I’m about to get real with ya’ll today.
These are my progress pics above.
As a nutrition + fitness professional, I pride myself off of serving my clients; however, I often take a back seat as a result. Plus, I know that for me, I tend to push on the brakes when things start to get out of my comfort zone (ie: increasing my own calories).
Even coaches need coaches.
In October 2022, I found myself in a place where I was consistently tracking my foods (I’ve been doing this for years). I was averaging between 1700-1900 calories. This doesn’t sound crazy LOW. But I found myself feeling stale. Just kind of blah with workouts and life. Almost like I was just going thru the motions or working out to check off the box ✔️
🖤 I have put in a ton of work with my body image over the last decade. I can honestly say that at 40 years old, more NOW than ever before I have come to respect and love my body and all that it does. And I truly want that to show from the inside out. I want to feel proud and confident when I throw on my gym shorts, or swimsuit this summer. And heck, don’t we all just want to feel great and confident naked?
I thrive off of continued education, accountability, and mentorship. I’ve worked with coaches my entire life, so I decided to hire my own Nutrition Coach, Brandon, to lead, educate, and hold me accountable to adequately fuel my body to feel good, look good, and be a better, even stronger badass at the gym.
From October to January we gradually increased my calories from 1700 to ~2200 calories/day. I was feeling super comfortable at 2200 calories/day. Brandon discussed trying to put on some muscle/ go into a surplus while I went thru a strength phase. I leaned in to the idea that the scale might go up.
And then a crazy thing happened.
I started eating MORE (2600+ calories + 320g Carbs) &:
➡️ I experienced incredible improvements in energy, strength at the gym, digestion, libido, and sleep.
➡️ HUNGER improved (biofeedback telling my body I was finally SAFE)… Prior to this I never experienced hunger.
➡️ The bonus was that my body composition started to improve.
- I spent 5 months doing the boring, unsexy stuff. It’s not super exciting to see the consistency and work I put in.
- I spent 5 months building a badass metabolism that helped me set new PR’s (although not lifetime PR’s) in the gym (to name a few: I benched 155# and did a 52.5# weighted pull-up).
- PS: 5 months is really a drop in the bucket compared to our average lifespan…
We will spend the next few months doing a structured diet/calorie deficit/cut to shed some body fat. Stay tuned for progress and updates.
❤️ Sometimes to see success, you have to choose the route that takes longer, and practice patience.
❤️ Sometimes to see progress, you have to do the things that make you uncomfortable.
