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I was a fat second degree black belt. Actually, that's the middle of the story. Let's start at the beginning. I was born and raised in Fresno, California to a family that likes to eat. As a teenager, I was 5 - 10 pounds overweight, but I thought I hid it fairly well by wearing baggy clothes.
In college, I discovered my inner athlete when I stumbled on the sport of fencing. I fell in love with it and began competing across California. When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area I couldn't find a school that was close enough for me to get to after work.
After being introduced by my husband Paul, to movies starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh, I thought I'd give Kung Fu a try. I loved it! After a few months of listening to me gush about my Kung Fu classes, Paul decided to try it. He excelled so much that he was offered a full time teaching position within a year.
As Paul settled into his new career, I spent the next 12 years working my way up to black belt, first degree black belt and finally achieving my overall goal of second degree black belt. I remember on the drive home from that final test, in tears, that although I had achieved this great goal, I was still 15 pounds overweight. In training five to six days a week to prepare for the test I learned the hard lesson that "just exercise more" was not my key to weight loss.
It was soon after this that Paul and I decided to open our own school. With the help of our friend Erika and our partner, Damon, we opened Fearless Fitness, Martial Arts Training and Development Center. Four months later I happily discovered I was pregnant.
On January 2, 2007, exactly one year after we opened Fearless Fitness, Dante Tosetti was born. I had gained 40 pounds with my pregnancy. Breast feeding, getting a better handle on my nutrition and easing back in to working out helped me shed 30 of those pounds within the first five months. Then I got stuck.
It was at this time that Erika and I realized we had a common goal of losing weight and common frustrations of not being able to do it. So, we teamed up. We focused on exercise + nutrition + supporting each other. Within just six weeks I lost that final 10 pounds of pregnancy weight. Erika was also able to reach her ultimate weight loss goal after so many years of trying and falling short. It was the combination of the three components, exercise + nutrition + support that gave us both what we needed to achieve our success.
I should mention that while reaching my goal, I was still working a full time job, running Fearless Fitness and being a mom to Dante. I didn't have a personal chef, a private trainer or a nanny. It was just me with the support of Erika.
Based on our personal success, Erika and I decided to create a six-week weight loss bootcamp to see if our fitness formula would work for others. It not only worked for our bootcampers, but, I lost an additional eight pounds. At this point, I was eight pounds lighter than ever in my adult life.
We knew we were on to something that could help a lot of others like us reach their fitness goals. We immediately transitioned the bootcamp into a full time program, which evolved into Fearless Fitness Intensity Training (FFIT). In the last year and a half, after seeing success after success of weight lost, inches lost and fitness levels increasing, Erika and I decided to create a program for our friends and family who live too far away to join our FFIT program. And so the idea for FFIT@home was born - a website you can join and download new workouts every week, find healthy and realistic nutrition information and receive plenty of support and encouragement.
For the past seven months, Erika and I have been working on building the FFIT@home website and video taping our classes. We are now just two weeks away from our official launch. We are throwing a launch party on Saturday, May 9th at Fearless Fitness. In keeping with the theme of our video taped workouts, we video taped the invitation to the party. You can see it at: http://www.ffit.tv/FFITatHome_launch.html
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like to join us for the launch party, please do! We will be giving an overview of the website and will be introducing those who have achieved success from the existing FFIT program. We will also be holding a raffle where the grand prize is a three month membership to FFIT@home.
*It took me 24 hours to get the guts to post this photo. It's a picture of me that we took for the FFIT@home website. Just a few years ago I would never have considered baring my waist let alone posting it on the Internet. For a 40 year old mother of a two year old, I feel pretty good about the photo.
