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Part of my dog’s journey to fitness definitely includes my own. I wanted to share a bit of my story which is one of the reasons I started this site. I have been doing a lot of activities with my dogs and feel that I need to up my fitness level to enjoy what we are doing as much as they enjoy our activities. So…here is my story!
Prioritizing my health and fitness has always been a struggle for me. I tend to do for others and my animals before I take care of myself. When my mom passed away last year, I decided that I needed to change that..I actually started this journey before she passed away though.
I joined a crossfit gym shortly before the Pandemic lockdowns and went regularly. During the pandemic, I participated in their zoom workouts and then started back at the gym as soon as things opened back up. Upon returning to the gym, I decided to enlist the help of the gym nutritionist in an attempt to lose weight and get healthy. Over the course of the year membership, I did get stronger and fitter, but did not lose the weight I expected or hoped to. I learned a lot though and one of the biggest things I learned is that I really did not enjoy the workouts. I did get into some good habits of tracking my food and finding some healthier options to aid in my healthier lifestyle.
I was pretty regular at the gym and went most mornings during the week. Because Crossfit is a HIIT workout combined with weight training, I really had expected that it would benefit my running agility and hiking more than it did. My coaches answer to my cardio concerns was that I was just that badly out of shape when I started. I was baffled though because it was not long before that I had been doing spin classes 3-4 x a week at a different gym so was shocked that I could have lost so much fitness with not that long of a gap. My coaches answer was to start their nutrition program which incorporated high amounts of daily protein, lose weight and keep at it. The nutrition plan required me to eat 175-195 grams of protein a day with less emphasis on vegetables and more on eating meat and anything protein while lowering carb and fat intake. Eating that much protein was a huge struggle for me.
I understand that cross-fitters have their own theories behind nutrition and protein and I also know that protein is essential. My cholesterol numbers were already high and I did not like the answer to the solution which was always eat more meat. Double your meat! That meant I was eating 10 ounces of meat at one meal. This was a huge struggle for me and a concern with my cholesterol, but the coaches and nutritionist felt this was the best way to lose weight without sacrificing muscle. Honestly.. I just wanted to lose the weight and run with my dogs better than I was.
I did lose a little bit of weight and my strength gains were great, however, I really felt uncomfortable with the guidance based on my doctor’s test results. I decided to do a full physical in early 2021 after being on the gym plan for 4 months. Lo and behold after talking with my doctor and getting my increased cholesterol results, my doctor told me that the protein amounts were too high and I should switch to a mediterranean diet.
I told the gym at that point that I really wanted to eat more of a plant based diet. I had been doing research and following Dr McDougall and Dr Eselstyn who advocate for a whole foods, plant based diet and felt this would be a healthier way of living. I had no idea if I could go completely plant based but my theory was that if I added more plant based recipes to my diet that maybe I would at the very least increase my vegetable intake and hopefully also learn to enjoy them as well. I was discouraged when I told my nutritionist that I wanted to change my diet to more of a plant based diet and the response was “Why would you want to do that?”. In turn, my response was that it was healthy! The conversation did not go very well from there as it was obvious that the nutritionist wanted me to still get her protein numbers and follow her plan.
After some soul searching and realizing that I needed to fix my unhealthy cholesterol, I made the decision to end my membership and find my own path to health and wellness. I just can’t be a part of a group that won’t listen to my doctor’s orders and work with my health needs. I’ll be sharing this journey which is going to be focused on my cardio with my dogs so hope to get in lots of hiking, maybe some biking (although I don’t think my dogs will join me on that one!) and workouts using Youtube videos. I also need to work on my flexibility and enjoy Yoga with Adrienne on Youtube. If I run across some good recipes, I’ll pass that along as well.
Hopefully my fitness endeavors along with my dogs will result in us both getting fit. The dogs really enjoy agility and disc dog leagues so I’d like to ensure that they stay healthy and safe in their sports.
Stay tuned for more updates!
