My Weight Loss Struggle: Injections, Parkour and French Fry Eating Trainers
In July of this year I posted about my struggle to lose weight and that I wanted to lose 40 pounds. Now to some that may not be a lot, and to others that may be a TON of weight to lose. For me it feels like a ton of weight to lose because for some reason it is much harder to lose the weight than it was to gain it. Go figure!
Now to get me started on my journey of weight loss I looked into many different things. I tried Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, weight loss clinics where they gave me injections in my butt cheek and diet pills and while some of these were mildly successful they didn’t really seem sustainable for me. I mean the Nutrisystem food was ok but after a while I got tired of eating them and wanted to just go out and get a damn burger! Plus the cost for me was not something that I could really justify having three children and an extremely tight budget.
The injections I started because I got a Groupon in my email about them and I thought “Hey, why not try it and see if it gets me any results”. So I scheduled my appointment and went into the clinic to find out what it was all about. The first thing that I found was that the injections were to go in my butt cheek. Um – awkward. The next thing I found was that on top of the injections, which I was supposed to do monthly I also was to take some diet pills AND limit my caloric intake to 1200 calories per day.
Um…that’s not a lot. I already knew after leaving the clinic that day that this was going to be a pretty big struggle for me. I don’t like dieting. I am REALLY BAD at it. However, I decided to give it the old college try and for a few weeks I was good, but it didn’t last. I have the will power of a field mouse. So the 1200 calorie thing didn’t last long BUT I was still going in for the injections that were covered in my Groupon.
The results weren’t too bad, I did lose weight while getting the injections and taking the pills but once the Groupon ran out the cost to continue down this path was again not really sustainable for me. I couldn’t justify spending that kind of money on something that seemed frivolous and to be quite honest I knew that once I stopped getting the injections and taking the pills that my weight would most likely go back up. Which it did.
This brings me to getting a trainer. Now I know you may be thinking – ‘If she couldn’t afford or justify spending the money in other areas how can she justify the cost of a trainer.‘ Well here’s how.
My kids have been involved in parkour for over a year now. (If you aren’t familiar with what parkour is you can click on the links and see some of the amazing videos that our gym has posted showing you all about it.) Basically it is a form of free running and tumbling and all kinds of awesomeness. My son became interested in it a while back and after he started going to the gym his sister decided that she wanted to join as well. I love it because it is great exercise for them, they learn a lot, and have a BLAST doing it.
We go to a local gym called Path Movement which is owned by some really fantastic people and they have some amazing coaches there. So for a while they would go train and I would just sit and read or catch up on work and such. Then one day they decided to offer personal training. AHHHHH!!! So now while my children do parkour I am able to work with a personal trainer instead of sitting on my butt. And best of all because the whole family goes we get a family rate. So I can justify the expense of having a trainer because the fitness class is included along with the cost for my children’s parkour. Also, it is a lot cheaper than having one on one with a personal trainer BUT I still get the personal experience that having a trainer gives.
This is my trainer Brandon Kelly. Pretty awesome right? No he doesn’t always look like this of course but he is a great trainer despite the fact that the other day he was eating Wendy’s french fries in front of us as we trained. But it’s ok because I stole one while he wasn’t looking. HA!
Seriously though, training has helped me be stronger and feel a ton better! I still have a ways to go to meet my weight loss goal (which is totally my fault because I still REALLY LIKE FOOD) – but I am making progress. If nothing else I am not GAINING more weight and that is success for me as well and I truly enjoy the training sessions which is weird because usually I don’t like working out at all. So that goes a long way toward showing how great both my trainer AND the staff at Path Movement are. Here are some more great pics of the staff and kids doing what they do at Path.
So where am I on my weight loss goal of losing 40 pounds? Well like I said, it hasn’t been easy but I have made some progress and while it may be slow, progress is progress.
