My story with T25: Told By Christina Fulmer

Growing up, I struggled with a severe eating disorder, Anorexia. I stopped starving myself when I got pregnant with my son and gained 80 pounds as a result. After he was born, I went back to my restricting and fasting ways until he was almost a year old. I self recovered in September 2008. I decided I didn’t want my son to grow up with an unhealthy relationship with food and God forbid I ever had a daughter, I wouldn’t want her to either.

I struggled with weight loss after having my son and recovering from an eating disorder. I tried every yo-yo diet, fad diet, diet pill, diet this, diet that…all complete garbage. I tried doing it the right way, hitting the gym and eating healthier but I still wouldn’t lose much weight. After having a c-section with my son and ending a decade long battle with Anorexia, i felt like my body would have to be the way it was forever.

In 2009, we started trying for a second child. I had managed to lose a little bit of weight, mostly due to the c section I had after my son, so I hovered around 220 ish. We moved to Hawaii amidst trying for a second child and 5 months later I became pregnant. I gained 10 pounds instantly without even having changed my every day diet. I ended up losing that pregnancy to what is called a blighted ovum. 4 months after I passed the pregnancy from a forced miscarriage, I became pregnant with my daughter.

I gained 27 lbs with my daughter, my delivery weight was 263 lbs. And I was only 170-175 lbs when I got pregnant with my son…not to mention I was only 149 lbs just a couple of years before that when I went into the Navy! I had life threatening complications and ended up needing a hysterectomy, in which they went through my old c-section scar. I immediately lost 40 lbs from surgery, blood loss and not being able to eat anything solid for over a week. Those pain meds really curbed my appetite, plus they wouldn’t let me eat more than broth and jello during my week-long hospital stay.

Once I was healed and deemed in good health again, I was determined to lose weight from having children and get back under 200. In January 2012, I trained over the course of 6 weeks for my first two races, a 10k in which I finished in 72 minutes (only walked twice) and a week later I ran the Great Aloha Run which is 8.15 miles, in which I finished in 1:39and did not walk or stop one single time.

Through all of my race training, I lost maybe 5 lbs because I had gained so much muscle but lost a ton of body fat. By the end of 2012, I had lost 51 lbs since I had my daughter. I teetered around 205 for months but just couldn’t break the plateau. I had also started Insanity in the end of 2012, but was forced to stop per doctor’s orders as the program was damaging my knees. I got through the first month and the rest week.

In January 2013, we moved from Hawaii to Maryland and because I was no longer exercising with Insanity, I just gave up. I felt defeated by my body and of course we ate like crap because we were in the middle of moving across the Earth and adjusting to a different income than we had been accustomed to. I ended up gaining weight back and tipped the scales at 253 lbs. My highest, non-pregnancy weight.

I ordered T25 and gave it a shot, I quit 2 weeks in. Even doing the modified moves, my knees would be absolutely killing me. Then I started working in retail. I later bought a FitBit activity tracker and it has been game on ever since. I lost and gained the same 10 lbs for a few months until December 2014.

Since December 2014, I have lost 30.4 pounds. I decided 5 weeks ago, that I was going to give T25 another shot. I breezed through the first two weeks, once week 3 hit, I was constantly sore and mentally and physically exhausted. So many times I wanted to just stop and quit because it truly was mind over matter. I was tired of being tired and sore. But my husband pushed me to not give up, he would tell me “it’s only 25 minutes, you can do that…it’ll be over before you know it.”

And he was right. I pushed hard in my workouts, counted my calories, made healthy food choices and trucked on. 5 weeks really did fly by now that I look back at it. Finishing T25 is the 3rd biggest health/fitness related accomplishment of my life, behind my first two races.

I have never felt so fit, lean, focused, happy, emotional….every feeling in the world….until I finished this program. It taught me so much more about myself than I anticipated. I figured I would workout, lose some weight, be sore a lot, the end. I learned how to feel comfortable in my skin again, I learned what works and doesn’t work for my body and I gained so much more confidence than I’ve ever had. Even when I was thin prior to having children.

In the 5 weeks of T25, I lost 3.6 lbs. I forgot to to take my measurements before starting, so I only weight by weight and photos. I started on 6/28/15 at 226.2 lbs and finished on 81/15 at 222.6 lbs. It doesn’t sound like much for 5 weeks, until you see my after photos.