My name is Alyssa Nicol and this is my story of how Tae Bo® helped changed my life.
All my life I struggled with being overweight. Sure, I am tall (5’10.5) but large boned and with a huge appetite. I can’t remember a time when I was in anything smaller than a size 16. Through high school, when no one should have to deal with it, depression set in. With depression comes the vicious cycle of eating to compensate for the feelings of loneliness and self-pity. I was never very athletic, although I loved volleyball and basketball and running a mile in gym class took me almost twenty minutes.
After high school I was lucky enough to find and marry a wonderful man that loves me for who I am and not what I looked like. I still felt trapped in a large body and the self-hate and pity never left me. On top of those feelings, I worked as a workers’ compensation claims adjuster for six long years. The stress of that job and my ever increasing waistline sent me into three very hard emotional breakdowns in the space of a 6-month period. I was starting to suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome, severe neck and shoulder pain, and lower back pain. I was sick constantly and also was ordered to start taking anti-depressant medication. I was the heaviest I had ever been at 230 after the birth of my second child.
My breaking point came when I went to stay with my sister in November of 2003 to help her with the birth of her first child. I was about to turn 29 and I saw a picture of me holding my nephew. Now, please understand that I never allowed full length pictures taken of me so I never fully comprehended my size. However, when I saw myself I was so disgusted with what I saw that something inside me “clicked”. I had a feeling of uncontainable determination come over me that I had never had before. The next day I went out and bought a notebook and started to journal all of my exercise no matter how little. I got home and bought a treadmill and taught myself how to jog. I never gave up and a year later I had lost 20 pounds just by exercising.
However, I was still struggling with my inner demons. I needed something that would help me feel better on the inside, something to help me love myself. Although I did not understand that is what I needed. I just thought exercise alone would “cure” me. Then I found Tae Bo®. I remembered that I had an old advanced video that had been given to me by accident and I thought I would give it a try. I was so disappointed in how my first workout went that a newfound dose of determination washed over me. What had I been doing the whole year so as to make my first attempt at Tae Bo® fail miserably? Well, I was simply going to keep trying to master the workout. However the more I did it the more I felt my mind and my heart changing along with the physical changes. I noticed that gradually I no longer looked in the mirror and dreaded what I saw. Was I actually learning to love myself? I was no longer afraid of the challenge of the workout but found myself challenging my mind to keep pushing forward. I had to get through that workout!
It has been two and a half years since I started this journey to a better, healthier me. It seems like ages ago since I have had any kind of physical pain related to stress and depression. I no longer have to take anti-depressant medications and I can personally testify that Billy Blanks® and the Tae Bo® Team has taught me how strong I really am inside and how beautiful I can be on the outside.
I have lost 36 pounds from Tae Bo® in the last year and over two feet of fat. I am currently in a size 12 and closing in on a size 10. But the accomplishment that I am most proud of is that I did not give up. I met Billy Blanks®’ Tae Bo® challenge head on and it has caused in me a love for exercise and an incredible desire to help people change their lives through exercise. My passion for Tae Bo® is so strong that I have committed myself to step outside of my comfort zone and attend Certification Camp in July 2006. I want to show others what Tae Bo® can do for them. It can change the inside and the outside of a person if they just give it a try.
