Somerville Training Spotlight- Liz Graham
Welcome back to our Durbrow Performance Training Spotlight Sunday. It’s been a bit of a break but we’re back 🙂
This week I wanted to share an awesome story of one of our best transformations. Liz has been training at DP for about a year and half and has been kicking some serious ass right from the start. Liz has completely transformed her body and is always 100% focused during every training session to keep perfect technique, get stronger and make herself better. Check out her story here…
I feel like I am the antithesis of most Durbrow clients! I never played sports in school, never worked out, had an extremely sedentary lifestyle and was really lacking in any motivation to begin working out. I had really terrible lower back problems and body image issues, and yet still wasn’t extremely motivated. I tried Zumba and liked it, but not enough to go repeatedly every week.
Then my girlfriend got a Groupon for Durbrow in spring of 2011 and starting working out. She would try and convince me to come with her and check it out, but I still hemmed and hawed. Then we went about a month without seeing one another because work had gotten so busy for the both of us and finally met up on a Friday to catch up. All I can say is WHOA. The first thing out of my mouth was “holy crap why are you SO skinny?!” Now mind you, she has always been a petite person and never was heavy by any means but all of a sudden she was uber lean and trim and had these gorgeous arm muscles. She said “It’s that workout place I’ve been trying to get you to come check out.”
Sold. I mean, literally within 48 hours I had emailed Callie and signed up. So I began my workout adventure in the late summer of 2011.
No one likes the first measurement and god knows I hated mine too. Being told that you have 34% body fat is a scary wake up call. But within the first month I noticed my back pain really wasn’t noticeable anymore (despite frequently being sore from a good work out) and I had more energy during the day. The first time I started to notice that my body’s shape was changing was when I began seeing some definition in my upper arms.
I like the strength I have in my lower body (squats are totally my bitch) and I truly appreciate that 18 months later my body is continuing to get change and become more toned which of course totally rocks! I’ve lost 13 % of body fat, 21 pounds of fat, 31.5″ and gained 19 pounds of solid muscle. I am now a size 4 which is officially the smallest I have ever been, even smaller than my days in junior high/high school!
Oddly enough I love push ups. I like how they make me feel when I have done a good number of reps and I really like the way they have made my arms look. I also dig anything that uses Valslides because of the way it really forces me to use my core to hold my body up (like saws or mountain climbers).
Now if only I could go back in time as my current older, wiser, skinnier self and tell my younger self to jump on it and get exercising!
Ok, I wish I could say I was more active but I still do a fair bit of sitting on my bum, watching TV at night, BUT because I have more energy I notice I do more walking or will go on hikes while on vacation. I even went tandem kayaking with my husband when on vacation last year but will likely have to try it again solo lest we be forced to get a divorce over who is actually steering the boat.
I definitely have way more confidence because my body has completely changed shape, and believe it or not, working out has been the single best stress reliever I have ever had. It is so good I even convinced a friend from work to join because of the stress reduction and I dare say my friend is also currently reaping the benefits of working out at Durbrow!
The funny thing is I actually get super bummed when I don’t make it to class for whatever reason. I finally, after all these years, have found the motivation to work out and it is all for one simple reason: because it is fun (oh yeah, and you totally see results)!
Here’s Liz before…..
Here’s Liz after….
