Get inspired by these Daily Burn success stories, which showcase real people who committed to fitness and saw results that were way beyond average.
It’s a dilemma common to many mothers: Amy Avery had gained weight with her first pregnancy and didn’t quite lose it before deciding to have baby number two. “I thought, ‘Why do I need to take the weight off I’m planning on having another child?’” Avery says.
Though she’d struggled to stay slim her entire life, Avery says she managed to get down to her lowest weight — and smallest pant size — before her wedding. But after the birth of her second child, not only had she gained back all the pounds she’d lost pre-nuptials — she was the biggest she’d ever been. “About a year ago, I was back up to a size 22 pant, which I hadn’t been since high school, and I had a very active four-year-old who wanted me to get up and run around,” she recalls. “And I was like, I need to do something, or I won’t be around as long for my daughters.”
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The Clean Eating Challenge
At 5’7” and 250 pounds, Avery decided to embark on a five-day clean eating challenge with a friend. In addition to sticking with her meal plan, she was also supposed to do 30 minutes of exercise each day. The problem: She’d gotten bored exercising with workout DVDs. But she’d heard about Daily Burn, so she decided to give it a try. She started with the True Beginner program and surprised herself when she realized she could do most of the exercises. So that week, she challenged herself to try Move! and Total Cardio — which got her hooked.
“Now, I can run up and down the stairs three or four times without even getting winded.”
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With a goal of shedding some serious pounds, Avery dedicated herself to clean eating and sweating every day. “The clean eating challenge forced me to focus on portion sizes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables,” Avery says. “It was a way to teach me how to cook things I already liked in a healthy way.” She started swapping out ground beef for turkey, and nixed white rice for brown rice or quinoa.
It was a big change from her previous lifestyle of dining out on fried food, and eating lots of processed foods, sugar and ice cream. “I was a big eater and it would be a lot of the really bad stuff, so it took a lot to get both of those under control and realize you don’t need to just keep eating because you’re sitting here.” Her new approach: “Stop yourself and pace yourself. You don’t need a third helping after whatever we had for dinner, you’re good after one,” Avery says.
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Hooked on a Healthier Lifestyle
After just five days of clean eating, Avery was starting to see results — and felt great — so she decided to stick with it. She also got a FitBit so she could start tracking her steps — aiming for 20,000 per day, well beyond the 10,000 daily steps usually recommended. She continued to challenge herself during her workouts, too, switching to Cardio Sculpt, and then Inferno. “I almost died after the first Inferno workout, but I was like ‘I can do this!’” she laughs. “I might not be able to do it exactly like [the trainer] could but I could modify it and still get a benefit from it.”
Her progress was evident in her everyday life, too. “After I gave birth to my second daughter, climbing up and down the stairs was absolute torture but that’s where my bedroom was,” Avery says. “Now, I can run up and down the stairs three or four times without even getting winded.”
Today, just under one year after starting Daily Burn and discovering clean eating, Avery has lost 80 pounds. “I didn’t expect to do it in less than a year,” she says. “It’s just hard work and watching what you eat — there’s really nothing more to it than that.”
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Note to reader: The content in this article relates to the core service offered by Daily Burn. In the interest of editorial disclosure and integrity, the reader should know that this site is owned and operated by Daily Burn. Daily Burn users who worked out for 30 minutes or more at least five times a week for 60 to 90 days reported an average weight loss of about one pound per week. For those seeking to lose weight, keep in mind that extreme weight loss can be harmful to your health if done improperly or too suddenly. Always talk to your doctor before beginning any exercise or weight loss program.
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