After Megan was born, I had had a C-section and the recovery was pretty awful. I had pain from the incision for at least 8 weeks, at which time I was cleared to exercise but didn't. Oh, I tried. I signed up for Stroller Strides in my town, and I love the instructor who looked great after 4 c-sections herself. But she had to modify the modified version of me. I was in the 200+ lbs for the majority of that year. Maybe I bounced down in the 190s but not all that much. A great day was when I was 188 after cutting out snacks. I had returned to work and completely relied on coffee (with milk and 3 T of sugar) at least 2-3 times a day and I was definitely a snack-aholic. I remember co-workers hiding their snack stash that everyone keeps in their drawers when I was around or telling me that they limited me to one. Yup, I was addicted to sugar. I would come home by 3-4pm everyday and I would absolutely NEED to sit on the couch and watch TV and veg for a good 30 minutes before I could even think about cooking dinner. I was always winging dinner and so I grabbed whatever was easy and mistakenly thinking my family was eating healthy because I at least put a cooked frozen veggie on the plate. Most nights after we got the kids to bed I could barely keep my eyes open to 10 pm and although I had the intention of exercising more, in a good month I only got in about 3 workouts, whether it was a group class or throwing in one of my many DVDs that I bought at Target on clearance. Clearly I was in denial that my health was a priority. My half hearted attempts to lose weight literally weighed on my heart and I kept wishing I could make it happen.
Fast forward to Noah's birth story, which was awesome and one day I will blog about it for those of you who do not know how incredible it was. So I have this amazing birth that was drug free and I was really doing my homework on eating healthy, which was a work in progress for a couple years. That is when I found my Team Beachbody coach, placed my order for my Body Gospel DVD program and ordered Shakeology. Now I have never had a protein shake before so to me, this speaks of "Life Before Shakeology" and "Life After Shakeology." So you would think with three kids that the work load would be too much: too much to clean, too much laundry, dishes, and bottles and too much to do in general. Well, I found that when I started drinking Shakeology that I no longer took that afternoon break (which was really a big energy slump that many times ended in a cat nap) and sat on the couch. There, I just picked up 30-45 minutes at least where I could get things done. I realized I could choose what I wanted to do, either workout or get some household chores done or play with the kids, which was made my heart sing with joy. I found that I craved healthier food instead of processed snacks. Before I would give the kids some Goldfish but I ended up finishing the box for them. One by one I replaced processed food with fresh fruits and vegetables. (I still have 1 or 2 quick snacks for the kids, but more often we pack fruit as our on the go snack.) At night when the kids would go to bed, I was able to have lots of great conversations with my husband because I had gotten a lot of my chores done during the day and did not have to always do them at night or better, we would do the chores together as we talked about our values, goals and dreams. He noticed my energy difference too as I no longer fell asleep on the couch before 10pm while we watched some tv shows or movies.
So what is the points here? Before I drank Shakeology, I was just surviving my days and praying to make it to the weekend. Hopefully to keep catching up on all the at I had intended to get done during the week but just didn't have the energy to get done. Now that I drink Shakeology every single day, I wake up refreshed, full of energy and hope and I get so many things done on my to do list that I am often amazed. Sometimes I am greedy and say, why can't I get 20 things done today, instead of just 10? More than once I have said to my husband at night, I am just so excited about life that when my head hits the pillow, my brain is dreaming such big dreams for us and our family. And I am now of the mindset of I wish there were more than 24 hours in a day because there is so much that I want to see and do and explore. It's called LIVING life and I have the energy to do it, all because of Shakeology. That is why I am so passionate about it. I think everyone should be drinking it. It is so good for you and the benefits are like the never-ending harvest. Truly for me, it is energy in a bottle and I will be drinking it every single day.
