J

Major Improvements

Normally I’m not much into posting in forums (and hope this is the right topic/subtopic), but I wanted to share some background and results of the PFT results after FB30. This may run a little long, so my apologies.

My wife and I were not very active people before we got married. She was far more active than I was (4 years of a masters/law degree with bad eating and no exercise had left me heavy), and although we tried to be active and eat right at times, we mostly ate poorly and didn’t exercise regularly. Once we got pregnant with our first, my eating was horrible. My wife ate properly, but I ate every time she ate, and instead of growing a life inside me like she was, all I grew were fat stores. After our son was born (12 lbs. 6 ozs., 23.5” long and she had him without any medication—she’s a warrior), we started trying to be better with our eating and exercise, but we couldn’t seem to get ahead.

Fast forward to 2017. While on a vacation in May, my wife suffered a terrible miscarriage and ended up in the hospital. The pain and devastation of losing a child was tough, and I fell back into eating “comfort foods” to numb the hurt. One day I looked at how overweight I was, how much she was still hurting from our loss, and how much my 2-year-old son loved to be active, and I knew I had to change so I could be around for them for as long as possible.

In July 2017, I weighed 220 lbs and had a 38” waist. I’m only 5’8”. I immediately began watching my caloric intake, tried to slowly add exercise, and by the end of the year, I was down to 180 lbs. Come January of this year, I really committed to exercising. I tried one regimen (and my wife joined in whenever possible), but I saw no results and stayed frustrated. Then while browsing for information about how to get over that plateau I was on, I found an article somewhere that referenced Fitness Blender. I hopped on YouTube that night, tried one routine out, and I was hooked. After trying a few here and there, I decided that we would start a real program (FB30) once we got back from a business trip in February. My wife somewhat reluctantly agreed to work out with me as she had never had any results with any exercise program she had tried.

Before we left for the business trip, we had another miscarriage. Fortunately, it was not physiologically as devastating as our first, but it was still hard. After a lot of soul-searching and emotional recovery, we determined to live healthy, fit, and productive lives for our son and to honor the children we would never get to know. We started FB30 as soon as we got back from the trip and have loved everything about Fitness Blender (and have sung Kelli and Daniel’s praise to everyone we know).

So, with all that said, here is how we faired:

Me Before:

1 Mile Run: 8:16

Push Ups: 29 full

Squats: 80 (no weight)

Static Plank: 1:55 (half)

Sit and Reach: 0”

Me After:

1 Mile Run: 7:06

Push Ups: 36 full

Squats: 120 (no weight)

Static Plank: 2:41 (full)

Sit and Reach: +3.5”

My Wife Before:

1 Mile Run: 12:44

Push Ups: 8 half

Squats: 11 (no weight)

Static Plank: 0:18 (half)

Sit and Reach: -3.75”

My Wife After:

1 Mile Run: 11:37

Push Ups: 15 half

Squats: 30 (no weight)

Static Plank: 1:55 (half)

Sit and Reach: +1.0”

I know this has been a really, really long post (and again, my apologies), but thank you so much to Daniel and Kelli!! You have helped my wife and I get fit (I’m now down to 163 lbs. and a 32.5” waist), and our son has seen us work out so many times and loves to join in now, so I feel confident that he is going to have a healthy lifestyle as he grows. And, frankly, considering how unhealthy I was, you guys may have saved my life.

And thank you to all those who managed to read this whole thing!