Jill G.

Why it Worked (in her words):

I have been struggling with my weight since college. While I was continually trying to find ways to lose weight, I kept seeing it creep up. Some of the weight gain was due to pregnancies with my two beautiful children (now 10 and 7). Not only did I NOT lose the pregnancy weight, but my weight had continued to increase since my last child was born.

I have started getting even more serious about really trying to figure out how to improve my own health and my eating habits as my children continue to grow. I want so much to be there for them for as long as I can, to see them grow into adults, have children of their own, etc. But more importantly, I was realizing how important it was for me to be a good role model for them in their health – and I could see all sorts of signs that I was passing my bad habits onto them and really wanted to change course before it is too late.

Over those last 10-15 years since college, I had tried all sorts of things to lose weight: Weight Watchers, E-Diets, Jillian Michael Body Revolution, My Fitness Pal, 21 Day Fix, monthly phone calls with a health coach, general calorie counting, small group personal training sessions, etc. I would usually start out strong and have some success, 5-15 lbs of weight loss, but none of them ever stuck and I would gain the weight back. They always had something that was not sustainable for me. Those things generally fell into the following categories:

Obsessively tracking to keep “on plan” – it consumed my life. This was a huge problem and the amount of time and energy it sucked up made it impossible to sustain.
Following “rules” or a “plan” that I didn’t quite believe in – believing in only 80% of what you are doing makes it tough to be 100% committed
Not being able to deal with situations where the cookie cutter “rules” were hard to apply. How many points (WW) or Containers (21 day fix) or calories was the family recipe for Chicken Meatball Soup that my family has every year for Christmas? What about a plated dinner from a local caterer at a wedding or a work event? Generally, this just lead to me panicking and giving up for that meal, and often got me completely off track.

I knew that most of my weight issues stemmed from bad eating habits and felt if I could find way to change some of the habits in way that was a sustainable for me -- that I would be able to eat healthier and lose some of the weight. As part of my efforts to try to change these habits on my own, I had bought a book called

Better than Before

by Gretchen Rubin that focuses on making and breaking habits.

The book talked about different types of people and let me know that my “type” (Rebel) had the most difficult time changing habits, which was a little discouraging but also made complete sense to why I have struggled so much. Then mid-way through the book there was a chapter on accountability. It had one paragraph about My Body Tutor. The message was short but simple and included a quote from Adam. “People want to do it alone but why? I tell them ‘You get help in other areas of your life. Why not with this’”. This was not new to me, I wholeheartedly agree with Adam and have for quite a while. My problem wasn’t that I wasn’t willing to get help, my problem was that I couldn’t find the right help.

I knew I didn’t need a personal trainer. I knew how to exercise, I just didn’t always commit to it. I didn’t need a nutritionist – I knew what I SHOULD be eating, I just couldn’t figure how to actually get myself to eat those things. I researched health coaches, but never found quite what I was looking for – knowing how fast I burned out in the past, I just didn’t think that a session a month or every other week was going to work. Some coaches were also selling products, which feels like a conflict of interest to me.

But those searches never led me to My Body Tutor and since I agreed so much with Adam’s quote in the book, I immediately wanted to check it out. My research all led to more concepts that really resonated with me. MBT obviously felt the same as me that so much of our eating is about habits! MBT believed that to change these habits, you need a customized and practical approach in order for it to be sustainable. One of the many differences was then in their delivery --daily support and daily accountability

But, these were not only in the description of the program, but were also evident in the success stories. What I noticed is that each success story was SO DIFFERENT – they started in different places and took different paths to meet their goals.

I had 3 main reservations before signing up:

The cost
The fact that I previously had horrible track record of actually tracking food – and now I would be PAYING for something that would only work IF I tracked
My schedule – I had a 3 day trip to Disney World, and a 2 day work conference on the calendar coming up in the next month or so.

I decided that despite those things, it was worth a shot. So, I signed up right away (before my trips) and haven’t looked back. I knew this was going to be such a different experience from my very first feedback from my tutor. I knew it wasn’t simply someone reading through my log and providing generic daily feedback on my nutrition and exercise. Anybody can do that. It was about my tutor learning more about my eating, why I ate that way, and how to change. BUT – it was mainly about my tutor guiding ME to learn those things about myself. It was all those things I read and was hoping for when I joined: practical, sustainable, customized, etc.

What were some things that worked for me?

Finding a healthier daily breakfast and afternoon snack through trial and error (I’m not a big fan of traditional healthy breakfast food or snacks, so this took a little while).
Slowly tweaking my lunches and dinner – still getting the food I like, but in a healthier version.
Learning how to identify emotional eating as well as how to control it
Learning how to make good decisions when traveling and eating out
Setting more realistic exercise goals and incorporating some strength training (my preferred exercise is running and walking)

Through my journey, my tutor was always there every step of the way supporting me in all sorts of ways. Pushing me when I needed pushed, cheering my successes (especially when I was being too hard on myself and seeing the bad before the good), brainstorming when things weren’t working, helping me prepare for the curve balls, and even questioning when she knew something wasn’t going quite right but I hadn’t asked for help yet (I’m bad at asking for help). EVERY DAY. While MBT promises this, they can only deliver on this promise if they find great people to provide this daily support. The obviously have found that with my tutor. I really cannot thank my tutor enough for all of her support, caring, and guidance during my journey.

How did it go?

My goals were to develop healthier eating habits and to lose 40-50 lbs and

I exceeded my goals/expectations

for both. I have lost 53 lbs and think about food completely differently than what I did before I started. I have dealt with all sorts of curve balls with great success, and while I was never perfect, none have them got me “off track” because my new habits are so practical, sustainable, and customized to me. I don’t feel like this is a “plan” I’m following and as such I don’t feel like this has a stopping point. These are just new habits that I plan to continue and tweak as my life changes. I have confidence that I have learned how to tweak them appropriately through everything I have learned.

Thank you to my tutor and MBT for leading me on the path to the healthy lifestyle I desired. Also, thank you to my husband for his support in this entire process – I couldn’t have done it without your support.

Thank you!

P.S. It's hard to tell, but that is the same exact shirt in both pictures.