Molly W.

Vestavia Hills, AL

molly w. spring 2022 finalist

Molly’s Story

I don’t really have a good origin story here..  I basically let my health go to hell during Covid.  Once our Life Time shut down, I found it hard to motivate myself to exercise at home.  My work became so stressful, and just getting through the workday felt like such a grind that I didn’t have the needed self-control once I got home to do anything healthy.  My routine became to go to work, get stressed out, come home and self-soothe with comfort food and adult beverages.  By May 2021 I had gained 30lbs and was having significant problems with chronic knee pain. This forced me to go from sporadic exercise to no exercise at all. For 6 months I tried cortisone injections, pain killers, MRIs, knee arthroscopy and physical therapy without much improvement.  I knew my best shot at recovery was going to be shedding the extra pounds and getting back into shape.  In December 2021 I went back to the gym doing the few things that I could tolerate with painful knees, but I was not very consistent with the holidays.  I needed the extra motivation of the 60day Countdown to Crush to really get me to commit.

One of the reasons I signed up for the 60day was because our Vestavia Hills Life Time ran a social media challenge in club.  Every time we did a class and posted a picture to #vst60day we were entered into a drawing for a weekly prize. I have been avoiding social media, but for this, I immediately created an Instagram account and started telling my workout story.  Because my knees are so bad, there were only 2 classes I really felt comfortable doing: Barbell Strength and Spin.  (I had no idea that there are 3 different versions for getting a Spin workout – what a fun way to change it up!) Looking back at Instagram, I had 42 posts, so made it to more than 5 classes per week over the 8 weeks.

Here are a few things that helped me get results: 1) weekly check-ins with Brandon, my 60day personal trainer, 2) tracking my weight, keeping a food diary and logging activity through Fitbit – which fed into the Life Time Training app, 3) the class reservation system, which adds the classes to your calendar, so you have it in your daily schedule and 4) the fabulous InBody Machine at the gym that gives me so much information about my health, not just my weight and 5) the social media challenge with my fitness class instructors cheering me on.  The biggest thing, though, is EXERCISE!  Although research has not been able to demonstrate with “scientific rigor” that exercise helps with weight loss, I know it’s definitely true for me!

My lifestyle has changed significantly.  My after work now is to go straight to the club.  My target is 3 spin classes and 3 barbell classes each week, with the goal of making it at least 5.  One week I had two late meetings at work, so I actually took a vacation day in between to get to the club! For me, it was making the 5 days at the club a “no-choice” decision.  No way I was going to let me talk myself out of it.  It starts with not talking yourself out of it, then just talking yourself into it, and now, at the end of 60 days it’s just part of my daily routine.

The past 60 days have given me a new set of healthy habits that I will continue to maintain.  I lost almost 20 lbs in 8 weeks, and I still have 30 to go.  I will continue to log my weight, food intake and exercise daily in the Fitbit app.  I will use the fancy InBody scale at the club every Sunday to check my progress and send my results to Brandon and I think I’ll even keep adding to my Instagram story so I can look back and celebrate my success and healthy new way of life.  Thanks to my great fitness instructors who now know my name and really care if I miss a class.  Thanks Life Time for a great program, and a great new way of life.