How I did it at my Life Time Fitness! Here is why I joined this 60-Day Challenge.

All of my life I have been a very active person. I played sports all year round, during my entire childhood and into my twenties.

I moved to Germany in my early twenties with my husband, who was in the Air Force, and then we moved all over the United States. Every time my husband and I would move, I’d gain a little more weight. I think it was due to the stress of moving and having to make new friends. It was also not having any sports teams to join, due to not knowing anyone. I became less active and lazier with my nutrition. Over the years I would try different diets and join different gyms trying to get back into shape, but I would always give up and just not see it through.

In December 2010 my daughter was born, and my husband was laid off a month later. So we decided to move back to Minnesota where we both grew up. We were living in my brother-in-law’s basement, trying to get our feet back on the ground, when my husband decided to go back to school. This was very stressful on our lives. We bought our own house and soon found out our lives were going to change again. I was pregnant with our son who was born in September 2012. Both pregnancies took a toll on my body.

I had a hip injury when I was in high school that came back to haunt me throughout my pregnancies. I went to many doctors, but none of them would listen to how much pain I was in. I also had an ankle problem. Whenever I would start to work out, my ankle would freeze up and I could not work out let alone walk. I went to doctors for this problem too. But as I was trying to solve the hip and ankle problem, I was putting on the pounds.

Finally, last October I found a doctor to listen to me about my pain. I had lots of tests, including MRIs. I eventually found out that I was going to be needing surgery on my hip and my ankle.

So at the very end of 2015 I had surgery on my ankle. I thought I was only going to be out of work for 2 weeks, but being out of shape made my recovery much longer. I was out of work for 6 weeks and in physical therapy for 6 months. Knowing that my ankle recovery took too long, I wanted to get healthier and stronger before my hip surgery.

I was trying to motivate myself, but it was not working. That’s when I saw the sign at Life Time for the 60-Day Challenge. I thought to myself, that’s exactly what I need. Having a scheduled weigh-in every week is all the motivation I needed. I loved looking at the leaderboard and seeing my name on it! It made me want to try even harder!

My workout at the beginning of the Challenge consisted of running in place with light weights, because I could not extend my ankle. But a couple of weeks into the Challenge I could finally use the elliptical. This motivated me to join a fall softball team and try a sport again. It was really hard at first, but halfway into the season I was back to playing like I used to.

My hip still hurts, but it is getting stronger and hurts a lot less with less weight on it. I start physical therapy for my hip in a couple weeks. If that goes well, I could avoid having surgery if I can get my hip strong enough. If I do still need surgery, I know I am much healthier and a lot lighter, so the recovery should be much easier.

I am so proud of myself for sticking with this 60-Day Challenge, and I look forward to meeting all my goals in the future with Life Time Fitness. This is just the start of my Journey for a healthy way of life at my Life Time Fitness!