How did the Soloflex Kid Get Fat, Then Fit?
I was 13, just starting 7th grade and weighed 206 lbs. I was at my grandma’s house when I weighed myself that day. I panicked, even at such a young age, I intuitively understood the seriousness of the situation. It was a moment of clarity. How had this happened? And how had this happened to a girl who’s family was making millions selling exercise equipment?
I can remember the year I got ”chubby”. My parents filled our pantry with potato chips, soda and every other kind of junk food you can imagine. Everyone in my family liked junk food, especially me. The kinds of foods we ate and our portions were never an issue.
My dad had invented the Soloflex machine, the first home weight lifting gym ever. Everyone over 30 remembers the half hour infomercials. Through the 80′s and early 90′s Soloflex dominated the fitness industry. All the while, one of the Sololfex kids was at home, being a couch potato and getting fatter by the day. Even now I think back and wonder why I ever let it go so far. Every day after school and on the weekends, I would spend hours in front of the TV, snacking away. I try to think back now about what void I was trying to fill, I was certainly an unhappy kid. I think food made me feel less lonely, and then, of course, more lonely. I realize now that filling my body with all that fat and processed food was comforting at the very moment I ate it, but was literally making me sick, physically and mentally. How many 13 year olds do you know that are depressed and chronically tired, I was. I had begun to have insomnia and anxiety attacks, especially at bedtime. I can still remember lying in bed at night, feeling terrible and ashamed of myself. How could it have gotten so bad, so quickly? I had no context for how I was supposed to feel. It’s no doubt that I didn’t feel like being active, I was carrying an extra 40 lbs and had no energy. I didn’t know what a healthy kid felt like…. this was all I knew. I hated the way that people looked at me, I hated the way I looked at myself. That day at my grandmas, I knew I had to change my life. I was going to will myself through the hardest part……getting off the couch.
I remember my first real “workout”. It was on my grandmas treadmill in the garage. I have such a clear memory of jogging for a few minutes and feeling sweaty. I got so excited, I jumped off the treadmill and ran to look in the bathroom mirror, there were beads of sweat on my forehead! It was really hard work, it hurts to workout when you’re out of shape and overweight! I started to resist the junk food in our house and make wiser decisions about what I ate. It was the most challenging thing I’ve done in my life. I decided I was going to do something active everyday for an hour and I kept my promise.
I can’t even begin to express how much it was (and still is) worth it! My fat started to melt away. My body was responding and it kept getting easier. People, especially parents and teachers would come up to me and ask me how I did it and congratulate me. I had stunned all the adults in my life. I had beat the odds, I was not going to spend the rest of my life being fat, no doubt, they thought I would. By the middle of 8th grade, I weighed 160 lbs. I am 33 years old now and still weigh 160 lbs.
Being surrounded by Soloflex models was affecting, especially since I was dealing with body image issues. It sometimes made me feel awkward but I was also soaking up a lot of advice about how I could look like this…..if I really wanted to. There’s a line in our 1st Soloflex commercial that says, all you need is the desire. There was such a sense of hope. I know my situation was totally unique. I was exposed to a lot of important knowledge early on. I was lucky enough to hear how diets alone never work, and not eating enough calories or skipping meals would only make me fatter. In the 20+ years I’ve been on this journey, I can honestly say I have never been on a diet. I wouldn’t have ever been able to to lose all that weight and keep it off if I had been dieting. It was all about the kinds of foods I ate, I understood how a person’s metabolism worked early on. I maintain an average, healthy weight. I am 5’10” at 160 lbs and I’m perfectly happy with myself.
Maintaining the same weight for over 20 years (give or take 5lbs) sounds impressive and it is. But not all weight is created equal, when I was in high school I wanted to look even better. The one piece of advice that I kept ignoring was the importance of lifting weights. My dad and my brother gave me several long talks about lifting weights. They always said the same thing, if I wanted to change the shape of my body and firm up, I had to lift weights! I was 18 years old when I began lifting. I started with light to medium weights and the results were impressive! I was encouraged by the transformation and figured I could use more of a good thing, so I started lifting heavier weights. Then I began to really challenge myself and as my dumbells and barbells got bigger, I got smaller. There was a dramatic difference in the way my clothes fit and I was more confident than ever. It’s common knowledge now, but trying to convince my friends who needed to lose weight, that they should take weight lifting seriously, never went over that well. The myth still exists…. that if you’re strong and have a lot of muscle, you’ll be big and bulky. The myth has definitely been dispelled for those who have been following a weight lifting program, talked to a personal trainer or have researched the issue. Women simply do not have the hormones to pull that off.
Over the years I have found different things to keep me on track. The last 3 years I’ve achieved the best results yet. I started standing on the Soloflex whole body vibration platform (our newest piece of equipment) while I use my weights, it’s a tool that professional sports teams and celebrities have been using for years. It’s been an awesome way to increase the results of my workouts. I also started practicing yoga 2 times a week ( vinyasa or ashtanga ) these are intense, strengthening varieties of yoga. Even with all the weight training I did, I have seen huge gains in my core strength, muscle tone and posture. I have continued to become leaner and more shapely. In high school I weighed 160 lbs but was a size14, today I still weigh 160 but I’m a size 10, I did that by changing my body composition, I exchanged fat for muscle! Now I don’t feel panicky about working out because I have trained my body, through proper diet ( lots of fruits and vegetables ) and exercise ( ones that build muscle!! ) to be a fat burning machine.
This is a hard story to tell, I would rather not relive these memories. There’s still the fear that others will judge me. Of course I wish my childhood had been a little different but now I feel like I have an important story to tell. I want to help other people….. especially kids! We see people everyday who are overweight and struggling, I know how desperate they’re feeling. I was blessed to have been put on the right path at a young age, but many people, especially kids don’t have access to good information. Our world is full of obstacles for these overweight kids. Schools are eliminating PE and health class, fast food franchises are running their cafeterias, and vending machines are everywhere. What are we doing? We need serious reform and a new direction. I have high hopes for Obama and this new administration and I am hopeful that he will address the childhood obesity crisis in this country, these kids need our help now!
Me at the Solana Roman ruins in Croatia
