by | Nov 11, 2014 | Building Muscle, Consistency, Fat Loss / Cutting, Metabolism Reset, Testimonials
Kiki has been bugging me for a while now to write about my weight loss and fitness journey, so here I am finally getting the courage up to writing it. I say courage because in the past year I have come to realize quite a few things about myself that I was ashamed about for a long time and have finally come to be able to face the truth. Yes, I too (as many women do), suffer from binge eating disorder (BED), but let me start at the beginning of my journey, because I couldn’t always admit, or understood that this was going on.
Upon turning 40 (4.5 years ago), I was very unhappy with my body and weight and the fact that hiking was getting hard for me. I live in Arizona and hiking is one of my husband and my passions, especially at the Grand Canyon. Well, it was a trip to the canyon that finally snapped me into reality and made me make the decision to do something about my weight that had ballooned to 185. I am 5’7” and 195 was the highest weight that I had gotten to in the past, so I was closing in on that number again! I decided to give online weight watchers a try and had (what I thought) was great success, after all I dropped 45 pounds in about 4 months! Of course, I quickly hit a plateau and continued to increase my exercise, while sticking to the very low “points” that weight watchers was allowing me; rarely to never eating back my exercise calories that continued to increase with my cardio/calorie burn obsession!
After about a year of weight watchers, I decided not to renew my contract and to switch over to MFP, where I discovered that there was a whole group of Cathe Friedrich obsessed women out there. For those of you unfamiliar with Cathe, she is a workout DVD genius and my guru! I had been lifting weights with her DVD’s along with her cardio DVD’s during the whole weight watchers process. It was a breath of fresh air to meet all of these women with the same workout commitment that I had. Well, long story short, I got hooked up with Kiki through other mutual Cathe/MFP ladies and started to read her blog posts and watched her YouTube videos. This is where I first got hooked up with EM2WL and started to realize that the health industry has steered us women in the wrong direction when it comes to “losing” weight.
After many conversations with Kiki, I was convinced and finally understood that eating really low restricted calories was always going to set someone up for failure, especially when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off and that the healthiest route was to eat to fuel your body and to lift weights, heavy weights! As I mentioned, I had been lifting weights all this time, but never understood why I was never able to make any progress in muscle development and that I had actually lost much of my muscle. Oh, and I should mention that during this plateau, I didn’t understand why every time I would feel like I made some progress I would fall into a binge tailspin. For 9 months, it was 2 steps forward and 1 huge binge step back. Every time this would happen I would absolutely loath myself and shame myself etc, but never understanding that it was partly my body’s way of telling me to “feed me”! (Of course there are also psychological reasons for the binging as well).
I finally let her convince me to do a metabolism reset after being at the plateau for a good 9-12 months and losing and gaining the same 5#. Silly me, I thought that I would reset my metabolism for 6 weeks and then start cutting again. I didn’t understand why after that 6 weeks I had gained a good 10# back and why when I started cutting it didn’t just fall right off!? After more conversations with Kiki and more research, she finally got me to understand that it wasn’t a number that I could assign to my reset, that it could and would take time, quite possibly a LONG time. She also convinced me to join a group of ladies who were starting STS (a 3-6 month Cathe weight lifting program), while bulking (eating above calorie requirement). She did warn me that I would gain weight and boy did I. I gained about 20# back, bringing me back to around 160. I was a little scared, as was my husband starting this process but new it was going to be for my good. After STS was finished I decided to try a cut. I lost some of that weight, but I could tell that my metabolism still wasn’t healed, so I started to eat at what I thought was maintenance and stayed there for a long time.
I should mention, that after I lost all the weight with weight watchers, I told my husband that I thought I wanted to someday compete in a figure competition. I had an unwritten goal of competing before I was 45. Well, I talked about this goal for about 4 years and finally, a (very devout Christian) friend of mine finally pointed out that maybe the fact that I kept bringing this topic up every few months, that maybe, just maybe God was directing me to actually go for my goal. I should mention that within all this time of weight loss and resets, I was born again (which is why she felt it was God calling me to this goal, for whatever reason). We both figured the reason was not because he wanted me to compete, but one much more deeply.
This conversation occurred in December of 2013 and around the same time, my husband got fed up with my talk and said that I needed to just do it! After much discussion with him and other women who had competed and a TON of prayer, God led me to an online trainer who came highly recommended and who was also a Christian. I signed a yearlong contract that began on January 27 2014 that included a nutrition and training plan, with the intention of competing on November 1, 2014. You are probably wondering how did it go!? It didn’t.
After starting with my trainer, I quickly started seeing results, not only in fat loss, but overall improvement in my cardio ability as well as muscle development. I couldn’t and still can’t believe the amount of muscle that I have been able to develop. So why did I not compete? As I said, I felt God had me on this journey for a much bigger reason than simply competing and as it turned out, it has been a journey of healing and learning about nutrition and coming to a place where I can finally admit that I do suffer from BED. Do I still struggle with BED? Constantly! Have I binged during this new goal phase of my life? Sadly yes, but with God’s help I am working on it and have only had 2 major occurrences in the last 9 months, which is a great improvement from binging every few weeks.
So, the reason I didn’t compete? Twelve weeks out from the competition date, when true contest prep would normally take place, I got a response from my trainer that I was not expecting. She felt that with my BED issues, that she could not get me to competition readiness without restricting my calories too much and with my ED, she knew it was the wrong thing to do. After much discussion with my husband, we both agreed that this is why I hired her and I should heed her advice.
We have now moved into a muscle building phase and the new goal is to compete in spring of 2015 and if I am still not ready, than winter 2015. Needless to say, I now know this is a journey of not only physical health, but mental and spiritual as well and I will take as long as I need to get to the point of competing. My mindset has changed from “I just want to be able to say that I did it”, to “I did it and I won!”
I guess I should add my stats for those of you who are wondering (I started tracking in July of 2012 and unfortunately don’t have pictures for the earlier dates):
July 2012: 158 (end of my second reset)
September 2012 (the start of STS and after a short cut): 152
March 2013 (end of my first official bulk): 164
June 2013 (end of my first cut): 150
December 2013 (during my second bulk): 154
January 27, 2014 (the start of my figure training) 25% bf and 154.5
August 11, 2014 (12 weeks out from competition) 18.8% bf and 134
October 27, 2014 (last check in with my trainer) 17.7% bf and 132
by | Jul 24, 2014 | Motivation, Testimonials, Transformations
I found EM2WL in January 2014 and it was an answer to my prayers. EM2WL has forever changed my life, health, mind, and my relationship with food and myself. I am still certainly a work in progress, but each day I am closer to reaching my goals. I have lost 40 pounds over the past 7 months, and I credit the last 30 pounds to EM2WL. But more than weight loss, I have gained strength, confidence and a drive to move forward with my life.
A little about me…I am a wife of 10 years (to an incredible husband who has loved me at every size) and currently a stay-home mom to my super active 2 year old boy. I struggled with the cycle of under eating/overeating for as long as I can remember. I was a heavy child and I became aware of diets (food restriction) and followed them from an early age. At age 7, my mom began taking me to a nutritionist weekly. I don’t remember it helping me as I was so young, but I do know that it communicated to me that I had a problem with my weight. My mom, having her own weight issues, was only trying to help me while I was young. At age 11, I remember being weighed at the doctor’s office and I weighed 133 pounds. I asked my mom if I weighed too much and I remember her carefully saying, “You could work on losing a little”. That day began a lifelong struggle of severe dieting and what I now recognize as disordered eating. At age 11, I put myself on a diet and lost 17 pounds. Of course I gained it right back and more as I grew into my teenage years.
Sports and activities filled my high school and college years, but the pressure to weigh less fueled my unhealthy eating cycles. I weighed anywhere from 160-180 and would yo-yo up and down easily. I would severely restrict calories for a few months and then massively binge…over and over and over…all on top of extreme exercise. If I managed to lose any weight, I would regain it all back through the binging…plus more. I tried often to purge, but thankfully, my body would not cooperate. These unhealthy cycles continued through my 20’s and early 30’s, throughout my married years, and through my first pregnancy.
My family went through a series of tragic events and multiple relocations and my weight began quickly increasing from the 170’s upward. In 2013, one year after my son was born, I reached my highest weight of 207 pounds and a size 18 at only 5’3. I had pretty much lost sight of myself and any goals I had once had. I was told I was an emotional eater. I hid stashes of food and sweets in my home and at work. I ate if I was happy and when I was sad. My biggest fear was that I would continue to live the rest of my life in that misery and set a negative example for my children.
I knew low calorie and fad diets did not work, but I returned to them because I knew nothing different. I blamed my lack of success on lack of discipline, willpower, and emotional eating. I always felt like a quitter because I could not stick to anything. I had tried everything over the years – Weight Watchers, Medifast, Slimfast, Liquid Amino Diet, Six Week Body Makeover, Nutrisystem, low calorie, juicing, fasting, and starving. I would lose weight at first and then stall for weeks before giving up and overeating to compensate for the low calories and then gain everything back and more. Weight Watchers gave me partial success, but again I stalled after the first few months and couldn’t understand why since I was working out every day and not consuming any extra points or earned exercise points. I thought the weight should be melting off, but it wasn’t, and many weeks I actually gained. When I later did the calculations, I figured I was only eating 1200 calories on Weight Watchers. At one time I even trained for a half marathon and was running 7 miles a day. Little did I know that eating 1200 calories and running 7 miles daily would stall my weight loss for weeks. I felt defeated but I couldn’t give up.
I knew there had to be a different way to approach weight loss and I wanted to find it. I started reading and researching about a different type of weight loss strategy…one that was maintainable. I committed to being happy with a .5 or 1 pound loss a week instead of trying/expecting to lose 3 pounds every week. I joined MFP in January (user name Jennbecca33) and started seeing people talk about how under eating can actually hinder and keep you from losing weight. During this time, I found the EM2WL group and I have not looked back! Something finally made sense and clicked for me.
The wonderful ladies in this group have taught me how to eat properly and eat ENOUGH (way more than I thought I could) so that my body could lose weight more easily. I learned that the low calorie diets in conjunction with working out simply did not give my body enough to lose weight properly, hence the weight loss stalling. Since then, I’ve committed to eating more to weigh less. I actually found that I did not need to do a reset, surprisingly. As I started slowly increasing my calories, my weight immediately decreased by a couple of pounds. I couldn’t believe it. I then increased my calories a little more, and again, I dropped a couple more pounds. I kept increasing until I found my maintenance level which is around 2100-2300.
This concept of eating more, or at a slight deficit, went against everything I had ever been taught about dieting. I now happily eat between 1800-2000 calories daily (-15% TDEE) to lose weight and I do all my workouts from home. When consistent, I average between .5- 1 pound loss per week. I am now incorporating heavier weight training (which I love!) to help reshape my body. I usually work out 4 times a week for about 30 minutes each – 2 or 3 weight lifting sessions and 1-2 workouts on the elliptical. My only permanent success has come from following the EM2WL lifestyle, and the best part is, I’m able to keep going because I’m giving my body enough food so that I’m not hungry, worn out, and irritable all the time. Since I have started allowing myself to eat more, I have not had even one binging episode, or even the desire to binge! Have I overeaten at times? Sure. But even then, I’m able to work it into my calories. I’ve come to terms with losing weight in a responsible and healthy manner and I am so motivated to know that I now have the proper tools to reach my goal.
Before and After
When I started EM2WL in January 2014, I weighed 195 and was a size 16. I had lost about 10 pounds on my own at that point. I have lost the last 30 pounds with EM2WL, for a total of 40 pounds. I still currently weigh 165 pounds and at 5’3 I wear between a size 8 and 10. I don’t really have a “goal” weight in mind anymore and I’m not stressing about it. When I get there, I will know. I still have quite a bit of fat on certain body parts that I want to lose. My hips and legs hold most of my weight, but slowly, even my legs are shaping up. I know I will always have thicker legs, and I’m ok with that. I look better now at 165 than I did at 145 (a weight I never maintained after 3 months on only 800 calories). EM2WL works. It will work for anyone. Eat at a smaller deficit so that it’s maintainable and so that you can keep going! Yes, it’s slower paced weight loss. But in the long run, you are able to keep it off. Keep muscle, build muscle!
The biggest change for me though, has been the mental shift about food. I no longer hate food. I really love food. I am not on a diet. Food is ok to eat and I do not feel guilty for indulging in moderation! There is nothing that I cut out of my diet. I love eating with my family and not having to cook separate meals every night. No more missed birthday dinners. I enjoy eating out and making healthy food choices. I will never again be tempted by low calorie dieting or a fad gimmick diet. EM2WL has given me freedom and it has truly helped me to take back my life.
Thank you to all the EM2WL moderators and members who have been so supportive and helped me and continue to help me through this journey. I have learned so much from you. You truly were an answer to prayer during one of the darkest and heaviest times in my life. I pray my story may help and encourage others now to trust this process as well. I look forward to posting an update when I reach my end goal!
Have you overcome disordered eating? Have an EM2WL transformation to share? Let us know! Be featured on our Transformation/Journey page by submitting your story to Success@EM2WL.com
Ready to begin your own Journey? Start here.
by EM2WL | Aug 13, 2013 | Building Muscle, Cardio, Fitness Cycles (Periodization), Increasing calories, Testimonials, Transformations
Hi, my name is Terri-Anne.
I am a runner. And I am a Lifter. I am a mother of 5, forty, fit and finally starting to love this body that lugs me through my busy day. This has been a long journey about self-discovery. Learning my limits, learning my goals, learning how to fall and get back up again. Learning how to do it all wrong then finally working out how to do it right. I’ve learnt the difference between dieting to lose weight and eating to lose fat. I’ve learnt the difference between weighted cardio and lifting heavy. I also learnt that cardio is good for you but if fit is the look you are after, you need to train smarter, heavier, not longer. I have learnt so much on this journey and yet I am only just beginning. Eating more, throwing out the scales and lifting to failure is working for me.
After having my fifth baby in October 2009 I gained weight. I was busy with 5 children, working with my husband in our farming business and making excuses for not having time to exercise. In February 2010 I was 74kg (163lb), my biggest weight ever. (79kg or 174lb was my biggest full term pregnancy weight) I decided there was no way I was going to buy the next size up in clothes, it was time to stop making excuses. My goal was never to be skinny, all I wanted was to be fit and healthy. I have never been one to obsess over scales, rather I used my favorite jeans to measure my weight. I exercised a little and cut back on some treats, walked everywhere and after doing cardio only exercise for 4mths I was disappointed with my slow progress. I was now 69kg and still feeling fat and ugly.
I joined the local gym and had a weights program written up by a trainer and got some great advice on interval training. This is when the cardio bunny in me was born. 
I loved tabata and was doing it every day along with weights – 15reps, 3 sets – 3 times a week. I powered through my workouts, dripping with sweat thinking I was doing all the right things. 12mths after my journey started I was still only 67kg (147lb). My fitness had improved but I was still not getting the results I wanted. I still didn’t look fit and had little tone. I started running. Lost a bit more. But I was still not seeing a fit healthy woman in the mirror.
I decided at this point that my diet may not have been as good as I thought so I started counting calories and bought a set of scales. I joined MyFitnessPal – an online diet and exercise diary – and set my calories at 1200 per day. I am 173cm (5ft8) tall and at this time weighed 65kg (143lb). The weight started dropping off. I lost a lot and by the end of 2011 I was down to 59kg (130lb)!! I was exhausted. Tired. Hungry. Cranky. I dragged myself through the day and armed with a HRM I dragged myself through workouts burning a minimum of 1000 cals 6 days a week. I did not look fit. I did not feel healthy. What was I doing wrong??? Then I found out that MFP had a community and I ‘met’ Kiki. I read her ramblings every day. I researched her ramblings every day. I read NROLFW. I researched. Could this crazy woman be right? Could I look and feel better if I ate more??? I was lifting – 3 times a week!
What I was doing was not working so I decided to give this eating thing a go. I decided to trust the process. In January 2012 I purchased a periodized workout plan that Kiki recommended and had decided to increase my cals to 2000 a day. My first ever bulk. I had become dependent on the scales – weighing in on a weekly basis and was not ready to give that up. As soon as I started the workouts I realized that I had not been lifting heavy. In fact all I had been doing was weighted cardio. I lasted 2 months and the ever rising scales did my head in (I had gained a whole kilo or 2lb). All the food did my head in. How could eating all this food help me look better? Not enough running did my head in. I needed to run to remain sane. But I had also tasted heavy weights and I loved it.
So in May 2012 I started running again and dropped my cals back to 1200. I immediately became lethargic. This lasted about 2 weeks before I put them up to 1500. Still little energy. I kept it up for another 2 weeks. I went up to 1800 cals. At this point I was able to think clearer. I did more research, looked back through my diaries and realized this Kiki lady knew what she was on about!! At that moment I did an overhaul of my diet. I worked on my macros (who would have thought there was more to food then broccoli and chocolate), tweaking and adjusting, working out what made me feel good. I no longer focused on calories but on the macronutrients in my food. 
I made sure I got enough of what my body needed and let the calories fall into place – they usually hit around 1800-2000cals. I cut the running back to 3 days a week and lifting days were for lifting only. I trained less, ate more and finally little muscles started to poke through!!! Finally I started to feel great. Finally I started to see results!! At this point I was 63kg. (138lb) and now only weighing monthly.
I needed a goal, something to keep me motivated. I decided to do a triathlon – the grueling ’hell of the west’ – 2km swim in a murky river, 80km ride along the highway, and a hot dry 20km run in the Australian outback. Two weeks into training the change in my physique was already showing. I was literally watching the muscle melt away. It was shear relief when my Dr. said he wanted to laser my varicose veins sooner rather than later. I decided that the interruption to training was too long and I would only do the 20km run. I also decided that the only way to maintain as much muscle as possible was to eat and lift to failure. I did not want to go back to skinny. December 2012 I started eating at around 3000 cals a day. I also threw out the scales. Best thing I ever did. Come race day I was a little heavier than a lot of athletes, perhaps this made me a little slower but I was happy to be full of energy and felt and looked fit. (my time was 1hr 40min)
The very next day I went into cut mode. I was cutting at what I had in the past thought was over eating!! I ate 1800cals a day, lifted heavy 3 days a week, did 2 interval cardio sessions and 1 weighted full body cross fit workout. I don’t know if you can call what I do bulking and cutting as my workout schedules don’t really fit the typical bulk/cut model. But it works for me. I’m not trying to compete so my diet and exercise has to be tailored into my life. I stopped cutting mid April when I decided to start training for a Tough Mudder – a 20km mud run. I am now 1 week out from the race. I’ve been eating around 3500cals a day and I feel great. Eating gives me the energy to keep up with all the rigorous training and still live my life. At the moment I do 2-3 cross fit style workouts a week. I run 3-4 days a week and I lift 3 days. I am bruised and battered, my body hurts most days but it’s a pain I love – the feeling you get when your body is repairing and growing.
Back Cut Results
I weighed myself before writing this and I have gained 7kg in the last 8mths. I went into full meltdown mode when I saw that number. I couldn’t believe how far I had let myself go. At this point I took some pictures and compared the difference to last time I was the same weight. Wow. If that doesn’t convince you to throw out the scale I don’t know what will??!! I know it’s not all muscle but again if I’m a little slower because I’m a little fluffier, it’s a price I’m willing to pay.
Same weight, same shirt!
I will start to cut again when this race is over and I’m excited to see what lies beneath! I am lifting 3-4 times heavier then when I did the same reps in my first round of periodization. I have learnt to listen to my body. If I need a rest day, I take it. If I need a refuel day, I eat. I feel strong. I feel healthy. I am the same weight I was 2 years ago and look and feel completely different. I will keep running as it keeps me sane. I love to wake up and go for a run. Or not. Maybe sprint intervals. Maybe I’ll try for a PB. I love not planning my runs, I just put on my shoes and let my body do the thinking. I will also keep on lifting. I love the feeling of power. I love seeing the weights go up. I love the structure of a weighted workout. I love the comments. I know that running will make building muscle slower but I am finally at peace with that. I no longer care how many calories I burn in a workout, I work out because I love it. I no longer need the scales – numbers do not define me. I eat to fuel my workout or my current goal. I am not the fastest or the strongest but I am fit and I am healthy.
Share your success, no matter how large or small. You never know who you may inspire to hang on just a bit longer. We love featuring results and journey stories in REAL time, not just before/afters. If you have a victory (scale or not) let us know and allow us to share with the fam, by submitting to success@EM2WL.com
After about a year of weight watchers, I decided not to renew my contract and to switch over to MFP, where I discovered that there was a whole group of Cathe Friedrich obsessed women out there. For those of you unfamiliar with Cathe, she is a workout DVD genius and my guru! I had been lifting weights with her DVD’s along with her cardio DVD’s during the whole weight watchers process. It was a breath of fresh air to meet all of these women with the same workout commitment that I had. Well, long story short, I got hooked up with Kiki through other mutual Cathe/MFP ladies and started to read her blog posts and watched her YouTube videos. This is where I first got hooked up with EM2WL and started to realize that the health industry has steered us women in the wrong direction when it comes to “losing” weight.
I should mention, that after I lost all the weight with weight watchers, I told my husband that I thought I wanted to someday compete in a figure competition. I had an unwritten goal of competing before I was 45. Well, I talked about this goal for about 4 years and finally, a (very devout Christian) friend of mine finally pointed out that maybe the fact that I kept bringing this topic up every few months, that maybe, just maybe God was directing me to actually go for my goal. I should mention that within all this time of weight loss and resets, I was born again (which is why she felt it was God calling me to this goal, for whatever reason). We both figured the reason was not because he wanted me to compete, but one much more deeply.
So, the reason I didn’t compete? Twelve weeks out from the competition date, when true contest prep would normally take place, I got a response from my trainer that I was not expecting. She felt that with my BED issues, that she could not get me to competition readiness without restricting my calories too much and with my ED, she knew it was the wrong thing to do. After much discussion with my husband, we both agreed that this is why I hired her and I should heed her advice.
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