My Gym Story

Hello! My name is Janet and I am 35 years old. Growing up, I was always athletic, mainly a swimmer on the swim team up until college. During my college years, I got involved in a martial art called Taekwondo. I trained for 5 years, competed on the national team and achieved my 3rd degree black belt. Towards the end of my time as a martial artist, I got married and started a family. At this point in my life, I was 155 lbs. at 5’8” wearing a size 8. During my pregnancy, I found out that I was high risk which caused me to go on bed rest. As you can imagine, I got very out of shape laying around growing a baby.
In May 2010, we welcomed a healthy baby boy with a momma that could barely walk 50 feet without her ankles swelling up. I mean I could barely walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath. At this point in my life, I was happy to be a mother, but very devastated with my current physical health. My husband was very supportive of me joining a gym and working out with a personal trainer that he decided to join too! So, we started working out with a personal trainer at the end of June 2010 when I weighed 195 lbs. My goals were to: get in shape and feel good about myself again and reach my pre-pregnancy weight of 155 lbs. After being passed around to several different trainers for various reasons, I ended up being a client of JD Marcum. He introduced me to a way of training using constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movements. Slowly but surely I started to shed some of the extra pounds and build muscle again. I continued to train with JD for the next year until I became pregnant again.
At this point I had not reached my pre-pregnancy weight, but I did feel better about myself and was in better shape. I weighed 185 lbs. and wore a size 12-14. I was put on bedrest again during that pregnancy and came back to the gym in May 2012 after having a healthy baby girl. I had to regain my strength and loose the extra weight for the second time. I was determined to reach my pre-pregnancies weight of 155lbs. and wear a size 8 again.
After about 2 years of 3 days/week training and eating somewhat healthy, I decided this is enough and I need to get with the program to reach my goals. JD had told me what to do and I tried several different things, but never stuck to it. In October 2014, I spoke with my husband and some athletes at my gym and began to change things. I started to log everything I ate in My Fitness Pal, changed my daily carb/protein/fat ratios to be higher protein and lower fat/carb. With my husband’s support, I also committed to making it to the gym 5 days/week.
I have seen drastic improvements in my physical ability while changing the shape of my body. In February 2015, I finally reached my goal of wearing a size 8 again! I weigh 160 lbs., but like JD always said do not focus on the scale, focus on how the clothes fit. I now have new goals: to start competing, do a muscle up and unassisted hand stand push up, get stronger shoulders and back muscles and increase my strength in my lifts. One of my long term goals is to compete in the masters division of the Crossfit Games. I will continue to eat well, train 5 days/week and become a better athlete with the continued support of my awesome husband, trainers and fellow athletes!