“For myself personally, I have prayed a thousand times that 2020 will be the most difficult and trying year I ever have to experience.
And yet I know how lucky I was in so, so many ways and also have to acknowledge how much I have learned throughout the last 18 months while doing this program and experiencing this life. I know nuggets of resiliency and stubborness were there all along, but I’ve
seen them channeled into my health for the first time ever. Two years ago I told Shana I only went to the gym with friends so I could go on a coffee date with the friends afterwards. Now I attend the
gym by myself 3-4 times a week and really love it. My favorite foods were steak, cheeses, and starbuck lattes but I joined the plant based challenge in June, loved it, and have kept plant based meals in my weekly meal plans every since. It hasn’t been easy and I didn’t always embrace the changes. There were times – so many times – that I felt overwhelmed by this idea of “eating good” to lose weight. But for the first time in my life, I have stuck with it. It hasn’t been linear either. The scale, my attitude, and my acceptance of my responsibility in my health has cycled. But I always cycle back to this – I not perfect at any of it,but I’m better at all of it than I was two years ago before I joined YBL. Better at moving, better at
associating healthy food with feeling healthy, better at talking to my kids about nutrition, better at tackling my fears of gym time, better at me time, and better at the way I talk to myself. And because I’ve stuck with it and am getting better each day, I see results in so many more areas than just the scale. Of all of the hundreds of things I have learned about food, exercise and myself throughout
the process, this has been the most important- just keep going.”