Team Beachbody Guest

Hey, everyone! My name is Rachel Heibel, and I'm a 25-year old from Erie,
Pennsylvania. I'm here to help you with your fitness goals and keep you on
track!

I can be contacted several ways:
E-mail: heibeshealth@gmail.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/confessionsoftheheart
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/HeibesHealth
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/heibes

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Hey, everyone! My name is Rachel Heibel, and I'm a 25-year old from Erie,
Pennsylvania. I'm here to help you with your fitness goals and keep you on
track!

I can be contacted several ways:
E-mail: heibeshealth@gmail.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/confessionsoftheheart
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/HeibesHealth
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/heibes

Join the Saturday Fitness Beatdown fan page to win Beachbody prizes: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Saturday-Fitness-Beatdown/308885420625?ref=mf

I look forward to helping you out!

Not everyone knows my story. I managed to keep it quiet for six years of my life. To look at my pictures, it would just seem like I was a skinny, "unfit" girl who used P90X to put on some muscle and get a six-pack. Behind every before picture (just as with many other people), there's a battle going on. There was something that caused us all to throw down the gauntlet and stop being slaves to our demons.

However, unlike most people who begin using the Beachbody products, I was not looking to lose weight. My "demons" were not obesity, and I was never diagnosed with diabetes or heart problems or told I must exercise due to the risk of dying. I did, however, have a disease that ate away at me for six years of my life and was potentially destined to haunt me for as long as I lived. I suffered with a mild form of anorexia.

I first started seeing a change in my eating habits when I was a junior in high school. I had just started delving into the dating scene and endured my first break-up that was caused by his cheating. While some find comfort in food during stressful times, I found comfort in starvation. I stopped bringing lunches to school, and if I did eat anything, it was usually something as minute as a Power Bar. I didn't bother to eat breakfast most mornings and found myself to be exhausted for most of the day.

Soon after high school, I started dating again and experienced a repeat of my past relationship. In dealing with yet another destroyed relationship, I went right back into my trap and began depriving myself of food and losing weight. I dropped down to about 93 pounds and stayed in that range for a while longer.

At the time I met my husband, my weight had leveled to an average of 95 pounds. While I still subconsciously felt the need to keep my weight down, he somehow made me feel better about myself--more so than I'd ever felt up to that point. Of course, what I thought was buried deep reared its ugly head once again.
My husband is very fitness-conscious, and he enjoys going to the gym, and he shared that hobby with me. Somehow, it never seemed to click as well for me. I went regularly with him for a little while, and then it tapered off to once per week and finally to once per month or less. I wanted to get some exercise in, but I didn't know how.

To avoid gaining weight, I went back into the anorexia I thought I'd warded off. I restricted the amount of food I would eat in a day to a piece of toast, and sometimes I would still do a workout at the gym with my husband. When I would start eating more again, I'd gain more weight than I wanted and would fall right back into that cycle again. No matter what my husband would try to do to convince me that this wasn't the way to be healthy and get in shape, I had a deaf ear to him.

Finally, in January of 2008, I decided that I needed to change my diet and exercise around for good. I'd seen an infomercial for P90X a year prior while lying in bed sick and had wanted to try it. I never took the plunge until February 3, 2008, and since then I've never looked back.

Where I once ate one time per day, I'm now eating five to six times. I weighed 102 pounds at the start of my journey, and I now weigh 115, and my body fat percentage has dropped from 12% to around 7%. I've lost four inches off my hips, as well. My body composition has completely changed. To be honest, I think I looked a little chubby when I weighed 13 pounds less.

While I'll always carry anorexia around with me for the rest of my life (just as with any addiction, whether food, alcohol, or otherwise) and know it would be foolish to think I could get rid of it completely, I also know I have a great weapon against it. It's not just P90X and other Beachbody products but the people who support me on a daily basis and are always there to encourage me: The people who have been there since I first started my journey and got me acquainted with all the incredible people in this community, and those that continue to be there for me; not just as the accountability but as true friends I'd do anything for.

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