I’m Calling on Billy Blanks and Taebo for This Next Number

I’m pretty excited because I got my new Taebo workout DVD that I won on ebay in the mail yesterday!  Yes, you read me right – Taebo.  It is the 10th anniversary edition, and it is super charged. 😉  I’m looking forward to the workout – the experience.  Most of all, I’m looking forward to the stories I will have to tell after using the DVD.

Let’s rewind 10 years when Taebo first came on the in home workout scene.  I was in college.  Had recently been an overweight, unhealthy bride, and I was in counseling for severe depression.  I was still trying to process some childhood issues and angst.  I needed something to control that only involved myself, so I decided that it would be my weight.  I restricted my diet.  I ate a piece of sausage on 1 slice of toast in the morning, a can of peas with a slice of bread for lunch, and for supper whatever I wanted within reasonable portions.  York Peppermint Patties eased my craving for sweets with only 3 fat grams per serving.  Diet supplements were my new friends.  Mainly, Hydroxicut.  Best of all though, I started a revved up exercise regimen.  I worked out five days a week for at least an hour and sometimes two.  I dropped the pounds fast.  I went from 220 pounds to 150 pounds in a little over 6 months.  People would tell me what a great job I was doing, but what I was doing was wearing my body out.

After losing the weight (the wrong way), I had other goals.  I wanted to tone, build muscle, increase my strength and endurance.  I wanted Madonna’s body, but I didn’t want to increase the amount of food I ate.  I feared gaining weight.  So, I needed a workout that would challenge me.  That would drive me like a nail into wood.  As I was seeking that perfect home workout, I had a conversation with my mother.  She had broken her toe.  Not from dropping something on it, or from stubbing it, but from working out.  She was working out with Billy Blanks on the TV showing her the moves of Taebo.  It was intense.  It was all she could do to hold it together.  My baby sister was exercising with her, and at a moment of pushing herself that extra mile, my mother kicked my sister in the face and broke her toe.  Amazing!  It was just the workout I was looking for.

I got a copy of the VHS tapes, and I did the workout religiously.  I loved it.  It was fun, and challenging.  I felt strong doing it.  Soon, I suffered my own Taebo injury when I threw my back out doing the quick roundhouse kicks.  I don’t count the times I punched myself in the face doing the speedbag move.  That was just clumsy.  I have a very discombobulated spine, and it didn’t like Taebo.   Neither did my already taxed and undernourished body.  I was never going to have arms like the girls on the cover of Shape magazine.

So, why am I trying Taebo again?  Because it worked my behind off!  I’ve lost down to my goal weight again.  This time not by dieting.  I will never again use diet supplements.  I will never again go on a “diet.”  Simply by going to a Traditional Foods way of eating, my body started stabilizing its weight.  My body was getting the foods it craved and needed, so I haven’t felt the urge to overeat.  I’ve always exercised whether I was heavy or thin, it’s something I enjoy.  Now, I’m ready to reach the goals I tried for 10 years ago, but with a healthy body.  Except this time I’m not trying to look like Madonna or a fitness model.  I’m trying to look like a busy stay-at-home mother of two girls who need to see that you can be happy in the skin your in when you take care of yourself and you know you are healthy.  That is aside from what the scale says.  It’s pretty cool Taebo is still around.  I’m just praying my spine will tolerate it better this time.  I’ll have to let you know.