We all have our story, for a lot of us, it’s the same. We weren’t taught proper eating or exercise habits, and it followed us into adulthood. Some of us are emotional eaters, others use food as a way to control their out of control lives. Food is used to celebrate many events, whether it be birthdays or funerals. It is always there – food never turns it back on us. Food can comfort us food can make us happy. If we allow it to, it has a lot of control over our lives – whether it be in the form of our health or our minds.

It takes a lot of work & dedication to unlearn bad habits & it will always be a struggle, especially when there are triggers that send the signal to our body to “just eat”.

I grew up in an environment where we had an unhealthy relationship with food. Dieting was a constant, our bodies were our enemies and exercise was unheard of.

In 5th grade I lost 50 pounds. I was so proud of myself & I loved being praised for my accomplishment. From that point on, the yo yo began. It continued into high school where I developed an eating disorder.

After graduating I beat the disorder & I started to eat better and look healthy, but negative comments by loved ones about my weight made me once again feel horrible. Depression sank in & I struggled even more. I would gain & lose the same weight over & over.

After the birth of my son I hit my heaviest. Then I made a decision to take CONTROL of my life, which is what brought me to Life Time. I felt a huge amount of guilt not spending the time with my son & him being taken care of by others. It took me a while to let go of my feelings of guilt, but I knew I was doing what was right for me & that I was setting a good example for my children to follow. It also helped that I felt comfortable knowing he was so well taken care of & the best part was that he was in love with so many of the caregivers that worked in the child care.

When I started I couldn’t do a single push up, let alone run a mile. I was taking classes that were out of my comfort zone such as Dance, Barre & soon progressed to TCX & NO LIMITS. I had finally started to love myself & my body, something I was never taught.  I continued on my health journey & was seeing such great progress in myself both physically & mentally. It was completely exhilarating.

Everything was going great until Feb 2018. My husband and I were on vacation and we were assaulted. It literally rocked our house, tore us apart & we resorted to old habits using food instead of each other for comfort & support. I was soon eating junk food almost daily. I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror for 3 months. I quickly gained weight. I was depressed & didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t pull myself out of it. Everything we had worked for was literally crumbling before our eyes. I had NO CONTROL. I was scared I honestly didn’t know what to do or how to change it.

Fast Forward to May: This 60day may be the jolt we need to start fresh. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to push reset on life so I asked my husband to join with me he hesitantly agreed.

I already knew I wanted to work with Nicki after taking her classes & seeing her previous results.

I came into this 60day broken depressed stressed & I had one goal in mind – not to lose weight or inches, but to fix what was broken to regain control of my life & to mend my relationship with my family as well as with food & myself.

Once I signed up I was told what was expected of me. I was given food choices & a sample menu plan as well as what workouts to do. I also introduced new supplements into my diet such as Life Time StrengthStack & whey protein.

I remember being in tears the first week because I was so overwhelmed with anxiety being on the weight room floor somewhere I had never ventured to. Which I can now navigate my way around with confidence. At times I wanted to give up. I was exhausted sometimes I didn’t have the mental energy & I felt like I spent my entire life working out food prepping & doing dishes & laundry. My housework became neglected & quality time with my husband was soon filled in with early bedtimes. But I knew this was all temporary.

These 60 days were definitely a challenge as a group we were pushed beyond our limits (most self-defined) & we were introduced to new challenges weekly to build upon what we previously learned. Throughout this 60day I have stepped even further out of my comfort zone whether it was running a mile to eating fish daily taking yoga using the sauna or doing two a days.

Over these last 60 days I saw an amazing transformation occur. My body was physically challenged like it has never been before & I am amazed at the things I was able to accomplish that I never thought I could before. I ran my first ever mile. I then got that mile down to 10 mins. I did my first ever unassisted pull up. Goals I never would have set for myself.

I am so proud of myself that I did it, I overcame a lot of mental road blocks as well as physical challenge.