Eating healthy and hitting the gym at least every other day was the combination I needed to see results. By the end of my senior year, I was weighing in at around 115 pounds—a number that I thought I would never see on the scale. I was in the best shape I had ever been in my life.
The following year after graduation, I was still extremely self-motivated to do my normal gym routine, but I knew that drive wasn’t going to last forever—especially with a two-hour commute to work. I was in search of more motivation and I wanted a challenge.
My friend and I had talked about doing a half-marathon together—so when the race bibs finally went on sale, we went for it. My initial thought was “What the hell did I just get myself into?”
I knew I had to be mentally tough to get through the months of training. Luckily, the $60 entry fee for the race was enough motivation to get me going.
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But working out for such long periods of time meant I had to tweak my diet to match what I was burning, and that was a struggle. My fear of gaining all my weight back started to take over, so I basically ate the same amount I was eating before running long distance—resulting in more weight loss than I ever intended. My weight dropped down to 105 pounds.
A few months later, I completed the half-marathon and was extremely proud of my accomplishment—ready to take on more by signing up for two more races the following year. But it wasn’t until I saw a picture of myself mid-race that I realized I was losing muscle.
Even though it was difficult to get over my fear of regaining the weight again, I started to push myself to eat heartier meals. Also, shout out to my boyfriend who always made sure I got my protein and told me how beautiful I was. That really helped me get to my feel-good weight of 110.