JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The pandemic was a diet nightmare for many people. A recent American Psychological Association survey revealed that 61% of US adults experienced unwanted weight changes since the start of the pandemic.
But what about the people who did the opposite? People who found motivation during the madness.
Keecia King is one of them. She’s a mom with a big job who travels for work but still managed to drop 50 pounds in the middle of a pandemic.
“I have been involved in fitness for a very long time. I pay attention to what my trainers are doing what they’re saying and so not only are they training me they’re educating me,” King said.
King is putting all that education into practice. She works out 45 minutes a day, seven days a week. Her office doubles as a gym. It is equipped with hand-me-downs from friends, deals she found online and even company incentives.
Keecia noticed as her equipment stash grew her body shrank.
“My physique has changed some. I’m looking to amp that up a little bit, but I find that my core is much more stable,” King said.
At the core is more than just exercise, it’s good, clean eating too. Keecia eats 300-400 calories three times a day and there is one thing she doesn’t do.
“I have decided if I’m not hungry I’m not going to eat,” King said. “We are fearfully and wonderfully made. My body will tell me when I’m going to eat.”
She uses a hunger scale. One is what she considers starving and 10 being miserably full. King said she tries to stay in the middle.
“If I’m just eating breakfast at eight and it’s noon now and my body isn’t telling me that I’m hungry, I shouldn’t be headed to the kitchen to fix something just because it’s lunchtime,” King said.
Breakfast might be a smoothie. Lunch is usually a salad with some healthy protein.
“This total salmon is 5.8 ounces which is perfect because I eat anywhere from 5 to 6,” King said.
Weighing her food helps her keep the weight off. King lost 50 pounds in a little more than a year. She is down from 200 pounds to 150 pounds. King finally conquered the one thing that’s held her back in the past.
“Food, I enjoy good food and I realized I had to change my relationship with food,” King said. “I had to think about what can I eat, what’s healthy for me and another concept that I really adapt it is my body is not a trashcan.”
King also used a program called Camp Gladiator to reach her fitness goals. It is a boot camp style fitness program that offers more than 10,000 outdoor and virtual workouts every week. To learn more about the program visit campgladiator.com.