There are two people who have changed my life forever. In an epic way that I could never forget, and without whom, my health and life may have had a drastically different outcome. After reading this post, you may even say that they saved my life. Brenton has been a personal trainer for a long time. He is currently leaving galaxy fitness to pursue a better life for himself (which is what brought on this post). I wish him all the best because he is an incredible person and he deserves to have an incredible life and meet all of his goals. I would not have met Brenton at all if it wouldn't have been for Meghan, my bodyflow teacher. Bodyflow is a class that is mostly yoga, but has a tai-chi warm up and pilates involved. This is the first class I took at the gym and the reason I continued to learn more and become more motivated. Before I list everything that I have learned from them, I will tell you first how I started at the gym.
I have been at the galaxy fitness in Irwin since July of 2012. Going to a gym was something I thought I would never do. I was always sure that I couldn't lose weight due to the extreme weight gain and instability of my thyroid. I started to loose weight the year previous to joining the gym by eating better and stabilizing my thyroid. In 2012 I started to realize that my stress and general instability (my "tweaking out" I've mentioned before) was out of control and that I needed to do something to relieve stress and feel better. Even if I didn't loose weight, I needed to do some yoga or tai-chi or something because I was flat out miserable. Having high levels of stress and the really high insulin levels that I had at the time (which is cured now! See my last few posts!) can cause high blood pressure and general "tweaking out" all of which I was experiencing. I would come home from work stressed, and the smallest thing would set me off and make me angry and upset (my poor husband and son!). Sometimes it was so bad, I would have to go upstairs to a room by myself and just not talk to anyone. Knowing that my thyroid/hormones were NOT the cause of this problem, I decided to join the gym because it had a bodyflow class that had all the elements that I wanted- tai-chi, yoga, pilates, etc. I knew I couldn't continue on this way. I had managed at that point to loose some weight solely on eating better and I had kept it off. This was the next step.
Meghan is the bodyflow and sh'bam teacher at galaxy fitness. I true one of a kind person, with a kind disposition, she makes every class fun and challenging. The general positive energy she brings to every class allowed me to not feel out of place. There were many positions and moves that I could not do, for many months, and I still struggle with the balance tracks. She encouraged me, and showed me "lower options" so that I could do the class. As I have built up my strength can do more and more of the moves correctly, and even do some high options. She spent a lot of extra time after classes showing me some moves, and providing general help and guidance, making sure I felt comfortable. Despite there being many regulars who could do many many more of the yoga parts than I could, she made it so I never felt out of place. After doing the bodyflow twice a week for a month or so, she encouraged me to do sh'bam. This is a dance class that is based on cardio and having fun, with each song being different from disco to hip hop to latin to pop. It's all different and easy for anyone to do. I never thought that I could do sh'bam. I never thought I could dance for an entire hour. This would be the start of things that I learned I could do.
This was just the beginning and one of many mindsets that would be broken by Meghan and Brenton. I kept an open mind, and with some help, I broke through barriers. Soon I would be doing two classes, the sh'bam and the bodyflow afterwards with no problem at all, enjoying both, laughing in sh'bam, smiling while working out, an hour going by like a minute. Amazing. If you have never experienced a personal "Epiphany" I encourage you to go out, find something that challenges you, you are interested in, or thought you could never do, and do it. Having an "Epiphany" about yourself- realizing that you CAN do something, and succeeding at doing things you never thought were possible, is an amazing feeling. I will never forget the first "mindset" that I broke through. Several people told me I couldn't do bodyflow. That it was too hard and I should try something else. I tried it anyway because I really wanted to do something similar to yoga that would relieve stress. And boy did it ever! I had no IDEA the benefits of breathing deeply. I can not begin to tell you how that class makes me feel between the combination of exercise and actually taking deep, purposeful breaths. I had also heard that sh'bam was hard and was worried I couldn't do it. Meghan teaches sh'bam as well, and I trusted her advice and I tried it. The other instructors who did sh'bam were equally as nice, encouraging, and fun. Finishing that class, enjoying myself, breaking that barrier for the first time was something I would become addicted to. In October/November, I saw that one of the trainers, Brenton was offering free personal training sessions. I was nervous about doing something like that, but I had tried the bodypump (weightlifting class) and found it difficult because I didn't know what I was doing. There were too many people in a class to get a lot of guidance or help, and I knew that weight training and building muscle was a key to loosing weight and keeping it off. I asked Meghan about her thoughts on doing the free session. She encouraged me again, telling me Brenton had been doing it for a long time and that I should try it. She even offered to talk to him for me if I wanted! I did do the free session, and that was the start of something amazing.
I recently told my husband what I wanted for my birthday (In March of 2013) was more training sessions with Brenton. Slightly sad, since he is leaving to purse his goals. Leaving something you love to do something better for your life takes courage. Many people settle for comfortable; few people have the guts to go out there and demand out of life everything that they want from it. It is really difficult and takes courage, so while I am sad that he is gone I can do a tribute here to him and share with you everything I learned in an incredible little over two months time. Every hour session I had with him, including my last hour session that was today, I learned something new. An hour never seemed like long enough. Even though I have an MBA (among many other accomplishments) I can tell you that I learned and accomplished more with the time I had with him than anything else I've done in my life. From the first free session, I could tell that he was easygoing with an unconventional style that would keep my interest. I knew he would teach me things that were beyond learning to work the machines at the gym and would be things I would do and keep with me for the rest of my life. Little did I know, I had more breakthroughs to be had and the secrets he would share!
An unexpected journey I would take with him would involve food and changing my eating habits to a diet that would improve my life forever. The first month he encouraged me to have a food journal. This has now morphed into a food/weight/thoughts/ everything journal. At first though, like many beginners, I thought it was stupid. We talked about food, and trying to eat "what Adam and eve" would have eaten or had available- fruits, vegetables, etc. He converted me to eating whole grains, which was healthier....little did I realize that for me, whole grains was not natural, and would be something I eliminated all together. Wheat is in my previous posts, so you can see my struggle with it. After the first month, I had lost approximately 5 pounds, if that. Maybe just 4. I was loosing weight, but not at the rate I wanted. After talking to Brenton, he said it must be something I was eating. I started to panic and become very upset. I thought I was eating healthy and honestly didn't know what to do. Brenton had been telling me about doing a detox, and that he knew a safe one to do. He told me you had to be very mentally committed to do it or you would fail. It would help my metabolism, clean the toxins out of my body, and reset my system so I didn't need caffeine or anything else. I thought (another crazy idea that he rid me of) that detoxes were stupid gimmicks for health nuts. I didn't think that they worked and I thought that people that did them were, well insane. I did it anyway though- I'll tell you this, if you are willing to learn, and accept that something you "think you know" may be wrong, there is no limit to what you can accomplish. You can do anything if you are willing to whole heartedly give it everything you have. I was willing to do everything that Brenton asked of me, even if I thought it was nuts, because I trusted in his abilities and I knew that what I was doing wasn't working, so trying something else couldn't hurt. If you ever enlist the help of a personal trainer make sure that you do some research (ask around about them, and look up their credentials) and also go into the experience with an open mind to achieve maximum results. In any case, as you can tell from my previous posts, not only was the detox a success and I felt amazing, but at the same time I was doing the detox (which required eating no wheat, caffeine, or dairy for a week) I picked up the Wheat Belly book that I have mentioned in many of my previous posts. I beat the cravings for wheat, cleaned it out of my body, and within five weeks lost 12 pounds. The first two weeks alone of not eating wheat I lost 8 pounds, and I have so much energy now it is crazy! I have regulated my insulin, and no longer have insulin resistance. If I hadn't have met Brenton, would I have ever made the connection with the wheat? I don't know. Would I have ever had the tools to really beat the wheat and never go back? It is possible that not only did he change my life, he may have saved it too. This was epic and was more than I accomplished with my health after 10 years going from doctor to doctor. My regular Thursday post this week will discuss my struggles with doctors and my thyroid.
All aspects of my health from sleep to having energy to loosing weight have been improved since I stopped eating wheat and started working out 4-5 days a week. He taught me the benefits of using kettlebells, and how to do a cardio workout in 20 minutes that would really burn calories. I have learned to use many different weights in many different combinations. For many weeks, I have been doing intervals where I run for a minute, then walk for a minute. Doing this for 20 minutes a few times a week can really have great results. I never thought I could run. I never thought that you could do a workout that was beneficial in a small amount of time. I always thought working out had to be "an hour" or "a long time" or it couldn't have good benefits. WRONG! I also started flipping tires. Not small car tires. 250 pound tractor tires. Yeah, I can flip them ten times in row (we did 30 over the course of an hour one time doing one of Brenton's amazing obstacle course workouts that I will really miss). I realized that I had no idea how strong I was. I am still figuring that out, but I realized that I was strong, and that I could do incredible things. During the past two months, I lost two more dress sizes. I am now an 18. What is hilarious about this is: I thought (again, another crazy mindset) I would be lucky to get down to a 16. I thought that was all the smaller I would ever be able to accomplish. Where did I get that idea????? Now, I am more energized than ever because not only will I get down to a 16, but I will go way beyond that and I am not sure what size I will be in the end. Kind of exciting.
Today was my last session with Brenton. I learned lots of more different exercises that work many aspects of the body at the same time, (which I love), and I graduated from doing intervals (the running for a minute, walking for a minute), to doing sprints. Me, running! Never, in a million years, would I have thought of or even pushed to do this myself on my own. Sprints are the following: Running as long as I can (for me its like 30seconds to a minute) at the maximum speed I can, until exhaustion. Recover, and do it again. I had been previously been running at a "4" on the treadmill, to give all of you out there an idea of how fast I made it up to today. Today, we started at 5, then went to 6, then went to 7. I can run really fast! Absolutely blew my mind. Doing this exercise according to Brenton will burn calories for days. Here's the crazy part: I loved it! I loved running. I felt so amazing after running and while I was doing it, and the energy that your body has after running is incredible. It is the best natural "high" that can be achieved. I always thought that people who ran were nuts. You see those people, in the winter, running on the side of the road or at a school or something- yeah crazzzyyy I would think, driving past them in my warm car. Another Epiphany I would have on my last day with Brenton: People run because of the rush of energy, because of how amazing it feels doing it. I can only imagine how it would feel if I made it up to running any long distances. Even just running my sprints at maximum speed, which was way faster than I ever thought I could go, felt incredible. And I did it. Losing weight and working out included learning a lot of things about myself, breaking barriers, and learning how to eat healthy for my body. Educating myself and having help from Brenton and Meghan helped me tackle that. But having someone who believes in you, believes that you can do it, and wants to see you accomplish your goals, is a powerful thing. Unbelievably powerful. I lost 16 pounds in the time I spend with Brenton, about 26 total since I started the gym for a grand total (over a year and a half time now), of 46 pounds. Having Brenton and Meghan share in my successes and push me to challenge myself helped me more than I can express to you in words. Thank you. Both of you. Live healthy, have energy, and be happy! What else is there?
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