Amy Anderson finished second in the women's category in our latest Challenge, losing 14.2 pounds of fat and gaining 1.6 pounds of muscle!
Amy is a fantastic example of how sticking to a plan consistently over a long period of time can pay off in dramatic ways, even with small changes. She had done one of our challenges before, but it was three years back. Though she had the knowledge of what she should be doing, she said, it was often difficult to make herself follow through on it.
That got to her.
"I was just ready," she said. "I needed something to kick-start my fitness. I was just tired of having the mentality of knowing what I should be doing and being somebody that lacked the willpower to actually follow through on it and put it into action. That's never who I wanted to be."
So, Amy changed it. She introduced a ton of vegetables to her diet, getting her fill of veggies at every meal--often it was steamed broccoli first, just to kill the hunger--before she would dive into her protein option. As she stayed consistent with that strategy, she bolstered her efforts with a few regular supplements: She used Fiburn, L-Carnitine and BCAAs as her primary workout supplements and found that it complimented her meal plan perfectly.
"I'm trying to develop habits that are sustainable, and it works for me," Amy said. "I was able to veer away from micro-mapping my diet, which is something that I've obsessed over before and it hasn't been healthy. This way, I'm not stressing out about what I'm eating, and it's much less of a mental drag than constantly worrying about my next meal and how I have to pay for it with exercise."
Amy is a great testament to the fact that big changes don't require anything extraordinary--only commitment and consistency. At each of her weigh-ins, she never felt like she was seeing the large, dramatic results she was expecting, but she was always making small progress every time. That progress, compounded daily over the weeks, ended up being enough to secure her a second-place finish.
"I was definitely really surprised about it – the changes were slow but consistent, but I didn’t think they were big enough to result in any thing like that," she said. "And I can't say enough about the support from the staff at Nutrishop. They never let me get defeated or discouraged at my results, and were super supportive and encouraging."