever I can. That made this old girl feel pretty darn good about herself! I ended up with a dress that was a size 4 and had to have it taken in to fit me the day before my wedding.
So now we come to the post wedding point. It was January and cold and snowy.....hmmmm we could just kind of slack off a little bit right? So January progressed and I worked out sometimes and sometimes, ok most days I slept in and didn't work out.
In February I put on a pair of jeans that were fitting me great right after the wedding and to my surprise I had a muffin top already. Well that just wouldn't do so right back to it I went. Cardio drills and weights, weights and cardio drills. Ab days, leg days, shoulder days and then ab days again. May came around and I decided that I would join the gym that had just opened right up the road from me. By this time I had gone from 208 at my heaviest to 143. I felt amazing and looked great for a 44 year old mom of 4 sons.
So then I really got my butt into gear. I got down to 132 but everyone started saying I was too thin so I gained back up to 140 which is where I sit today. I am super happy, healthy and eat clean daily and love my life for it. I hope this all helps you with your journey because now that I have this all down you don't have to stumble around the way that I did.... you can ask me anything and I will be happy to help you. If I don't know the answer I will check with my trainer friends...I have lots of those.
Recently I switched over from going to the gym to working out at home with Beachbody products... You know the ones you see on TV? PX90 Power90 Insanity? I use Chalean extreme and love it. I run monthly challenge groups on Facebook so hit me up and join one!
one more thing folks.... here are some pictures of my progress!
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