{"id":4044,"date":"2015-02-05T07:57:08","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T13:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.personaltrainersindallas.com\/?p=4044"},"modified":"2015-02-05T07:57:08","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T13:57:08","slug":"february-2015-fitness-success-story-brad-sharon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/february-2015-fitness-success-story-brad-sharon\/","title":{"rendered":"February 2015 Fitness Success Story &#8211; Brad &#038; Sharon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"responsive-vid-wrap\"><iframe src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BR1FODhd-mA?rel=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><strong>Brad:<\/strong> I\u2019m Brad, and we moved here from China.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sharon:<\/strong> I\u2019m Sharon&#8230;we\u2019re actually originally from the Northeast. It was wonderful; we lived there for a year but when you\u2019re in a foreign country it\u2019s really hard to eat right and exercise and all of that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brad:<\/strong> And the weather is really bad so you couldn\u2019t exercise or go outside as much, so I, at least, gained quite a bit of weight there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sharon:<\/strong> Me too! Before we lived in China, we lived in many other countries so we had been gone about 21 years. In a way, we felt like Rip Van Winkle\u2014how do we recreate our life? How do you live here, how do you operate? There\u2019s so much good food. We were eating out for the first two months we were here. They give you chips, they give you bread and we just ate it all.<\/p>\n<p>I had a lot of trouble with ongoing fatigue, just always tired. I would get myself to do whatever needed to be done but I felt sort of heavy, not in a sense of overweight, but just in a sense of harder and harder to move fluidly. Even doing normal things, I just felt lethargic through my bones and my joints.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brad:<\/strong> For me, I\u2019ve always been very athletic. I had really degraded so I didn\u2019t have the strength and especially with the flexibility\u2014I couldn\u2019t do a lot of things I really wanted to do because I had become so stiff. I went to the Cooper\u2019s Clinic and he said I just can\u2019t run anymore.<\/p>\n<p>I have a ruptured disc in my back so I avoided using it for years so actually that made me get even stiffer and even weaker and it hurt even more. I got to the point where I couldn\u2019t even touch my knees. I thought that was how I\u2019d live but I didn\u2019t like living where I was so restricted in what I had to do. It was hard to even tie my shoes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sharon:<\/strong> I\u2019m 53 so hitting that age, more needed to be done. The same things that used to work weren\u2019t working anymore. I have done the elliptical machine. I did a lot of aerobic work. I hadn\u2019t done a lot of weight work.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brad:<\/strong> I had been active. I played tennis, I\u2019d do elliptical. I\u2019d do a range of stuff. I wouldn\u2019t be able to do it as consistently just because of schedule and travel and other complex stuff. Different times I\u2019d go up and down, so you get fit and you move to a new place and get out of your routine. It takes a while to get back on to it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sharon:<\/strong> Hut\u2019s a really great salesman, in a good way. One of the things he said to us when he came was, \u201cYou\u2019ll feel like you\u2019re 18 again,\u201d and I was like, Yeah, right. But the crazy thing is, maybe three or four weeks into it, I started feeling that way already.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brad:<\/strong> I\u2019ve lost 21 pounds total weight and I think by the math, I gained over 5 pounds of muscle. The goal of gaining strength and fitness has been there so it\u2019s about two-thirds of the way to where I want to be. That\u2019s really satisfying. It\u2019s so much easier to do things.<\/p>\n<p>Last week I had achieved a big goal. I was able to do a pull-up. I can do 5 pull-ups. That\u2019s a hard thing because you had to lose the weight to gain the strength to actually pull your body up. I haven\u2019t been able to do pull-ups for a long time so that\u2019s been very satisfying.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to gain flexibility. I thought because of my ruptured disc I couldn\u2019t do that. After the first month and we did the measurement, I had actually gained several inches in terms of my flexibility and that was really satisfying. It\u2019s just not all fun; this is all working.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sharon:<\/strong> I\u2019ve lost a total of 17 pounds, but for me the most surprising benefits is increased energy and flexibility, fluidity of motion. And I have to say, just a more positive outlook.<\/p>\n<p>I have the same as Brad, not a bad back but a bad heel. It is unbelievable how much less it hurts and how much more flexibility I have. The same thing\u2014I thought this bum heel and suddenly I was like, \u201cGary!\u201d (our trainer) \u201cI\u2019m doing a lunge! I\u2019m doing a lunge and it doesn\u2019t hurt.\u201d I wouldn\u2019t have believed it before.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brad:<\/strong> She thought she had to fix it with surgery and actually she had the most improvement just by exercise.<\/p>\n<p>The program we\u2019re on, we work out 6 days a week at 6-7 in the morning. Gary comes two days a week. It\u2019s just great to start the day with exercise. I\u2019m a night person so I\u2019m not normally exercising in the morning and I just love it. I feel much more clear-thinking and energetic during the day at work. We are pretty active during the day.<\/p>\n<p>We have this nice yard so we really enjoy being able to work outside. I\u2019ve been out there preening trees and doing lots of yard work. I just feel strong and able to do it without not getting overly tired. It\u2019s been fun to be quite active and clear-thinking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sharon:<\/strong> Once a year there\u2019s the World\u2019s Toughest Mudder. It\u2019s a 24-hour race with obstacles\u2014climbing over things, jumping into things, going through things. When you do that you\u2019re allowed to have two pit crew to help you: a pacer and a person to give you the food you need, a change of clothes. We were able to do that for our son. It was amazing just to be able to be there, to have the energy to keep going for 24 hours.<\/p>\n<p>In October our son came to Dallas and did a Tough Mudder. We watched him and both of us independently thought, \u201cI want to do that.\u201d So part of our training is, next year in October, we are going to compete together (you can work together in these things) in the Dallas Tough Mudder.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s really, really wonderful to have this amazing goal that I thought I had missed the time in my life to do it and I\u2019m so excited. Even Gary once in a while and our son say, \u201cReally, Sharon? You really think you want to do this?\u201d They think I\u2019m not going to do it, but I\u2019m going to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Brad was totally the driver in the beginning. I was like, \u201cLet\u2019s wait, let\u2019s get our life established. It\u2019s too many things happening at once. I can\u2019t also do the fitness.\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cWe\u2019re going, we\u2019re going, we\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s been really, really wonderful to do this together and to have this commitment really to each other and to our family and the people we love, that we\u2019ll do what\u2019s necessary to get fit and healthy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brad:<\/strong> Let me just build on that for a second. I\u2019m smiling because what we had thought about was we were going to have our goals achieved by February. That\u2019s losing weight and strength and stretching. After that, we\u2019d have our next goal, which would be this Tough Mudder.<\/p>\n<p>Gary gets so excited. We told him and he\u2019s already adding exercises to allow us to climb over walls. He just got real excited. He\u2019s even upped a notch for us in our training. So we\u2019re starting the new training from today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sharon:<\/strong> The first or second time Gary, our trainer, came to our house, he said something to me. He said, \u201cYou know, it takes a lot of courage to ask for help.\u201d We\u2019re so used to being self-sufficient and taking that first step to just say, \u201cI need somebody to help me with this. What I know isn\u2019t enough anymore,\u201d is brave. I was sort of like, \u201cHmm, I guess it is!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I feel like the benefits for us have been so broad, so multi-faceted. Life is better doing this. Yes, it does take courage to say, \u201cI need help,\u201d and it\u2019s a financial commitment but I think it\u2019s more valuable than anything.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brad: I\u2019m Brad, and we moved here from China. Sharon: I\u2019m Sharon&#8230;we\u2019re actually originally from the Northeast. It was wonderful; we lived there for a year but when you\u2019re in a foreign country it\u2019s really hard to eat right and exercise and all of that. Brad: And the weather is really bad so you couldn\u2019t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1,9],"tags":[15,10,553,552,28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4044"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newwavefitness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}