The Wedding Makeover
Hi everyone! My name is Cassidy Barlock and I am a summer 2023 bride. I just got engaged this month and the wedding day countdown has officially begun. This also means that the time allotted for me to lose weight for the day has shortened significantly. I have been a client of Travis’ for just over a year, and I have gone through many ups and downs in terms of my motivation to stay committed to a fitness plan. Now that I have a set timeline AND incentive for losing weight, it’s on. I’m here to bring you along on my journey as I prepare for my wedding day! But what led me to this? Let me tell you a bit about myself and how I got here, writing a blog about pre-wedding weight loss.
From the time I was little until I graduated high school, I never struggled with any kind of weight/self esteem issues. I was very active in fact — I danced, was a tri-sport athlete, and was just naturally lean and muscular. Now that I’m on the other side of college, I see now that I had just not been introduced to hormones yet. Once I graduated high school, that’s when my body started to mature. My 3000+ calorie intake on a regular basis wasn’t cutting it anymore because I was no longer in sports or active and my body was changing. During all four years of college, my weight just kept going up and up. I would try every now and then to start some fad diet, but that only left me starving and I would quit by day 3. Nothing was working, so I just gave up and was in the mindset of, “it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be.” The issue with that mindset was, it was not going to get me anywhere and I opened myself up to strong issues with body image, comparing to others, and hating everything I tried on because I “just didn’t look like I used to.”
I’ve had quite a few wake-up calls over the last four years when it comes to weight loss, that led to a strong motivation toward a healthier lifestyle — hence the fad diets. Unfortunately, none of them lasted beyond a couple weeks. That was until I got engaged just a couple of weeks ago on August 5th. I have been part of Travis’ Self-Paced Bootcamp since June, but each week found myself completing 1-2 workouts because I didn’t feel like doing the rest. Since I wasn’t putting in the work, I wasn’t seeing results either. The day I got engaged was truly the best day of my life thus far, and what I’m about to say did not take away from the day itself. Mark, my fiancé, had one of my college friends capture photos of the proposal and he was able to get photos to us later that weekend. The second Mark and I saw our proposal photos we were on one hand thrilled about the fact that we are now engaged and could relive the moment, but on the other hand we were mortified by how we looked. Now, we’ve been discussing our weight gain together for some time now, but it never hit us as hard as it did in that moment. I knew the second I saw those photos that I did not want to feel that way any longer. I knew that on my wedding day, I wanted to be focused on the events of the day and not focused on how I’m going to hate how I look in my photos. Additionally, I wanted to FEEL a change in myself, in my body, and in my mindset. So —I talked to Travis about where I was at and here I am, completely vulnerable and more than ready to make a change.
So, why am I sharing all this to people I don’t know and who don’t know me? Well, I have found myself to be very motivated to stick with something when there are other people involved. I am here to share my journey with the hope that maybe I can inspire someone else who might be struggling to get started. I am going to be sharing the REAL numbers, REAL progress photos, and REAL thoughts throughout this journey — nothing edited. I am thrilled to begin this journey. I know I can make the change that I need to, but still I am asking for anyone who is following along please hold me accountable!
Entry 1: I am starting at 181 lbs. on August 10th, 2023. My skeletal muscle mass is 68.1, and body fat percentage is 33.3%. LET’S DO THIS!
