Fit Mama Friday – Meet Maria

Meet Maria.

I’m excited to have a fellow fitness blogger on Fit Mama Friday today! Passionate about fitness, her family, running and vegetarianism, Maria Sparks writes the blog Real Fit Mama. Her story is inspiring and I’m happy to introduce her as a guest poster for Fit Mama Friday! Here’s Maria’s fitness story:

Who is RealFitMama?

Right now, in this moment, she’s a 34 year old wife to Jason and mother to Linsey, 12, and Regan, 5. She is the owner of a small deli (with her husband) in St Louis, Missouri and a blogger. She enjoys talking, laughing, reading, watching movies, spending time with her family and friends and has a somewhat shameful addiction to social media. She has been on a mission to live a healthy lifestyle for about 12 years and has been a fitness enthusiast for about 8 years, but neither of those things has always been true.

Maybe we need to rewind a bit to get the full story…

Hi… I’m Maria. I was born in May of 1979. I was the first daughter and first grandchild in my family. I come from a long line of “full figured” women with wide hips, thick thighs, large bottoms and always believed that was my destiny. Genetics were working against me and nothing would ever change it.

I don’t really remember the first time I went on a diet, but I do remember that the summer before sixth grade I was totally fine with my body. I ran around in a swimming suit all day long never thinking about my slightly round belly, my thighs that rubbed when I moved or my bottom that hung a little low. The following summer everything changed. I would wait until right before getting into the pool to take off my towel. I refused to wear a two piece and I was acutely aware of all the things that were wrong with my body.

That’s when I started I started to cry when I looked in the mirror.
That’s when I stopped wearing shorts.
That’s when I started to hate my body and myself.

Sometime in junior high I began skipping breakfast. I would skip lunch most days as well and then when I got home I would gorge myself on whatever I could get into my mouth the quickest. Many nights, after everyone else had fallen asleep, I would take a sharpie and outline the fat on my stomach, draw lines on my hips and thighs to signify how small they should be and then cry myself to sleep.

When I started high school I realized that skipping breakfast and lunch caused me to eat far more than I wanted to in the evening so I started skipping breakfast and dining on a single Twix bar with a diet coke for lunch. That meal would hold me over well enough that I could get away with picking at my dinner tricking my parents into thinking I had actually eaten something. By the time I was a sophomore I was going days without eating a thing and falling asleep to the most agonizing, yet fulfilling, emptiness in the pit of my stomach.

I was able to go two to three days without eating anything before anyone would start to question me. By day four I was always forced to eat a meal with my family to keep their suspicions away. Once I saw the number I thought I should see when I stood on the scale I would reward myself with chips and dip, ice cream, candy bars, hamburgers and fries only to see weight gain the next day – then it all started over.

My senior year of high school I started dating the boy who would later become my husband. We both started college, got jobs and moved into our own apartment. While we were working at a local restaurant I started noticing how thin everyone was. I didn’t really know until later that they were all using cocaine, meth and drinking themselves into oblivion. I was always too scared (thankfully!) to partake in their party habits, so I would eat instead. I started binging almost every night on pasta, pizza, ice cream, french fries and soda. Weight gain quickly followed.

Then I got pregnant with Linsey. I knew that for her to be healthy I had to eat. So I did. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. NOTHING was off limits! After nine months I had packed on 65lbs. At 5’5” tall and 200lbs I was always out of breath. I couldn’t sleep well, my nerves were shot and my emotions were out of control. I knew that I had to do something so that I could be what my daughter needed, but I had no idea where to start.

That’s when I discovered Shape Magazine. I started reading it every month! I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t run a block, but I could sure walk one and that’s exactly what I did. I started using the Weight Watchers plan to control my calorie intake, but I was still eating crap foods. Everything was frozen, canned, prepackaged or from a box, but I was slowly losing weight.

When Linsey was not quite 2 years old we packed up and moved to Portland, Oregon so that Jason could attend culinary school. While we lived out there I met vegans and vegetarians and pescitarians and raw foodists and people of so many different cultures. I learned almost as much about food as Jason did. I decided to become a vegetarian and to raise Linsey as one as well. Jason never made the switch, but he never complained about the meatless meals we dined on at home.

With the help of Shape magazine, my new found love of real food and the desire to make healthy changes I slowly began to see real changes in my body. The weight began to dissipate and I was feeling so much better. We moved to St Louis when Linsey was 4 years old and shortly after I took a part time job at a fitness center. The perks far outweighed the pay and I really got interested in fitness – most of all running.

In January 2007 I decided to train for a marathon that would take place towards the end of October. It was bitter cold in St Louis, but I had full access to all the treadmills I wanted. I began showing up to work at 7:00 in the morning to get some miles in before my shift started. Thankfully Jason had a schedule that allowed him to go to work a little later and he was able to take Linsey to preschool. Having showers in the fitness center made it something I could make excuses not to do!

Then, Valentine’s Day, I discovered I was pregnant again. I was due October 16^th. That right there put an end to my marathon training. I still logged miles throughout the pregnancy, but knew a marathon shortly after giving birth was out of the question. My second pregnancy was far different from the first one. With a weight gain of only 32lbs I felt great most of the nine months!

After Regan was born (on her due date!) and things were back to normal I began walking the treadmills I used to run on. Once the weather was nice enough I put Regan in the jogging stroller and began walking faster, slowly building to a light jog and eventually was able to manage a few miles at a fairly decent pace.

My girls are very active. Linsey fell in love with dance at the age of 4 and quickly went from one Saturday morning class a week to eight classes a week including Ballet, Pointe, Jazz, Lyrical, Tap and Hip Hop along with being a dancer in the Dance Company and Hip Hop Team. On top of all of that she’s on her school’s archery team, an honor roll student and a pretty great kid.

While Regan does take a few dance classes (only because she wants to be like her sister) she has discovered soccer and absolutely loves it. After two Little Kickers sessions she is really excited to start playing on a team at her new elementary school.

Both of my daughters are being raised vegetarian and they both are completely aware of why we make that lifestyle choice. Our family is lucky enough to live in a fairly walker friendly area so we can walk to restaurants, the grocery store and parks. We spend a lot of time on family bike rides, nature walks, evenings at the park and endless hours at the pool in the Summer.

I am far from perfect and still have moments of over indulgences which lead to negative thoughts about my body, but I don’t dwell on them long. I always pick myself up and start over with healthy choices the next time. I’ve cut down considerably on the running and have discovered a new workout program called Insanity by Beachbody. I am working really hard to stick with the program exactly the way it is set up because I’m at a point where I feel like I’m more ‘skinny fat’ rather than ‘fit’ for real.

With a full time job, a husband who leaves for work before the sun comes up and two daughters who need to be places at all hours of the day, I have come to find that my ideal workout time is 5:30 in the morning. It’s not really my first choice, but over the past few years it has become something I’m accustomed to. I actually like knowing that come 7:00 in the morning the rest of my day is all mine.

I’ve moved passed weighing myself every day, yearning to be thin and am ready for some muscles. I’m really hoping that ShaunT can deliver because those Insanity workouts are, in fact, bananas yo!

Thanks so much for sharing your story on Fit Mama Friday, Maria! I’m looking forward to seeing and reading about your progress on Real Fit Mama!

Do you want to be featured on Fit Mama Friday? Or do you know someone you’d like to see featured? Please contact me for details! 🙂