From Size 14 to 8 at 47 With Macros and Lifting

Karen: Hi, my name is Karen Wilson and I am a 47-year-old educator. I live in Maine. I was in the classroom for 21 years and since then I have become a math specialist, so I help teachers with their math instruction. I'm married and I have a 17-year-old daughter who's a senior in high school, and we're starting to look at colleges for her.

My journey to becoming a healthy individual has been a long one. I struggled with obesity as a child, and when I was in high school I was morbidly obese. I weighed 250 pounds my sophomore year in high school. I discovered that I dealt with depression and eating emotionally, and so that was something I really worked on. I was able to get to a much lower weight, but never out of the overweight range. So I've always been in this place where I'm healthy and I'm physically fit, but I'm still overweight.

So I've done that with low-fat diets, tracking my food, doing a lot of food journaling. That really helped me out. Weighing myself every day. I recently tried keto. That didn't work because you eat like a popcorn bowl. That's the end. Calorie reduction has basically been the bulk of my nutrition stuff, and recently I tried some high-protein stuff, not necessarily keto. But with all of it, I could lose weight, but I was never able to change my body composition.

Then COVID hit and we were in quarantine and we started baking. Our family had a really good time baking, and my weight started to creep back up to 200 pounds. I had had some knee surgeries because I'm a skier. So in my 40s I've had three knee surgeries, and that made the pounds creep back on. But then also, quarantine wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. I stepped on the scale one morning and I was 196, and I was like, I can't do this anymore. I need to take care of this. This is not okay.

So I started recording my food and focusing more on cardio. I had a goal to run a 10K, and I started drinking a lot of water, and I was successful. I lost 15 pounds pretty quickly and I felt much better about myself.

And then I made a friend who's also been on a fitness journey, and they talked about how they were part of a CrossFit gym and they were counting their macros and really focusing on building muscle, and they were able to eat a lot more. And I was like, hmm, that's kind of fascinating, but I didn't buy it. I was like, that's not for me. But I did start the weightlifting, because I was like, I've done a lot of cardio, let's try some weight stuff. So I started to use a Beachbody program that had a weight component, and I started to see results and I started to really like it. So I kept with it. I repeated that same program many times and started to feel stronger and feel good about myself, and I really enjoyed that.

And so then I went back to my friend. I was like, tell me about macros, because I need to do something. I had slowly revved up my protein, but I didn't know what ratio I needed to be at. And so this friend helped me out and gave me some tips and pointers, and I started to work on my macros on my own, and I lost a little bit more weight. I lost about five more pounds. I started to see some more muscle, which I was happy about.

But then I was like, I need something else. And my friend has a coach, and so we talked about coaching and how coaching can be really valuable. And I thought, I need a coach. And lo and behold, WarriorBabe showed up on my Facebook page after that conversation. And I thought, I need to do something for me. This is for me. I've been on this journey. It was almost a year I'd been on it. I started in April of 2020, and it was February of 2021. I was like, I need to do something for me.

So I researched WarriorBabe a little bit, listened to Nikkiey's videos, and then I got interviewed. And what really sold me is the interview process. They weren't just going to sell me this bag of whatever anybody else sells, unless I was ready to commit to a program that was different than what everybody else was selling. And so the interview won me over.

And I really didn't have the money allocated in my budget for WarriorBabe, to purchase the program where you get the online community and the Zoom calls and whatnot. But I thought, you know what, Karen, you're worth it. You've done all this work this year. Why are you even thinking about that? You're worth it. Buy it. So I did.

And I watched all the modules. I thought I knew a bunch. I found out I didn't know as much as I thought I knew. I focused on my macros, focused on weights, focused on water. And all of a sudden I started to drop weight. It was amazing. I went from 174 pounds to now I weigh 154 pounds. I went from a size 14 to a size 8. I have more muscle than I've ever had in my life. People make comments all the time. They're like, oh my God, you look so fit, you look so athletic. And I'm finally in the BMI range of a healthy weight. I have a BMI of about 23 now, where I had been 27, 28. So I feel good. I feel really good. WarriorBabe has helped me get here.

And my accountability partner is a rock star. She lives in a different time zone, different climate, but she's there for me. And we talk not just about nutrition and fitness and whatever. We talk about our lives. And she is an important person in my life now. She's helped me through some really tough things. I get emotional because my whole life has changed, and for the better.

We went on our one-month road trip this summer, and I was able to maintain my progress by using the band workouts and doing the macro counts. And I was on the road for a month.

So if you're ready for a change and you're ready for it now, sign up for WarriorBabe. You won't regret it.