Weston Massage & Fitness

September 05, 2005

Make A Commitment To Health And Fitness

In 1998, at age forty I lost 60 pounds and have kept it off for 7 years. I did it with diet and exercise, no magic bullet. It took about 9 months, at about 1-2 lbs. per week, which is considered to be a healthy rate of weight loss. And I did it with the help of my personal trainer.

My neighbor and I have lived in the same small town (Weston) for years. We had our respective three children each at about the same times, and we had both put on a lot of “mommy” weight. As I was dropping my eldest off at school one morning, I noticed a woman stepping lightly up the stairs into the building, her yellow raincoat and long brown hair billowing behind her like flags. She was going up those stairs faster than most people go down.

It was her and she looked incredible! I sat there thinking had that been me climbing those few steps (at 200+ lbs.) I would have been struggling, gasping, and secretly wishing for a tow-rope like they had on the bunny hill at Butternut, before I reached the top! When she came out, I got out of my car and shuffled over to hers. Dripping in the rain, I knocked on her car window. She rolled it down. “You look fantastic!” I blurted out, “I don’t know what you’re doing but I want to do it, too!”

She said she was working with a personal fitness trainer and seeing a nutritionist. I demanded their names and phone numbers on the spot and waited in the rain as she found a scrap of paper and wrote down their names and phone numbers. I had made up my mind to change. It had happened in a flash.

There is a saying; ‘when the student is ready, the teacher appears.’

Over the next few years I learned what it was like to exercise like I never had before. Getting up at 5:00 AM for three grueling workouts a week at 5:45, and walking for 20-30 minutes three times a week - all that sweat and you can bet I wasn’t going to mess it up by eating junk. I was working too hard and paying too much, and besides, I had made a decision that it was time to get back to my old self.

Call it a mid-life crisis, but I was hell-bent for fitness! Hal had a small private gym in the basement of a small house. He was a powerlifter with several national and world records, so he trained lifting. At age forty-one, I entered and qualified for my first powerlifting meet. I started playing tennis again and had a rocket serve. It was fun being fit!

It was so important to have the support of my trainer! Together, we set goals for my program and achieved them.

It was so helpful and necessary to have someone else care whether or not I lost one pound, one inch, or made it through another set of 100 squat thrusts. My success was his success, and when he said I was “pretty hard core,” I beamed. He would introduce me as someone who had worked hard and succeeded.

I decided to go to massage school. Learning about the human body was fascinating, so while in school, I got my ACE certification and continued to study fitness. I wanted to help others as training had helped me - I wanted them to experience success!

Now I am a licensed massage therapist, and have developed my own way of training, gleaned from everything I’ve ever studied. To help support the goals of others who want to get in shape I started a weight loss and fitness program called WalkBuddy. I have fitness clients privately and at several local clubs, teach 3 Pilates classes a week, and have a new massage studio in my home (Weston Massage and Fitness). During the past two years, I trained for and completed six triathlons. This summer it’s rowing and Olympic weightlifting three times a week, as well as bike, swim, and run.

Change isn’t always easy. If being fit was easy, then everyone would be in shape. looking at why some succeed and others don’t, key factor I have found is - the turning point. There is a moment when the decision to change occurs.

This is often a moment of clarity, a moment of truth, when someone fully accepts responsibility for changes they need to make and from then on, these people are unstoppable. This doesn’t mean they don’t have setbacks and plateaus. There is consistency and a commitment to fitness and health as a way of life. They set goals and don’t stop until they reach them.

A crucial factor is support - having those around you recognizing your successes and helping you reach your goals. It helps to have a trainer who has actually met their own health challenges, and beat the odds.

Another key factor in my success was - changing my relationship to food. I wasn’t “on a d--t.” I became committed to giving myself the good stuff. I no longer finished my kids’ leftover PB & J’s. I made myself a healthy lunch. I looked for healthy choices.

I took the time and spent the money to have a salad with chicken instead of pizza. I carried hard-boiled eggs & cottage cheese in a cooler. I was eating often, but eating well, and never skipping breakfast which was my biggest meal of the day. Boy, I sure did look forward to mornings and those big steaming bowls of hot cereal and fruit, and several eggs!

My husband and I had a little ritual of having a bowl of ice cream every night at 11:00, while watching Seinfeld and laughing until we cried! When I began getting up very early to go to the gym, this late rendezvous with Haagen-daz was no longer an option. We started going to bed earlier and, coincidentally, found new little rituals to enjoy together!

Instead of struggling with food, it became a tool to grow my new healthy body. Generally, when I was hungry, I ate. But I trained myself, like I was training my body, to make healthy choices. Life is all about choices. Each time I ate, I was making a choice. And I knew what the consequences would be for continuing habitually wrong choices!

There was no scale at my house, but there was at the gym, and every week I would weigh myself (with Hal looking on) to find out how I had progressed. Success felt wonderful even though it was only 1 or 2 pounds per week. Once in a while I would plateau, or actually gain a pound, and then we would discuss how to tighten up the program.

While the motivation was mine, as was the commitment, my trainer matched my drive and determination with his experience and knowledge - the tried and true - to help me achieve results without wasting my time, money, and resolve.

Many people have been inspired by this story. It’s powerful because it’s true. Better health can be achieved, and with it comes vitality and an appreciation for life. So take that step; walk your walk. Accept your challenge and don’t ever stop.

“Knowledge...the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.” - Shakespeare

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Posted by jeffreykerekes at 10:51 AM