My Story Part 4 – WHEN TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING ISN’T

If something is good, more of it must be better right? 

I certainly thought so.  I’m the kind of person who pours myself into whatever I love.  And when we left off, I was a newly divorced, slightly terrified, single mom beginning to discover my love of fitness.

I don’t mean to gloss over how heart wrenching my divorce was, and if you’ve been there or are there now, I am truly sorry.  Trust me, I know how hard it is, and I plan to share some insight from my experience here in the future.  But today we are going to continue to talk about my fitness journey.

I want to take a moment again to explain why I’m sharing so much about me and my journey.  I want you to know my history so that you can trust me when I say I understand yours. We may not have the same or even similar stories, but we all have a story.  When we share authentically with each other, it opens an opportunity for compassion and understanding that isn’t available to us in this social media highlight reel world. I want you to trust me and I want you to know where I’ve been and why I am so passionate about God’s love and faithfulness, it’s as simple as that.

Back to my journey.

Here I was starting over at 37 years old.  I hadn’t worked in almost 15 years and had no idea what I wanted to do.  Thankfully, I wasn’t in need of a job right away, and didn’t have financial pressure; but I suddenly had the time and opportunity to ask myself newly what I wanted to do with my life? 

And I wanted to be a trainer.

I remember walking up to the very muscular, very intimidating, head trainer at my gym and telling him my plans.  I explained that I wanted to train with the best and knew he was the guy.  He looked down at me and playfully said, “I could fit you in my pocket, you are itty-bitty”.  Surprisingly, I didn’t let that stop me; I assured him I had an open schedule and was ready to work and he soon became my trainer, mentor, boss, and friend. 

Ira taught me how to train, yes, but what I valued most about him was the relationship we developed in our time together (purely platonic, to be clear).  It was his encouragement and his belief in me that made the biggest difference in my life.  He pushed me to do more than I thought possible and told me I could, and I believed him.

I was more convinced than ever that this was what I wanted to do with my life.

I trained, studied, took my certification exam and began working for Ira at his home gym.  Soon after that, I opened my garage studio to the local neighbors and began teaching small group classes there as well.  I started to be known around town as “the fitness girl” and my little business began to grow. 

I met and married my current husband (we will definitely talk more about him later) and we moved into our home with a huge space for a new and improved gym. My business was just getting started, I had a wonderful community of clients, and I was loving every minute of it. 

I was hungry for more.

Then came P90X.  Everyone was talking about how challenging it was, and only the fittest people I knew were attempting it.  I decided to give it a try.  But here’s the truth, I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it in case I decided it was too hard for me or failed to finish the 90 days (the wimpy girl in me was rearing her head).

I loved it!  It was challenging, yes, and it forced me to step into different genres of fitness, many I was avoiding like plyometrics and yoga.  It was HARD.  But I did it and it was another pivotal experience that pushed the wimpy girl inside me down and gave me confidence in my ability to do hard things.

As I got stronger and belief in myself grew, I began to dream about success.  

With my newfound strength and abilities, I started to dream about personal financial success for the first time in my life.  Becoming a Beachbody Coach seemed a perfect way to extend my reach and work toward my goal of long-term success, so I took the leap.

I quickly learned that to be a success in fitness, I needed a great before and after picture.  And this, friends, is when things started to get out of hand.  If you know me, you know that I pretty much look the same all the time.  Sure I looked a little stronger than when I first began working out, but it’s not the kind of difference you really see in a picture.  There is one area, however, that I knew if I could impact would catch people’s attention. 

My abs.  Or lack of them I should say. 

I’ve never had definition in my middle.  If I lose weight, it happens everywhere but there.  I’ve learned it’s simply my shape, but back then I thought if I did everything right, I could make a six-pack and then people would really take me seriously. 

Oh friends, this was the beginning of the end for me.  I began obsessively doing new diets and workout plans, you name it, I did it.  And after each one, I looked basically the same – no abs. 

At one point I gave up on the abs and decided I would build muscle instead, surely that would show up in pictures.  I did a body building program, lifting as heavy as I could, eating all the food and taking all the supplements, and when I looked at my before and after pics 12 weeks later, I cried.

I saw zero change. 

At this point, I was a fairly successful Beachbody Coach.  I was driven, focused and working quickly towards being a six-figure earner.  I loved leading my team and I enjoyed the business end of things.  My plan was to retire my gym in the next few years and devote all my time to building my downline.  I still loved encouraging and helping people get fit and healthy, but to be honest, I was becoming less interested in the people and more focused on the numbers and success. 

I was losing my perspective.

Turns out too much of a good thing, wasn’t so good.

I was stressed out, working constantly, and always doing a new program or challenge.  And when I wasn’t, I was eating obsessively because I missed the enjoyment of food so very much.  I was too driven to meet my financial goals to see that I was unhealthy, and all in the name of health. 

Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

My sweet husband, Kenny, saw it way before I did.  I remember him saying to me, “You don’t smile anymore.”  I in turn snapped at him and told him he had no idea what it meant to have a goal and work hard to meet it. 

I also had a wise friend ask me gently, “Where is God in all of this?”  You see, I had grown in my faith a lot in those few years.  I was now learning to walk with Christ, but it never occurred to me to let him in my fitness or my business. 

I was too busy to notice I had lost my way.

Once again, I believe God gave me fitness just when I needed it most.  He put pivotal people in my life to encourage me and show me that I was capable and strong. 

That was a good thing. 

But over time I took that good thing and made it my God thing.  The gift of strength and the ability to do hard things became all about me and I was worshipping it. 

I forged ahead with my own agenda and left God behind.   

Thankfully, God never gave up on me.  He didn’t raise His hands in frustration and let me go.  He had a plan for my life and knew exactly how to reach me, I can’t wait to share that life changing day with you next time.

I hope in some way this part of my story resonates with you.  If you’re reading this and fitness has become your God thing, I promise you aren’t alone.  We live in a society that obsesses over fit bodies and clean diets and everywhere we turn we are being sold the next great thing that will change our health forever. 

Being healthy is a good goal, but when we make it about more than our health it simply becomes a never-ending, exhausting chase to be something we aren’t. 

If you’re reading this and food is your God thing, or comfort, or pleasure – I get you as well, and promise we’ll be digging into that struggle more later. 

Please know that in the end none of it will satisfy the true desires of your heart.

God needs to be our one and only God. He desires to be our number one.  

But He’s a gentleman and won’t push you into anything you don’t want to do.  He will, however, wait patiently and diligently for you to turn back to Him, because He loves you.  

More about this next time, I can’t wait.