Transformation Challenge Update—Half-Way There

I’m officially half-way through my challenge with True North Strength and Fitness and Westcoast Nutrition and the first six weeks has disappeared incredibly quickly. I’d love to say time flies when you’re having fun but I think the more accurate representation would be time flies when you’re busy taking care of a family while attempting to eat well and get to the gym three times a week. The time-management struggle is real. However, taking this time for myself has absolutely been worth all the extra scheduling and calendar confusion. At the mid-way point in this challenge I have had good weeks and bad weeks and wanted to share a little update.

Nutrition

Michelle at Westcoast Nutrition has me questioning why it took me so long to talk to a dietician. We seek out professionals in other fields when we struggle and yet seem to feel

Michelle from Westcoast Nutrition

like struggling with food is a problem we need to solve alone. I’m here to tell you, it is not. But I was terrified to get help. I believed a dietician would try and overhaul everything about my diet in a day. I didn’t think anything they would ask of me would be sustainable for my life. I was very wrong.

The biggest hightlight for me during this first six weeks—nutrition-wise—is that my children haven’t noticed I’m doing anything differently. Unlike during my previous attempts at weight loss, nobody has asked me why I’m weighing and measuring out food or why I’m not eating certain meals with them—because I’m not weighing and measuring out food, and I’m not making myself different meals. At 30-ish years old it seems ridiculous to say that I’m learning how to properly fill my plate and trust my body’s cues on hunger and fullness, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. And it’s working. But the key-word in that is learning. I don’t have it all figured out yet and I’m certainly not perfect—I never will be. And that’s OK. This needs to be a liveable change for me and that is exactly what it is becoming.

Fitness

Working with True North Strength and Fitness has been awesome—and exhausting! I

Sasha at True North Strength and Fitness

have logged 18 workouts so far which feels like an accomplishment in itself. I know accountability is a big problem for people when it comes to fitness—and it’s definitely something I struggle with—but because I schedule in my training times here, I am much less likely to bail, and instead actually get my butt in the gym.

What I love most about the gym though, is its community feel—I have yet to meet a single person there who isn’t encouraging, friendly and helpful. In the past, I would get anxious going out onto the gym floor without a familiar face—always feeling obvious and alone. But here, even if you don’t know anyone in your time slot, the trainers are always on the floor connecting with everyone and creating a space that feels inclusive. That has gone a long way in making me comfortable and independent while working out.

Progress

This is what everyone really wants to know, right? Well, inches have started to come off and I can see differences in my body and feel differences in some of my clothes. I also know I’m getting stronger by some of the regular transfers I do every day. But here’s the thing: The scale. Since I was young, it was ingrained in me that the number on the scale mattered. And no matter how many times people tell me it doesn’t—tell me that muscle weighs more than fat and that it’s about how you look and feel and not about how many pounds you are—I still want to see the scale drop. And it has, just not as quickly as I would like.

So I’m trying not to get hung up on my weight and celebrate all of the other ways I’m seeing change. Especially because I’m not doing anything fancy or trendy. I’m eating all kinds of real food and getting exercise. I have still enjoyed going out for coffee with friends and out for dinner or to the movies with my family. My progress has been slow and sustainable and I’m looking forward to solidfying new habits over the second half of the challenge.