To tell you the truth, I never expected to be your average grandparent. I certainly never expected to feel as young as I do. True, I love weird old lady things like designing quilts and cooking big family meals but not enough to retire to my rocking chair just yet. Part of my story contains years of obesity and sadness. I was what is medically referred to as morbidly obese, more than 100 pounds overweight. Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it? And although I wasn’t really active at all, I definitely didn’t see myself as someone that would just quietly dote on grandbabies (although the grandson I have now is certainly dotable) and dole out some sort of aged wisdom. Also, I am not that old…at least not in 21st century terms. I am only 47 but having shed 100 pounds now, I feel better, healthier and stronger than ever before.
So here is the really strange place where I have ended found myself. After a year of shedding weight, doing tons of cardio and working with a wonderful trainer, I found myself at a crossroads. My wonderful trainer left and I was ‘willed’ to another trainer, Nik…an actual body builder. I don’t know that there are two men on the face of this earth as different as my two trainers. So, the style of my weight training changed dramatically and I began the battle of maintaining a pretty rapid and substantial weight loss. If you think losing 100 pounds is difficult, it ain’t nothing compared to keeping it off. So for the last six months, my new trainer has played with my diet. The problem was that I couldn’t seem to set a goal. In my mind, I had reached my goal but my heart wasn’t satisfied with that being the end. I went to a body building show in May. It was interesting but not terribly impactful, ya know? It was a local show and kinda small. I enjoyed it but it wasn’t terribly inspirational.
I continued to train with Nik but really didn’t have any idea where I was going. I love weight training and he is fun in a pain in the ass kinda way. But then something cool happened. We all knew that Nik was training for a show, but he wouldn’t say that he was or what show he was planning on entering. He is weird that way. He finally announced that he was doing the Colorado State show. It was a big show and I definitely wanted to go and see it. Don’t tell anyone, but Nik was pretty inspiring. He worked so hard and although he only placed third in his class (a large and really competitive class) he showed me what it means to set a goal, put your head down and go for it. The morning after his show, I decided that I wanted to train to compete.
That was two weeks ago. The first thing I have learned in this process is that there is sacrifice required for reaching any important goal. First, I had to give up a lot of my cardio. I love cardio. I love hiking and dancing and group ex classes and spin classes. I love boot camps that kick my ass and well, anything that involves movement. Right now I am doing about three hours a week. At one point, I was doing about 15 hours a week (yes, I know that is extreme but like I said…I loved it). Secondly, food prep is quite the time commitment. I spend hours each week preparing food so that I can take a grocery bag full of weird food items to work with me each day. I don’t eat entrees and side dishes and desserts; I eat proteins, carbs, fats and veggies, otherwise known as macros. The food isn’t bad but I cheat because I use Splenda. Other than that, I stick pretty close to Nik’s food plan…weeeelllll, except for the occasional back of 94% fat-free microwave popcorn, but hey, no one is perfect. There is also the sacrifice of energy. When I trained with my first trainer, I trained for 30 minute sessions in the morning. I usually felt great afterwards and recovered by the time I got to work. The sessions I do with Nik are 60 minutes in the evening and by the time I get home I am wrung out, exhausted and sore. Most nights I accomplish very little other than some computer time, reading and soaking in a hot tub, hoping that I will be able to move in the morning. There isn’t a whole lot of time to build friendships and most of the time I just hope that my old friends won’t forget me completely and will understand why I am making the sacrifices that I am.
My family has been absolutely wonderfully supportive. They might roll their eyes every now and then but they seem to understand. This leads me back to my original thought. To Bradon, I am Nana. In October, his baby sister, Rose, will join the family and then in February, Bradon and Rose will get a baby cousin. I will suddenly become Nana to three precious, wonderful children. I will make time to read them stories and sing to them…but better yet, I intend to teach them to dance, play soccer with them at the park, take them hiking in the Rockies and show them what it means to live an active life.
So…this begins my journey. I don’t know how it will end. Some of the sacrifices seem costly but my intent is to not turn back but to push through. I hope you will come back and check in with me. Not every post will be about nutrition and diet and such but I want to record the journey for those who will follow down the road.
Thanks!
Cristi
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