Interview #13: “Just Start!”
/There are many times I think LA is a small town. Yes its massive in scope, but somehow everyone seems to be connected by someone and it just feels, well, small. This became apparent in how I met Lauren! I didn’t even realize it until we were talking but she was good friends with Natalie (remember @FitForLife_Nat in Interview #4) and they had actually connected via Instagram as well!
SMALL WORLD!
Anyway, on to the good stuff! I’m excited for you to meet Lauren! Lauren is a Registered Nurse in the ICU, she’s recently engaged and is a fur mom to a little 1 year old pit bull. Aside from fitness her biggest passions are helping people, taking walks along the beach with her dog, reading and cooking. Lauren is a huge presence in the Weight Watchers Instagram community with over 11K followers and growing. “I can’t believe it’s grown to what it is!” she says sharing how she just started this page so that she didn’t inundate her friends with food photos! No joke that was the reason. She was nervous about what others would say and how they would react to her shift into health and fitness. So starting from scratch on Instagram and again in Weight Watchers she gave it her all and this is her story!
I am so inspired by Lauren. She has completely transformed her life. Let me take you back a few years. Lauren had always struggled with her weight. “I was always the fattest person in class” she said talking about how what it was like in school. After graduating from high school she signed up for Weight Watchers and lost 40 pounds! But she quickly became obsessed with it and it took a turn down the road of unhealthy. “I stopped eating” she shared. It now wasn’t just about weight loss, the bigger journey for Lauren was to figure out a balance.
Lauren’s biggest struggle on her journey was learning how to stop the losing and gaining, losing and gaining roller coaster. “I have a really addictive personality” she shared as she talked about how she would focus on how little she could eat and how much she could workout. This was totally me back in high school and college. Every notebook of mine had a running tally of the day’s calories down the side of my notes. I would find myself going for a run, coming home to to Tae Bo, The Firm AND Windsor Pilates all within the same day. So I totally understood what Lauren was saying. It was all about the control but in a harmful way.
Lauren shared how changing her mindset to healthy was probably the hardest. Making the shift from being outrageously strict to kind is not an easy thing to do! She needed to do something different and that meant ditching the support groups with the 80 year old women talking about their pork chop dinner! She took a leap of faith and started @Lauren_LosingIt. Within a few weeks she was receiving incredible support from women just like her. “I think the first person I found was “Elise Get Fit” and I was so excited!” Lauren talked about how the open forum to share each step of the journey was so different and empowering. She then quickly found @NicuNurseLosingIt, @StevieLee and @FitForLife_Nat and their friendships are now life long and healthy!
When I asked Lauren if there was something that kept her on the diet roller coaster for so long she shared that it was her self limiting belief that “I’ve always been this way…that’s just how I am.” Now I want to pause the story real fast and ask you to do something…for you. I want you to take a second before you continue reading her story and think about the self limiting belief that you live by. What is it? Write it down, cross it out and rewrite the belief you want to live by from now on. Trust me.
See, Lauren saw that she was living by this utterly ridiculous self limiting belief. “That’s just how I am” is an excuse we say to allow ourselves to play into the bad behavior that is holding us back from our great potential. “When you stop making excuses you can start seeing progress” says Lauren.
One of the hardest parts of this journey for Lauren was starting and feeling overwhelmed. I am all to familiar with her A-Type personality tendencies to not try at all rather than fail publicly. Admitting your struggles is real and absolutely an extremely hard part of this process. But Lauren found strength in her fiancé and strength in her tribe. Now that she’s on a roll I asked her if there are areas where she still struggles. “I think it’s just the scale” she said. “It’s forever my worst enemy. When I don’t lose weight I am so defeated” she shares. I get it, it can be super frustrating to do all the right things only to have the scale not budge or heaven forbid go up. It is enough to ruin your day. But to that I say:
- Break up with your scale daily! Only step on it at the same time and day each week. That is a MUCH better guide.
- Trust your measurements more! Your measurements are what indicates fat loss which is the main goal! And lastly,
- Your body will be in a constant state of flux during your journey. Please give yourself the respect and honor to experience those changes.
Lauren is well on her way to finding the balance she craves and living the forever healthy lifestyle. She’s a truly a leader and inspiration for so many! I am so grateful our paths crossed and I was able to meet such an incredible person.
I asked Lauren what her top 3 tips would be to you reading this right now. She shared:
- Love yourself at every step. Because you are making an effort.
- Just keep going. Just don’t give up. You will get there.
- Find people that support you because it makes all the difference.
And to close out Lauren had one last bit of advice. “Just do it! There’s never going to be a good time. There will always be a birthday or drinks with friends…Just start!” I couldn’t have said it better myself. We will always have hang ups. We will always have excuses and reasons the timing is off. But ultimately you just have to decide you are worth it and just start!
xo
Becky
Thank you for taking the time to engage in my 13th interview of inspiring women! Please feel free to share your comments, feelings and send this to a friend you think would benefit from reading this! If you want me to interview someone you find incredibly inspiring, I would be truly honored to meet them! This is a journey that has no parameters or rules! Let’s have fun with it and continue to spread the message of empowerment, love and kindness - to ourselves and others!
You can follow Lauren as she continues to grow and make an impact on a huge community of women @Lauren_LosingIt