CrossFit South Bend

In this video we sit down to discuss Marlo’s story.

In terms of Marlo’s body composition she has:
-Lost 35lbs
-Kept her muscle mass the same even with the weight loss.
-Lost 12.5% body fat
-Lost 5.5 inches off hips
-Lost 3.5 inches off waist

But she also gained so much more than that:
-She gained control over her food choices.
-She says she has a much better mood overall
-She says she now looks forward to activities with friends
-She needs to get a completely new wardrobe (in a good way!)

Marlo has been one of the most disciplined people I’ve ever worked with, and I’m so proud of her and her progress. Keep up the great work Marlo!

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– Hey guys, Robby here from Crossfit South Bend, today I’m here with Marlo, who is just about to finish her six months of one-on-one nutrition coaching. So Marlo, thank you so much for being here today.

– Thank you.

– So, first thing we’re gonna talk about is Marlo’s progress. So we have her most recent InBody scan here. Marlo basically since her first scan, has lost about 35 pounds, which is crazy. It’s amazing. Her muscle mass has basically stayed the same at 61 pounds. And then, she dropped 12.5% body fat. And in addition to that, she lost 5.5 inches off her waist and 3.5 inches off her hips. So, congratulations, Marlo

– Thank you

– Fantastic job. So, tell us a bit about what food and health and life was like before you started the program. What made you interested in this? What were you eating before this? Tell us what life was like during that time.

– During that time, prior to doing all of this, I spent a lot of time trying to eat healthy, but not having the correct information to be able to do that. So, I think I was doing a lot of the things that people think are healthy, but then when you really drill down into whatever the ingredients were, or how it was prepared and things, it’s really not. So, a lot of yogurts in the mornings and things like that, and salads, but there was always the more frequent cheat days than not. And it was the ‘Oh, well I had a really stressful day,’ ‘so it’s okay for me to have a couple of cookies.’ ‘That won’t hurt anything.’ So, I think a lot of people fall into that. Where we’re trying, but we don’t have the knowledge base to really see the results that we want to have.

– Absolutely. So, tell us a little about the journey. You’ve been doing this for about five months at this point. Tell us about transitioning to real whole food, and then the whole 30. Tell us when your end’s been like.

– Well, when I started the nutrition coaching, I think we did about, we started officially in June, so, it was a couple of months of me prepping myself, and prepping my kitchen, to be prepared to have the tools in place necessary to succeed. I cleaned out my kitchen probably way before I needed to, just because I knew I wouldn’t be able to dive in just like eating what I was eating and then suddenly the very next day, not eating that stuff. So, it was a couple of months of prep work. And then I honestly had a serious talk with myself the night before I was officially going to start because I wanted to succeed. So, I made sure that I was ready to go. And so that talk with myself was about ‘it’s 30 days.’ ‘You can do this for 30 days.’ But then the journey itself, it was tough at times. Different social occasions, a lot of families, mine is no different, with the rewards for food and family dinners, always having two or three desserts to choose from, and things like that. So, it was definitely an up-and-down sort of thing. In the beginning, lots of energy. I felt that initial rush of being able to, the positive results, and then when I started to see the results, and not just feel them, that kind of pushed my motivation to another level to continue.

– Absolutely. Yeah, just for context guys, Marlo voluntarily decided after doing her first Whole 30, to do a second month, which has just been like, that takes tremendous will power. And, it’s been a huge boon in terms of how much progress you’ve made. So, we talked a lot about scale victories and percent body fat, and you’ve lost a ton of weight, and you said before we started filming that you needed to get a whole new wardrobe essentially.

– Yes I’m in the process of purchasing a whole new wardrobe.

– So, tell us a bit about the non-scale victories. You’re mentioning the energy before, things like recovering from workouts, mood, cravings, tell us about other things that improved in your life.

– The biggest piece, for me, is my overall mood and affect. I, at time, have to push myself through bouts of depression. I am not one to take medication, so I don’t take medication for that. And, over the course of the last several months, I have felt my overall mood, my stress level, and all the things that I would battle, to do certain things in my life, has gotten much easier. And that, I think is, for me, one of the most positive outcomes of this whole thing. Because I knew at times, I just didn’t want to do things. And I would push through that, and I would do them, but I wouldn’t necessarily enjoy them as much as I could. And now, it’s like, I’m the one whose calling my friends, to be like ‘Hey, let’s go do something’, or that sort of thing. And so I am overjoyed with that, that feeling.

– That’s fantastic. That’s awesome. So, one of the main points of our program is does someone feel like, after the program’s done, they can do it long term? Do they feel like they can make this a sustainable thing? Having done this, how do feel this will be in terms of making this a life-long baseline that you can refer back to and make the foundation of your healthy eating?

– I feel much stronger since doing the second month. Coming off of the first 30 days, I felt confident and felt that I was much more educated than I had been. But I still felt like I was still battling a lot of the cravings and feeling weak at times, not as strong as I wanted to be coming out of the first 30 days. So that was my big push for doing the second 30 days. Now, I do feel much more confident that I will be able to sustain this for longer periods of time. I don’t foresee myself ever not falling off the wagon when it comes to certain things, but I do feel much more confident being able to sustain and, if necessary, come back to it if I’ve fallen off the wagon too far. That I will be able to pull myself back, because just having that knowledge base now is so much, so key to the success.

– Awesome, that’s fantastic. So, last question is, if you could talk to Marlo six months ago, or to someone who might be in your situation today, whose unsure whether they could eat this way, or has similar work obligations and things like that, what would you say to someone whose thinking about taking the plunge but isn’t quite sure in hindsight?

– First I would be honest and say, ‘it is a challenge’.

– Absolutely. But, two, it is not insurmountable. Having your assistance was super beneficial, being able to tap into your knowledge base and the questions that were asked, so I would just drill it down to, you can do it, do it, do it, do it. Avail yourself to the opportunity to improve your health, because, yes, it’s a challenge, but in hindsight, it wasn’t something that was so, it wasn’t terrible. It was a challenge, but it was not terrible. And if folks are, I don’t want to say, as lucky as me, but I felt like I was seeing results fairly quickly which helped keep that momentum going. So, do it! That’s what I would say.

– Yeah, and I just have to say, from my end, as a coach, you’ve been one of the most disciplined people I’ve ever worked with. You’ve done a fantastic job of sticking with things for your goals. And I am super proud of the progress you’ve made. And I think you’ve done an excellent job.

– Thank you, thank you.

– Alright guys, that’s Marlo’s story. Thanks so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.