Women’s Health
My name is Nicole Feist (@fitandfeisty_) and I’m 27 years old. I live in Minnesota and work on sales training for a start. By changing my eating lifestyle, going to Orangetheory Fitness and doing Kelsey Wells PWR home training programs, I lost about 45 pounds.
I never had any problems with weight growth, as I was active and played sports. In college, however, I developed anxiety and depression and stopped worrying about my health. This resulted in a gain of £ 45 in just a few months.
After I graduated, I really struggled emotionally with the weight and stopped talking to friends and going out often because I was ashamed of how I looked and felt.
Eventually, I realized that I needed to take control of my health and lose weight, as this was becoming the main reason for my depression.
For the first one or two years, I really did just the bare minimum. I trained a few days a week, but I still ate out a lot and “quit” on weekends. And yet, he was still discouraged by not seeing changes.
One day, I was traveling with friends and while trying on swimsuits, I remember wanting to cry and feeling very defeated in the locker room. Since my weight was having such an impact on my mental health that I couldn’t even enjoy spending the holidays with my friends, I knew I needed to take control and change something.
I started my fitness journey by working on my local Orangetheory and other home exercise programs.
I started training at my local Orangetheory Fitness and quickly noticed improvements in physical endurance and strength. OTF was great because I had a coach telling me exactly what to do and when to do it. I was also able to challenge myself with benchmarks, which was great for my competitive personality.
After speaking with one of the OTF coaches, I realized that I also needed to get my diet under control to see the maximum benefits. I managed to lose the first 13 kilos by increasing the number of exercises and learning how to prepare healthier versions of the foods I love.
After the pandemic hit in 2020 and the gyms closed, I decided to try Andy Frisella’s 75hard program together with Kelsey Well’s PWR program. For the first time in my life, I was consistent – not just Monday through Thursday, eating whatever I wanted on weekends, as before.
I saw the results immediately. In those 75 days, I managed to lose more weight, I started to see the muscles appearing and, in the end, I realized what my body was able to do when I adequately supplied it and did resistance training in a consistent manner. I had never felt so good mentally and physically before in my life, which just made it easier to continue.
When it came to food, I knew I needed to change my overall food lifestyle.
Learning how to make healthier versions of the foods I love was very important to me. Even though I wasn’t treating my body as well as I could before, I’m still not the type of person who can survive on chicken and broccoli every day, so I knew it wasn’t an option for me. That is why finding ways to continue eating the things I love was of great help.
I also realized that making sure I wasn’t giving up just because of a bump or slip would play a big part in my lifestyle change – I used to throw in the towel every time I got off the line … which meant weekly . Now I realize that a supposedly bad meal or a missed workout is not going to ruin my progress, as long as I don’t give up in the long run.
Here’s what I normally eat in a day now.
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Post-morning training: Post-workout protein shake
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Breakfast: Iced coffee with protein powder
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Lunch: Leftovers from the night before or a hash with eggs, potatoes, onions, sausages, etc.
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Dinner: Tacos, pasta, hamburgers, sausages and peppers, etc.
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Dessert: Boom Chicka Pop Bitter Chocolate
After losing about 45 pounds, I am mentally and physically stronger as a person.
Exercising and adjusting my eating habits really changed my life for the better. Now I understand that finding exercises that I enjoy is crucial to my motivation to train. For example, I hate to run, so if I were trying to run every day, I would probably give up very quickly. When I realized that I love strength and endurance training, it was much easier to follow a program. Strength training makes me feel strong and powerful, and mentally I have never felt better.
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