Yesterday in honor of a social media hashtag #throwbackThursday I decided to pull out some old family pictures and compare to now! Oh my goodness the incredibly DRASTIC difference between who I was 5 years ago to who I am now! Pictures don’t lie, pictures can tell a thousand words and this one is literally jumping off the PAGE at me!!! I cannot believe the stark difference in who that girl in the left is to the girl in the right. The crazy part is that I was 5 years younger in the picture on the left than the right!!!
The picture on the left is my before Clean Eating, Team Beachbody, regular workouts and Shakeology. The picture on the right is after 30 lb weight loss with Insanity, P90X, Clean Eating and Shakeology.
The picture also shows that I am radiant, glowing, happy and my entire family is healthy! I might of been smiling in the picture on the left, I mean after all I have a beautiful family, a healthy baby and a loving husband but inside I felt BLAHHHH (for lack of better words). I struggle to button my pants, my roll hung over my jeans, my clothes were all bought to hide my insecurities and BLACK was my favorite color because it was forgiving. Once I started to change my ways and I started working out and eating healthy I truly felt like a part of me was dying. The things I did for fun like going for ice cream or heading out to dinner for a large Italian meal were no longer in the nutritional plan! I felt like I was depriving myself of something awesome. But the more I trained my brain that pleasure came from feeling good, from refusing to eat the foods that pushed me away from my goal the more I associated the GOOD feelings in my brain with how my body felt after a workout and after making good choices it became a part of who I NOW defined myself as. Basically over the course of 3 years I redefined Melanie Mitro! I went thru a 6 month awkward phase of making progress, changing my inner thought process, eating habits and my family. Now, I can confidently say that the NEW ME is healthy, happy, full of energy and happiness and truly food does not rule my life emotionally. Food is fuel, food is meant to give me the energy I need to run my home and my business at optimal performance. I practice the 80-20 rule. 80% of the time I make great clean choices and 20% of the time I have that glass of wine, that piece of cake or ice cream. I don’t always feel good afterwards but I enjoy the moment! Balance is what makes any lifestyle doable! Make your health a part of your lifestyle, not something that you HAVE to do or NEED to do! Make it something that you look forward to continuing for years to come! Working out at 5 am wasn’t always fun to me, it was a chore. Now, if I don’t do it, it feels like something is missing!
The best part about all of this is that now I am paying it forward and teaching hundreds of others to do the same! Ask yourself this….WHY NOT YOU?!?! What is holding you back from having a complete lifestyle transformation?!!? It’s not time, money, energy or circumstances. In the end, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE HOLDING YOURSELF BACK! You have to make that commitment inside and out that 100% of the time you are going to give it all that you have got! I want to see you succeed because I want you to feel the same way that I do! What I have learned along the way is that sometimes I want it more for you than you do! That won’t do the trick! It’s a choice, its a decision and its knowing without a doubt that you are going
to walk away changed on the other end!
Have some motivation, have that drive and determination that you want to lead a healthier and more fulfilling life!