Before

After

I'm Amy, a homeschooling mom of 6 children, and am now expecting number 7. Growing up, my issue with weight, was not being able to gain it, a problem

I've long outgrown! My first pregnancy I gained 45 pounds, and was never able to lose it all. The next 2 pregnancies I was able to return back to my starting weight. The fourth and fifth, I held on to at least 20 pounds. After my fifth, I began exercising regularly. I exercised all through my sixth pregnancy, but still gained almost 50 pounds. I was becoming disillusioned with exercise. Exercise gave me more energy, but didn't change my body shape at all. I was doing walking programs, aerobics, pilates and yoga, with no visible results. I knew in my head that I was doing something good for my body, but outwardly I still was fat, and according to the BMI charts, was obese, a word I never thought that would apply to me.

On a large family email group I was on, the topic of weight loss and exercise came up. One person posted having success with T-Tapp. I was of course curious, so I checked out the site. There was something different from the T-Tapp site from other sites. Although there were claims of success, it wasn't presented with unrealistic results in an unrealistic amount of time. I order my first workouts in August of 2005, hopeful, but skeptical. I had been consistent with exercising for a few years, but had minimal results. In the first week of doing T-Tapp, I lost 7 inches. Finally, some results! That kept me motivated to continue. I made a MS Word document where I took my measurements, dated it, and recorded inch loss. Each time I measured, and actually had results, I copied the previous measurements, pasted them with updates. I now can look back and see my progress. There are many places where there are a few months between entries, because I tend to be slow to lose. Other times, inches seem to fall off quickly. In two and a half years, I have lost 75 inches, and 50 pounds going from a size 14/16 to a 6/8. No, I didn't do it quickly, but it has stayed off. It's been a challenge to change my mind set to inch loss instead of pounds. When people ask how much more weight I want to lose, my answer changed from X pounds to "I reached goal when nothing jiggles that isn't suppose to!"

T-Tapp has done more for me than reshape my body. My back and hips don't hurt anymore. My varicose veins in my legs ache less and are usually less noticeable. My back is stronger and I think there may be stomach muscles under the remaining "baby fat" :)! I try to be consistent with skin brushing, and have reduced the appearance of stretch marks, and I don't have loose skin from losing weight. I feel far more knowledgeable about how my body works after reading Teresa's book, and from being on the forums. Even when I'm doing a move on the workouts that I don't think has a purpose, I continue, knowing Teresa wouldn't put it in there if it had no point. I never feel like the workout is just mindless busywork, like I did with other programs. I know that I'm doing something good for my body. My favorite workouts are probably the stepping programs. Since I had been doing walking programs before, I was comfortable with the moves right away. The difference though, was that my body felt the change in body positioning, and the result was inch loss. I always know when I'm nearing the end of the video, because when Teresa says "Ready for some more cardio?" my answer to the tv is always NO!

I'm excited to see how this pregnancy differs from my others, since now I will be T-Tappin through it. I'm sure I will have less back and hip issues since I will be standing in better alignment. I would love to continue losing inches during pregnancy, like in my thighs, but I'm confident this pregnancy, that I will be able to lose the inches afterwards. I'm very thankful for all that Teresa does, and the knowledge she shares. I never feel like she's in the business to sell more things, but rather she is giving us the tools to better our bodies. T-Tapp has definitely changed my life.

***A note on the picture: This is the first picture in several years of me by myself other than my 60-Day Challenge pictures (that aren't exactly photo album entries). I always had kids standing in front of me in pictures to cover up my fat, or I'd sit with someone on my lap.

Amy Thrift
Mom to Alyssa 7/93, Aleyna 3/95, Eddie 12/96, Alexa 8/99, Josiah 9/01 and Alea 3/04 and baby due 2/09
Save the Earth. It's the only planet with chocolate.