So, like every good Southern Baptist girl, I went to a Christian college, found a boy who’d date me and eventually propose. Isn’t that all I was ever worried about? Being thin enough for someone to want to marry me? At the super young age of 21, I was married and moving to San Diego.
Over the past 27 years of marriage, sizes have fluctuated. I’ve gone through bouts of serious exercise, tried every imaginable diet, pill, shake under the sun. I’ve ordered things from QVC, I had a Thighmaster, I’ve a sucker for any gadget or gimmick that promised results. I paid over $1,000 once for the promise of thermal weight loss and would go twice a week to someone who strapped little discs with red lights on my upper arms and thighs. This light therapy was suppose to reduce cellulite and tone these “trouble areas.”
Some people obsessively spend money on handbags, jewelry, monogrammed crap. I blew my money on these “sure fire” remedies. For years.
What actually DID work?
I was fairly religious about going to Jazzercise for a while. I loved the instructor and I loved the atmosphere. Looking back at photos from that time, I was fit. But I remember that at that time, I was still obsessing over how my arms and legs looked. I was always nitpicking the way my body looked. I was still fat. I was a size 10.
Diets and eating plans – I just can’t. My brain is not hardwired like that.
Enter Beachbody pre-pandemic. This was a Godsend. I was motivated, I didn’t have to leave my house. I was seeing results. But there was no encouragement. I felt that I was in the battle completely alone. It was like being 9 years old all over again. It’s hard to continue to trudge through the trenches when you are mentally and emotionally drained. I stopped working out in 2020. I stopped when the world stopped.
Alyventures 