I received this testimonial today from Bryna Reed, one of my 5 am "Body Blast" class participants, along with her permission to share it with others. I will certainly be using excerpts of it on the Personal Best website, but I was so impressed with Bryna's accomplishments and dedication to a healthy and fit lifestyle that I wanted to share her letter in its entirety with my readers. Thanks Bryna!
Bryna Reed Testimonial:
I'm a 35 year old stay at home mom. I have two children, ages 5 and 18 months. I look quite different than I did as a 34 year old stay at home mom. I've lost about 63 pounds over the last year. I am very proud of this weight loss but about 2 months ago I realized if I didn't do better about exercise I'd be turning 36 and back to where I was or worse before the weight loss.
I had done fairly well on my own regarding exercise. I would work out in the evening at home using my vast collection of DVDs that I've gathered over the years. The exercise community has done a great job producing every type of exercise DVD one could hope for. What they haven't done is create a DVD player that forces you to get off the couch and put the DVD in the player and actually do the work.
There were simply too many reasons to not exercise. By the time I picked my daughter up from school, took her to whatever evening activity she was enrolled in, prepared dinner, put the kids to bed and finished out the day I hadn't seen too much of my husband. I felt guilty for saying, "now that I haven't seen you all day I need you to go upstairs to work or watch TV, I'm going to need this TV for at least an hour to get my exercise in. I'll see you at bedtime." I'd be working out as late as 11pm sometimes. When the self induced guilt and separation anxiety from my husband kicked in I just quit working out. Evening workouts just weren't going to work.
I didn't want to join a gym because again, there are some good ones out there, but they aren't really going to care if I show up or not. I needed accountability and I needed a time that would work for me.
I drive past Rick's Personal Best studio 5 days a week at least twice a day as I take my daughter to her school each day. I noticed the studio because I have a friend whose business used to occupy that space. I didn't ever imagine I would start working with a trainer. So while I noticed the space it just wasn't registering with me that I needed to look up the website.
I finally bit the bullet and decided I needed to search out the accountability factor in my need for exercise. I looked up his website and found that he does boot camps. Even better he had offered them in the past for as early as 5 am. Wait? Even better? Nah. 5am is out of the question. Or was it? I am anything BUT a morning person. As most people know you are forced out of that if kids show up in the dynamic. But as a parent you also relish any opportunity to sleep if you aren't tending to those children. So the thought of willfully waking up when the children are actually sleeping seemed ridiculous. Even more ridiculous was the thought of getting up at 4:30 when you may have only just gone to sleep 3 hours earlier after being up with a sick or fussy kid. After discussing it with another mom we determined it might actually be perfect. We would be done by 6am before anyone in the house would have to be disturbed. My best theory was that this would be the ultimate in accountability. If Rick agreed to do a 5am boot camp I sure as heck HAD to show up.
I managed to recruit two people to join in with me and Rick was kind enough to agree to conduct the 5am workout for these three moms. We all quickly learned that getting up early wasn't so bad. It is nice to have a great workout in before the sunrise so that you can continue on your day and not have to figure out when you will get that workout in. I've found that the household runs much better when I'm up and at 'em. Now that we've been doing this I've started getting up early on the off days to get a run on the treadmill in. I'm left asking myself, "who is this person?" I'm also left without excuses. There is nothing stopping me at 5am from working out.
Besides the benefits of an early morning workout discovering Personal Best has been phenomenal. Rick is such a great trainer. He creates the perfect circuit for us and knows how to challenge us but keep the workout achievable. He is encouraging, patient, and knowledgeable. Rick knows how to push us to get results. And we've definitely seen results. I'm finally gaining confidence not just in my athletic abilities but my appearance. I'm not sure I will ever look like the 115 pound teenager I was so many years ago. However, that 16 year old never had the muscle definition I have in my arms after 6 weeks of training with Rick. I feel stronger than I ever have. My stamina has improved so much which is important when you're chasing after a toddler. I no longer feel like I need a nap in the middle of the day. I'm now thrilled to get up when the sun is just beginning to think of rising. I look forward to the workouts and feel great when we've accomplished a tough morning's workout. Make no mistake, the workouts are tough but they are perfectly tailored to the abilities of the three of us. Achieving my personal best is guaranteed as long as I'm working out at Personal Best Lexington with Rick Lewis.
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