Down to 14% body fat, 43 and feeling awesome! by Donna

After being out of a good routine of exercising for nearly a year, and having a really bad diet for even longer, I headed to the doctor for my routine thyroid exam. While I certainly did recognize that I wasn’t looking very good in the low-rise jeans that had looked pretty good when I bought them a couple years earlier, I didn’t really admit that I’d put on weight. Just sort of told myself I needed to tone. Funny thing about the scale at the doctor’s office, it blows the mist of self-delusion away and I was forced to acknowledge that I’d added 12 lbs. to my very small frame.

I sent a text message to my boyfriend and told him that I’d put all this weight on and I needed to drop weight. If you could have crickets chirping in a text reply, it would have been there. He didn’t say anything. His silence was all I needed to see that he knew this already.

The next day I pulled out the STS program that I had bought when it was released the year before and put away in a cupboard. Using a combination of the 3 ½ month program 4 days a week, running 4 days a week and walking the other 3, and the Nutrition software in Cathe’s Workout Manager, I dropped from 26% body fat to 14% by the time I started the 3rd Meso-cycle.

I dropped 14 lbs., lost 3″ around my waist and my hips, went down a cup size on my bra (not a bad thing in my case, since I’m only 5’0″ tall and have a very tiny frame) and totally reformed how I eat. What I used to consider a heavy weight is now what I’d call my “warm-up” weight. It really is a bit amusing.

Now those low-rise jeans that looked “pretty good” when I got them, and then turned into the paper cup under the muffin top, look awesome. I even found a pair of jeans in my closet I didn’t even know I had. I must’ve ordered them online and not been able to wear them, then forgot they existed. They fit great now.

My strength and energy are beyond what I’ve ever had, and I’ve been working out on-and-off since 1997. I’m in my last week of Meso 3 and am sad it’s almost over. Now the boyfriend who sent mental crickets through the texts can’t stop staring at my stomach. He’s very impressed and inspired, and I’m planning to start running half marathons next spring.

I’ll be taking a break and doing some other weight work for a few weeks, then do a new One Rep Max test and start STS again. Will be fun to see how Round 2 differs. I may need to get some heavier weights.