Beachbody came into my life sort of by accident. My husband and I were big gym goers. We were unhappy with our local gym and were very excited when a new one was going to be opening. We quit the local gym with the promise of an opening date of November. Meanwhile, it was now January and the gym still wasn't open. The owner of the franchise had another gym about an hour away, so when we wanted to work out, that's where we went. Once the local gym opened we went quite religiously. But then life got in the way. We both worked early mornings and sometimes late into the evenings. At the end of the day we were tired and just didn't feel like going.

 

One day we quit our gym (I won't even get into the story of how the franchise owner screwed us over an entire month's membership). We spent $2000 on an elliptical we bought on Amazon that we had to put together ourselves. We did use it for quite a while but soon got bored and it became a clothes hanger.

 

Then on a snow day in 2011 I was watching Rachel Ray and saw Shaun T advertise a workout called Insanity. I wanted to try it so I went on Amazon and bought it used for $60. I had never tried an at home workout program before and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I figured I could resell it if I didn't like it.

 

I never resold the program. I loved it. However, I never made it past month one. During this time, some very personal things were going on. My husband and I decided we wanted to start a family, but it wasn't happening. We finally saw a fertility specialist and I was diagnosed with unknown infertility. I was on medications that made me sluggish and tired. Not too mention the anxiety and depression I've struggled with my entire life was coming out in full force. I gained a lot of weight pretty quickly, and after various procedures I was told to take it easy, so I used that as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted and stay sedentary.

 

To make a long story short, after lots of medication, lots of tears, 3 procedures, and about 35 pounds, I found out I was pregnant in November 2013. Thrilled was an understatement. However, my excitement soon turned to fear and anxiety. My entire first trimester was a nightmare. I was so sick all the time and the only thing I could stomach were saltines. I remember from the Insanity videos there was this thing called SHAKEOLOGY. I had remember googling it and reading a few blog posts. The first thing I thought was "Hell no - I'm not paying THAT for a protein shake," and I never gave it a second thought. But now, I had remembered that I saw a blog post about REPLACING a pre-natal with Shakeology. I printed that blog post along with the nutrition label for this product to my doctor and explained to him that I couldn't stomach a pre-natal. He gave me the thumbs up to drink it in place of the pre-natal as long as I added a DHA/Folic Acid pill. So I did.

 

During this time I went on twitter and found a coach. Again, I had seen the commercials at the end of Insanity about BeachBody coaches and I was looking for someone to talk to about meal planning. 

 

Fast forward to April. I gained a lot of weight very quickly in my pregnancy and then the day came for my glucose test. I was diagnosed with gestational diabetis. I was devasted. I turned to my coach and now I really had to rely on her meal planning. Every week I sent her my meal plan and she give me advice and tips to help stablize my blood sugar. My GD was completely diet controlled.

 

After I had my baby and was given the OKAY to work out six weeks post partum, I ordered PiYo from my coach and was placed in her challenge group. I relied on that challenge group for EVERYTHING. Most of the women in that group were mom's so I went there for not only advice about nutrition and fitness, but also motherhood in general. I made a lot of friends who I am still in touch with to this day.

 

I saw such great results because of the accountability of my challenge group, piyo, shakeology and clean eating that I decided I wanted to pay it forward too and coach people like the way my coach had done for me. 

 

To read about my coach story, click here.