FROM MAKING EXCUSES TO MAKING A DIFFERENCE 


My name is Stephanie Thiede, I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, cook, full time worker, household accountant, well you get the picture I wear lots of hats. Because I allowed myself to wear all of these hats, I forgot about the most important one of all, being a self advocate. I let myself go in a bad way. I was overweight, the number that has always been in my head was 176, but I know that it was higher. I had high cholesterol, I always blamed that on genetics, “its not my fault I have this, Thanks Mom”! I had gestational diabetes with my son and this upped my chance of getting Type 2 later in life by 50%. Even with all of these things staring me in the face, I did not see the reason to really do something or to change. I’ll be honest, I was just plain lazy.  

In January of 2010, I was having my regular check-up and my doctor stated a conversation about my weight. I knew that I was heavy, I was considered obese based upon my height and BMI. She talked about a very well know weight loss system and that she had seen great results from it in other patients. She also mentioned my high cholesterol and that if I did not get it under control with diet we would be going down the medication road, I was NOT on board for taking an OTC medication. That night at home I signed up on line for the system and hit it right away. I did have great results with this system and was committed. I did not really incorporate exercising into my daily routine. I just focused on my eating and thought that would be enough, it was not. Time to incorporate exercise. I was home watching TV and saw a commercial  for P90X, it of course peaked my interest. I went on line and there was this quiz to take to see if P90X would be a good fit, it was not. BUT P90 was, so I ordered that. I was pretty excited for this new momentum and started the DVD’s. I would work out on my lunch hour at work and it was going pretty good for about 2 months. Then I started to get bored and lazy again. I had no support system, other than my hubby of course. I started to make excuses as to why I could not do my work out for the day and ultimately stopped all together. I did keep the weight off but was on a big plateau that would last for a long time.

Around the fall of 2012 I made a big life change and quit my job to stay home with my kids. This is still one of the best and hardest times of my life. I got to be were I wanted to be, home with the kids. But what is at home, a fridge full of food. I stopped being a member of the weight loss system I had used to drop the initial weight, I now knew everything (or so I thought). Being home full time I could now cook healthy for all three meals and for the most part I did. I was also home with an active preschooler and toddler so there were lots of park trips and walks around the local lake. This along with the healthy eating started my weight moving in the downward direction again. Around this time I decided that I wanted to start running, so I did. I did my first half marathon the summer of 2012 and hated it! I thought I had trained well and I had, I was just missing something. I found my missing “something” the day I picked up Nickie Carrigan’s business card. I tried out her boot camp fitness class one night for free, hey you cannot argue with free right! I was taken in with the group accountability, energy and just plain old fun of it all. Around this time I went back into the working world full time, we wanted to sell our townhouse and get a yard for the kids.

I kept going to bootcamp twice a week for about 3 months when I heard someone talk about taking one of Nickie’s challenges. What is that I wondered. Well I found out not to much later when she posted about a Les Mills COMBAT challenge and that is when the game changing moment happened. I got my DVD’s to do at home and also got Shakeology. I had my shake for breakfast everyday, with working full time again it was fast and held me over longer than the toast and peanut butter I had been having.  I did my Les Mills at night in the living room and still tried to make it to bootcamp twice a week. At the end of our challenge, it was for 30 days, this chick felt great! 

I had lost more weight, gained muscle and kicked a serious sweet tooth. I kept it up and even tried INSANITY.  That summer I ran my second half marathon, with no running training only my cross training. Not only did I LOVE IT this time around, I dropped 10 minutes off of last years time. 

When I went in for my yearly check up in 2013 the doctor was VERY happy. I had dropped weight, so far from 2010 to today I am down 43 lbs, based off of my 176 number. My cholesterol is in the normal range, I dropped it 76 points in one year! The risk of developing diabetes in later life is gone now too. 

I am a member of The Warehouse, a Beachbody coach and a HUGE fitness fan. My body changed and so did my outlook on life. I am positive, happy, healthy and find that I am becoming more. More of a wife, more of a mother, more of a friend and best of all I have become a self advocate!  I am looking forward to 2014 and have set some pretty exciting goals. Goals like doing a trail run this spring, The Twin Cities Marathon this fall, and even kicking around the idea of getting into group fitness as an instructor!