Compound Consistency: Real People, Real Results
Real People, Real Results. Brandy shares her story:
While I've always worked out, ran, etc, I continued to gain weight over the years. Nothing overwhelming, but a few pounds each year turns into a lot after a while. Started out saying, I'd like to lose 5-10 lbs (like most people), then it turned into, well I wouldn't be upset if I lost maybe 15 lbs? And it felt like it was outside of my control. Why was I working so hard in the gym and still not garnering the results I wanted? I felt like, I work too hard to still be chubby!
The photos: Before: days after Thanksgiving 2018 After: October 31, 2019
The one thing that made the BIG difference (for me): What I've been doing is logging and tracking everything I put in my mouth every day. Other than a 2 week diet break while out of the country over the summer. Otherwise, EVERYTHING that enters my mouth, gets logged. Including the BLT's (bites, licks, tastes). If I don't know exactly, I overestimate and guesstimate. If I eat out at a restaurant meal, even if their nutrition info is listed, I add an additional 15 grams of fat (135 calories) to those meals, to account for the extra fat I'm likely getting from their cooking methods and added sauces, overages in servings, etc. This has helped keep me in a caloric deficit overall, and I've lost just shy of 30 lbs to date. At my heaviest, a few days before my before pic, I weighed in at 158 lbs. Now, I’m at 129 lbs.
When I got serious about weighing, logging, tracking my food and actually meeting my macros daily, even on weekends, parties, holidays, etc. That's when the change happened. I no longer measured my food, I WEIGHED it. Huge difference there! I adjusted my macros to give me lower calorie days 5 x week, with 2 higher calorie days so I could FIT in restaurant meals, parties, etc. I don't do CHEAT days/meals, I simply work in the things I want to eat, by sometimes adjusting meals, or even banking 100 calories/day for a few days to accommodate a larger meal later in the week. I've learned how to adjust the volume of my food by adding in veggies, using lower calorie products and methods of food preparation to make large portion, satisfying meals without huge amounts of calories. Definitely have not been perfect, but realized that CONSISTENCY OVER PERFECTION works all day long.
That and patience, if someone tells you you’re going to change your body forever in 6 weeks, they’re lying. You can lose pounds/inches in that time, but it will come right back if you don’t know how to maintain it.
Since losing the weight and learning how to better fuel my workouts, with food, I've run a Tough Mudder Classic (about 9.5 miles), with my husband. I've run a Beast Spartan 13 miles with 34 obstacles and PR'd in my run times. I've increased my strength and lifts, and am even adding weight to my pull ups now. I run twice a week, swim 3 x week, cycle once a week, and lift 3 x week.
Bodies By Perseverance, Courtney and Jen have been helpful in this process, because Courtney was the first person to tell me about flexible dieting and macro counting. He also set me up with my first set of macros and answered questions along the way of how to meet those numbers and how consistency played a huge role in my overall success.