I just completed my first 12 week fitness challenge. This is the first time that I used an online nutrition planner which was really awesome! It allowed me to see if I reached my daily goal for all of my nutrients. It also allowed me to see which foods that I normally eat are really good or bad for me. It is still amazing to me that due to my current height, weight, age and activity level that I need to consume between 2000 to 2200 calories / day just to lose weight! There are so many people that aren’t even eating enough calories let alone eating the right things.

I want to share the most important thing that I learned during this time. Our bodies are very similar to our relationships with our spouses and our children. We need to find their love language to communicate effectively with them. We also need to find our love language for our bodies. I’ve been tweaking my diet and fitness plans for years and still learning new things about MY body. It takes time to learn to work with our hubbies and kids and that changes over time just like our bodies change over time. What you did 3 years ago might not work for your body today.

I see fitness as a journey to learn my body even though I may not get the right answers for some time but each and every physical body is so different. I can’t base my success or my journey on everyone else’s flat belly results. What I can do is go that extra mile, like try the elimination diet to see which foods have the most negative effect on my body.  You have to figure out YOUR body’s love language to be most effective in your weight loss efforts.

I have also embraced that the scale doesn’t tell the whole story. I’ve lost so many inches and gone down 2 dress sizes but I tend to gain muscle really fast. This muscle gain really shows on the scale. I have seen great results but this is just the beginning. I can’t wait to see my flat belly results by the end of this year since I have found the best fitness plan for this target area.

I have had the busiest year of my life but yet have found the most amount of energy due to focusing on my fitness and health goals. It’s been fun to watch my kids exercise with me and ask me why I’m doing so many exercises.  This is instilling a great value in their lives just as we give them other moral values. Ok on to my initial and final stats!

Total Loss -2 lbs -12 inches!

These were my goals back in January:

My Goals: To get rid of my belly fat (YUCK!). I used to have a perfect flat belly before kids and I want it back. My arms and thighs used to be very toned (even with kids) so I want my toned, chiseled arms and thighs back. It’s hard to say what that weight loss goal is but I will keep at it until I reach my flat belly and toned arms and thighs. I see the most progress (2 months on my own and 1 month with FYM) on my back and the back of my thighs. I used to have 3 rolls of fat on my back and a lot more cellulite on my thighs. I don’t know what I’m doing to get the most progress in those areas but I want some progress in my BELLY!!! LOL

I initially started my weight loss journey in March 2008 and I started out at 200 lbs. As you can see, I started to lose the most amount of weight in the beginning and the most amount of inches during my fitness challenge. The loss of 2 lbs in 12 weeks was actually a fluctuation throughout the entire time.

I had a hard time consistently intaking the high amount of calories that I needed on a daily basis. I am more encouraged that I actually met my goals which wasn’t based on the scale. I lost 4 inches in my belly! WOOHOO! This is an incredible start to an even greater journey. My arm definition is coming back, my thighs have slimmed down and are in now in a position to develop muscle definition again.  I plan to take a 2 week break (my body does better with weight loss after breaks) and jump right back into another 12 week challenge!

I also have to add that I have seen more results with my belly fat in 3 months with Quick Mom Workouts than my 3 years with Curves! These results also stem from working out less time with only 15 minutes a day for 6 days/week! Here are the key factors that I believe are the reasons:

1. Change of my workout every 4 weeks
2. Online Nutrition Planner with FYM
3. Club FYM support forum
4. Interval Training
5. Eating every 3-4 hours

Go for your weight loss goals and I’ll report back the awesome results from my next fitness challenge!

Naomi Trower AKA
FatLossMama