Jessica Found Her Home Gym and Is Now Stronger Than Ever!

I joined FHF in mid September 2017. On a free first month from a fellow gym friend (Teryn Meek). Prior to joining I was a pretty health conscious person.  I had completed a whole30 and learned a lot about nutrition, reading labels etc etc. My workouts were pretty inconsistent and mostly cardio (running). Never really pushing myself as hard as I could, just doing enough to kind of get by.  At this time it was the end of summer and I just wanted to try something different. Push myself and see if I could even "hang". I hadn't had a typical gym membership in nearly 7 years. I always found that commitment a challenge while having 2 young kids.  However, after realizing the classes were only 30 minutes I decided they were old enough to come with and entertain themselves for this short amount of time. 

I started class on Oly Wednesday and I was INCREDIBLY intimidated but Stefanie assured me it was not a big deal.  The other members we super cool, encouraging and didn't make me feel like I was a clueless newbie. After my first 3 days, I could hardly walk down the stairs to my office. The soreness was unbelievable, but I loved it. I knew it would pass.  I just had to keep going. Every week I could tell I was getting stronger. I went from starting out my first class struggling with 8-10 pound dumbbells to now I use anything from 15-25 lbs for most exercises.  That first Oly Wednesday I could barely bench press the bar, now I can add 10 lb plates, and bust out a couple reps.

This challenge taught me quite a bit about macros and tracking food, which is still a work in progress for me. It's taught me a lot about progressing and not always expecting perfection. My numbers, weight and inches didnt really change a lot and that was a huge frustration of mine. I dreaded (and always have) weekly weigh ins. It always makes me obsessive, not to mention I started gaining, which was  not a goal.  

While the numbers didn't really change at the end of the challenge I could tell my body had changed. (non scale victories are huge also!)  My arms were more toned (hello tank top season) and my body all around felt firmer. 

My initial goal when I started at FHF was to actually GO to the classes. This may seem silly and small considering I signed up to go,  but my history with memberships to gyms had always been inconsistent. I'm proud to say this is the first time I've actually used my membership to its full potential.  I dont use my kiddos as an excuse. They tag along with me, a lot! 

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Jessica Van Bibber Feb 2018 Progress - Front Arms

I've recently started incorporating 2 classes a day on some days to my routine. Adding more cardio and doing extra ab exercises because I REALLY want visible abs.  I look forward to getting stronger and hopefully getting the balance with my macros to also shed some lbs.