Challenge the status quo - Go get em 12 Week Challenge Participants

The 12 Week Challenge posts on Facebook and pictures at the gym bring up all kinds of thoughts for me.  I participated in the Gold’s Gym 12-week challenge last year and it was without a doubt the catalyst for a tremendous year for me.  It was also one of the lowest points in the year for me when I found out I had been voted in 1^st place by the local gym, but not by corporate.  Corporate’s decision overruled all of those at our local gym and I was given 2^nd place. 

This steered me towards being a huge advocate of the body positive movement going on.  I came across it on Instagram.  It’s the hashtag #bopo.  There are some wonderful ladies speaking out on this subject on Instagram,  @omgkenzieee, @nourishandeat, and @selfloveclubb.  While staying in shape, eating a well-balanced diet and being healthy are important, they shouldn’t define us.  Nor should that extra slice of pizza be the end of the world.  Be willing to flaunt your outer beauty as well as your inner beauty.  Don’t allow a corporation to make you feel less than you really are.

Many of the images we see in women’s magazines and on the Internet have been doctored; just like I was able to do with my image.  “However fake or real the image, take a step back and realize you don’t need to look or act like anybody else.  You don’t need muscle tone, restriction or unrealistically hard abs to feel worth.  Don’t waste your life chasing an image.  Don’t wake up one day at 70 and think “I never did look like those women and I wish I’d have made memories and smiles with the time I spent comparing.”” @selfloveclubb      I am working on this with myself and getting stronger in this area.

What “gets to me” about the 12-week challenge is that Corporate decides which images are used to “promote” the challenge.  They are looking for the most “marketable” winners when selecting the final 15.  Your numbers (weight loss, inches lost, fat lost could be higher than the winner, but if your picture is not as marketable – you lose.)    How could a fitness giant be so shallow? (is the question I ask.)  Do you know how many women are over 200 pounds and “not marketable” and want to make a change?  Are we excluding them in our unrealistic posters (pictures) of women?  It’s just a question.  You need to answer that for yourself. 

I know that I offered to our local Gold’s gym to do a side by side picture of me – day 1 of the 12 week challenge versus almost a year later.  I said I’d be willing for them to post that and promote the 12-week challenge for our local gym.  The answer I received back was they would love to do the side-by-side but it could NOT be used to promote the 12-week challenge.  ONLY corporate photos could be used.  (Again a Corporate decision.)  Are you catching on to my displeasure?     We did come up with the following and it is posted in the NLP room, but it is not promoting the 12 week challenge.  It is promoting the NLP program.

Thankfully you can find trainers at the local gym that truly want to help you no matter your size.  The 12-week challenge can be a GREAT starting point for your future success.  So if that’s what you want to do to motivate yourself to get started and be accountable, I say absolutely GO FOR IT!  Go for it for yourself!  Do it for you!  Hopefully your trainer will encourage and inspire you every step of the way as mine did for me.  But just know if you do not win or place, YOU ARE ENOUGH!  You are a winner.  And don’t stop at 12 weeks!  Keep it going.  Don’t diet – find a nutrition plan that works for you.

If you are on Instagram, check out the hashtag bopo (#bopo).  I think you’ll really enjoy seeing that the young women of today are trying to change the narrative of what a “real” woman looks like.  I wish I had believed this when I was their age – then I wouldn’t be 55 years old still wondering why anyone would want to train me.  I AM ENOUGH.  (There’s another one of my 2017 goals- believe I am enough.)

Essay Written For 12 Week Challenge

As promised in the previous post here is the essay I submitted as a finalist for the 12 week challenge.

I had my first thoughts of being fat back when I was just 8 years old in 1969.  Sister Mary Mercy, our 3rd grade teacher, sent us home each day with a warning, “Beware of the Zodiac killer.”  We would then walk a mile home scared to death.  I remember thinking “Well I’m not skinny enough.  He would probably want one of the skinny girls.” 

In high school, I was a cheerleader but I was always at the bottom of the pyramid because at 120 pounds I was 20-25 pounds heavier than my girlfriends.  In college my swim team nicknamed me “Cutey Curves” because at 145 I was 40 pounds heavier than the other swimmers.  And so it went from there.  I have always believed I was fat (even when I wasn’t).

I had my last child when I was 40 years old and then the metabolism began to slow down.  I have put on weight for the past 15 years despite all my attempts to lose weight.  Inching closer and closer to 300 pounds, I was desperate for change; for help revving up my metabolism.  

Over the years I had tried many different weight loss methods with no long lasting results.  I was feeling out of options when the NLP Program at Gold’s Gym was made available to me. It was through this program that I met this young man who would become my trainer.  And YES, I was skeptical when he said he would help me if I wanted to sign up for the 12 week challenge.  I had a hard time believing anything would work for me.

I am no stranger to hard work, so I pushed hard with my workouts.  That was really the easier part for me.  But when he asked me to eat more, all those insecurities and fears of “eating = being fat” came to the surface.  I could not reconcile eating more in my mind and I fought it for five weeks.  It got to the point where my trainer asked my husband to get rid of the scale(s) in the house and only weigh myself once a week with him.  (You see, I would eat more at the beginning of the week, but then weigh myself.  If my weight hadn’t changed, I would eat less the rest of the week.) Once the scales were gone and I conformed to weighing only once a week with my trainer, the results followed.  

Another huge way my trainer helped me was with my self-worth.  I remember early on doing some exercise where when facing the mirror, I called myself the Pillsbury dough boy.  He immediately said, “Don’t talk about yourself that way.”  Any time I got discouraged and called myself gross or fat, he just did not allow that kind of talk.  This is another weak area for me -- believing in myself, but I am getting better at it.

My journey was not without setbacks.  There were many times he needed to adjust the food and/or the workouts due to illness, Mother Nature, and injury.  He made the adjustments, I followed the plan and the results always followed.  A major victory came two days after the challenge ended and my rheumatologist called and left a message with much surprise in her voice that my blood work (which is done quarterly) came back “surprisingly good!”  (This was not the case just four months previous - before the challenge began.)

Although my results may not seem as visible as others, what is happening on the inside is just as vital as what is happening on the outside.  I honestly believe the hard work on the part of my trainer as well as my determination to see this through has added years to my life.  For that I will be eternally grateful.  This is only the beginning of my weight loss journey and I am thankful to be continuing it with Ryan (my trainer) at Gold’s Gym.

Patty Deters  - 4/28/2016