My fitness transformation
Hi guys Gaby here!
Today I want to give you the full story of my fitness journey and how I went from out of shape and severely depressed to feeling absolutely incredible and living a healthy lifestyle that is (insert drumroll sound here)… SUSTAINABLE! I need to preface this by stating it was NOT an overnight thing. Being “in shape'“ is not a place, there is no final destination, it is 100% a journey. It is the process of learning new things, failing, picking yourself back up and learning more. There is no end point, it is a constant evolution. So with that being said let’s start at the very beginning of this journey.
I was an athlete basically my entire life. I started skiing at 3 years old. I grew up on soccer fields, taking dance classes, running track and playing lacrosse. I don’t remember not being involved in sports in some capacity. And like most kids I didn’t think about health or nutrition. I ate what I liked which for me included a lot of cereal, Pizza Hut pizza, chocolate milk with chocolate chocolate chip muffins (IYKYK), and whatever my parents decided to make for dinner every night. I never felt “skinny” especially compared to other girls my age but I also wasn’t overweight, just pretty average.
Fast forward to college where I played lacrosse for 3 years, also a time when I drank copious amounts of alcohol (mostly beer - gross can’t even imagine drinking one now) and had an unlimited supply of bagels, pasta and every type of cereal you could imagine in the dining hall. During this time I had gained some weight but it was being managed by the amount of activity I was doing. I wasn’t happy with how my body looked but I didn’t think there was anything I could really do to change it. I was already doing so much between daily practice, conditioning, and lifting weights.
Another point I want to emphasize here is that my entire life I was active and apart of a team. I was told what to do and when to do it. I always had a routine/schedule and I didn’t need to worry about what I ate because I was so active. I also didn’t need to think about training, I just showed up to practice and my coach would tell me what to do. I was going through the motions without much critical thinking.
I wasn’t an amazing athlete but I would say I was pretty good, good enough to play D3 at least, and I always had the drive to be better. But I had never learned the basic fundamentals of living a healthy lifestyle. I didn’t think about how foods could fuel or (in my case) not fuel my body. And I think I would have been a much better athlete if I had. I also suffered from severe inflammation in my calves, which limited my ability to run. Which is a pretty important factor in any sport. I was in pain a lot, and I would wake up in the middle of the night with cramps in my calves (most likely due to dehydration and inflammation). It was so bad I considered surgery but then ultimately decided not to go through with it and instead decided that I just wouldn’t run anymore (I personally loath running so this wasn’t that big of a deal for me)
Then BAM… I was out of college and on my own. I had no one to tell me when to exercise, what to eat or when to eat it. I went from always having a schedule and not having to think - to having ZERO schedule and no clue how to do any of it on my own. And thats when I started to gain weight.
So I did what I knew, I ate less food and tried to move my body more. I couldn’t run so I spent a lot of time on the elliptical. I had some workouts from my preseason lacrosse prep but I had very little knowledge about proper form, what to do for my specific goals… tbh I didn’t really have a goal besides “tone up”. I thought, as I think a lot of people do, that lifting heavier weights would make me “bulky”.
Then a friend showed me P90x (he had lost weight doing it), so I decided to give it a shot. I saw some results, I was leaner, but something was missing. I didn’t look or feel how I wanted to. I was exhausted, in pain and always hungry. (At some point I also tried weight watchers which was a complete disaster but thats for whole other blog post) I had also lost the confidence I used to have from sports. I didn’t know what I was doing with my body, or my life in general (to be fair what 25 year old does) but overall I just felt very lost.
At this point I was very depressed and started having severe knee pain (like couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs kind of pain). I had hit my version rock bottom. I needed help. So I signed up for a 21-day workout challenge with a personal trainer on Instagram. As I stood in front of my mirror and took photos of my current physique (a requirement for the challenge), it was in that moment that I decided enough was enough. I told myself I was going to do whatever it takes, for however long it takes to figure this shit out. I did the 21-day challenge which included you guessed it… a lot of cardio based workouts and calorie restriction. I got some results, again nothing sustainable, but the fire was lit. Something had changed during those 21 days… I now had a glimpse of hope that I could change my body, that I wasn’t lost, that I could DO SOMETHING.
After that challenge was complete I began training with Gene. He taught me the fundamentals of weight lifting, proper nutrition and the importance of sleep. I began to lift weights every other day for about an hour. During our sessions he would teach me about the different exercises and why I was doing them (this was super important for me). I had to unlearn a lot of fitness myths, like that lifting weights would make me bulky (FALSE), and that I could only eat salads to be fit (ALSO FALSE). And slowly but surely I started to see results, I actually began to build muscle. I was getting stronger for the first time in my life, my knee pain was going away and my clothes were beginning to fit better… Halle-freaking-lujah!!!
How I felt about myself started to change at this time as well. I began building mental strength from continuously pushing myself in the gym. I became my own teammate, I cheered myself on when I needed support or didn’t want to workout. Before I had the most negative self-talk. I was mentally beating myself up every single day. No wonder I was so depressed and exhausted. While getting myself into better shape, I started valuing myself and my experience. I was taking responsibility and taking back control of my life.
I went from killing myself with cardio and literally starving my body, to lifting weights for 3-4x a week and eating way more food with less restriction. I was looking and feeling better than I had ever felt in my entire life!! I have now been training consistently for 6+ years and have not once regretted it . This one seemingly small (possibly narcissistic) decision also had a ripple effect across my entire life… yes my body composition improved but so did my relationship with myself, my relationships with friends and family, my career, and my health.
This process was so transformative, so life altering for me, that I decided to become a Certified Personal Trainer. I want women to know you can change your body and you DO NOT need to spend 7 days a week killing yourself with cardio or starving yourself with salads to get there - because that is neither sustainable nor fun. My goal now is to guide badass women who are lost, just like I was, to take back control over their bodies and give them the tools to sustain a healthy lifestyle that they LOVE living.
We all have the ability to change. It just comes down to making that one decision. To do whatever it takes, for however long it takes to make it happen. I promise once you make that decision you won’t regret it.
If you’re ready to say enough is enough and do whatever it takes click here to sign up for 1v1 personal training.
- Gaby
