If I Can Do It, You Can Do It

When I decided to finally drop the wall (the wall of excuses, the wall of blame, the wall that basically had me standing on top of it with my fingers in my ears and my eyes screwed shut screaming LA LA LA LA LA at the top of my lungs) a sudden clarity appeared. A clarity about ownership and control. A clarity that came with personal strength and will power. Something that made me see the door open and the light appear.

Eating right has been beaten into my head from a very young age. There was never junk food in my house, but in the 1980's, what we knew about "junk food" was limited. It was basically candy and potato chips. No candy. No potato chips. We've evolved only slightly since to realize that among other things available to me then, Fruit Roll-ups aren't exactly health food and canned cheese, while super fun and entertaining to squirt onto crackers, doesn't contain anything remotely even close to resembling cheese. Still, at that time, these processed foods were balanced out by the fact that more people sat down to dinner every night as a family. My Mom or my Grandmother cooked every night. I remember roast chicken with broccoli and rice, spaghetti and meatballs with a huge salad, burgers with ripe tomatoes (that we grew in the back yard!) on top, and plenty of other meals. I remember my grandma slicing green peppers and shooing me away from the counter because I kept stealing the raw slices and running away. Because of this (and the fact that I never stayed still), I never had issues with my weight as a child or young adult.

Today in 2015, it's just too easy to fail at making good food choices. And to think, we're better off now than we were at the turn of the millennium! The organic, natural food movement has taken a slight hold, but not enough of one. Even fast food restaurants offer low calorie options. But we as a society are busier than ever. We schedule ourselves to the brink of exhaustion, work multiple jobs, enroll the kids in multiple activities, drive here, shlepp there, etc. etc. It's easy to hit the drive-thru between stopping at Target and picking up the kid at school. And I don't know about you, but I will pass over 10 fast-food restaurants while driving from Target to my house. Temptation right there in a red and yellow sign. And! As a bonus! You can probably get something that will hold you over until dinner with the change that's scattered on the floor and in the cup holders of your car.

Discovering Beachbody through my Pilates teacher (See? I was even going to the gym regularly and STILL battling the number on the scale!) and doing just one round of 21-Day Fix changed my life. I have control over food that I've never had before. I no longer suffer from stomach pain and guilt after eating a huge meal. I know how to order in restaurants. I know how to prepare my food at home. I know what I have to bring with me to get through the day. My workouts take on a new meeting. I workout to actually sculpt and change my body -- not to undo whatever the hell I ate. I opened my eyes. I saw how to make the change. Things became clear.

I want to share this with all of you. Over the course of the next 21-Days, I'll be sharing with brutal honesty what my life was like before and after 21 Day Fix. I'll be stressing out with all of you when it comes to not having enough hours in the day. I'll be moaning and groaning about having to fit a workout in. Because it's not easy. If it were easy, the world would be a size 4 and bikini body ripped. But it's possible. With such a small commitment from you - 21 Days - you can change how you relate to food. You can DO THIS. Because if I can do it, YOU CAN.