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My name is Rachel Flint.
I am a Captain in the Air National Guard and winner of the
2012 Military Transformation Challenge for Bodybuilding.com.
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I was never athletic in high school, middle school.
I just went to class and hung out with my friends and really
had no desire to be athletic because I thought it was beyond
the realm of possibility for me.
It didn't even occur to me that I could be athletic.
When I decided to join the military, is when I knew that if
I was gonna survive basic training, I was gonna have to
get fit.
And at that point, I was a smoker and so I gave that up
and started running.
When I was about 23, I went on deployment to Saudi Arabia and
was there for about 4 months.
And there was somebody over there that showed me the basics
of weight training and it was very beginner level stuff and so
I just built on that and, at that point, I didn't really do
much with it.
My natural shape is a pear.
So I was always very small, had very narrow shoulders and bigger
hips and so I thought, "Okay, well, if I get fit, then I'll
probably just be a smaller version of that."
I was probably about 140 pounds and I'm 5 foot 7, I'm--so my
body fat was in the low 20s, which is still healthy but it
wasn't something I was comfortable with and so I
decided to try to build some muscle and reduce my body fat
and see what was underneath.
And as I started lifting weights and really challenging myself in
the gym, I started to see that shape change and was astonished
at what I looked like.
And so it's been incredible to see I'm not genetically
determined to always have this same body shape.
It's incredible that you really can change your whole body.
I'm now a stay-at-home mom, other than my 1 week in the
month in the Air National Guard and so I am busy with two little
girls, ages 4 and 1-1/2.
I want to set a good example for them and healthy eating is
really part of our everyday lifestyle.
And I got to a point where I knew I just had gotten kind of
complacent with my workouts and was ready to kick it up a notch.
I've always worked really well with deadlines.
This Challenge gave me an excellent opportunity to have a
12-week goal and just really hit it hard for those 12 weeks and
make the most of it that I could.
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I used the machines when I very first started because I
wasn't real sure about my form and I knew that the machines
took away that guesswork.
I think at this point, I've gotten through a lot of the
trial and error and I know what works well for my body.
I'll lift heavy for a while to see how far I can get with that.
And then I'll switch over to lighter weights with more reps
for a while and do that to see what my results are with that.
So I try to always change things up to keep it interesting.
I do prefer the traditional bodybuilding movements.
I work out at the same gym every day and the same equipment is
there every day so there's bound to be some repetition there but
whenever I'm working a particular body part, I'll
change up the exercise to target that particular body part
after a while.
I work out 6 days and so I lift weights on all 6 of those days
but I do a 5-day split and then usually hit legs twice in
one week, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays or Tuesdays and
Fridays.
I make sure to give myself a couple of days' break between
when I hit legs again.
I like to do back and biceps together and chest and triceps
together and then shoulders and abs on their own date.
I try to do cardio two or three times a week.
If I have time, if I finish a workout early, I'll use the rest
of that time to do some cardio.
Rest day for me is--starts off with church 'cause it's on
Sunday so I go to church with my family and we go out to eat and
if it's a nice day we'll go to the park and still try to do
something that's lightly active.
But I really try to just do as little as possible
on that day to get me ready for the coming week.
I take progress pictures every 2 to 3 weeks and compare them,
side by side with previous weeks and that really helps.
It helps me know if I am making progress and it works
either way.
If I'm not seeing the progress that I want to see, then I push
harder at the gym, and if I am seeing progress, it gets me
excited and I still push harder at the gym.
The most important thing I could tell people who are a little
intimidated and not sure if they can do this, would be
to just start gathering information, start reading.
To me, that's the most important thing to get all the information
that you can before you even set foot in the gym.
You know, there's so many free programs available on
Bodybuilding.com.
Pick one of those and get going.
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The thing that I was really happy to learn is that
you don't have to starve yourself to get fit.
There's a lot of bad information out there about
calorie restriction.
Not that you can eat everything that you want to, but you can
eat and be full and have a lot of healthy foods and you don't
have to always be hungry.
When my husband and I first got married, we would buy cheap
pizza and Hamburger Helper and a lot of the quick and easy stuff
and, over the years, we got away from that but we still weren't
eating quite as well as we should.
There are a lot of clean foods that I eat that I never even
tried growing up.
I didn't know the benefits of eating them.
Thinks like avocadoes, asparagus, sweet potatoes.
Those are some of my favorite foods now.
I eat 6 or 7 meals a day, usually every 2 to 2.5 hours.
For my sources of protein, I really like chicken and tilapia.
Carbohydrates, I really like sweet potatoes, brown rice, and
I like getting a lot of my carbs from vegetables, green
vegetables too.
As far as for my healthy fats, I did just recently discover
almond butter and it's amazing so I don't buy it very often
because I have issues with portion control on that but
I love peanut butter and so peanuts, almonds, avocadoes, a
lot of those--that's--those are the sources of my healthy fats.
I have a sweet tooth and I've discovered that sugar can really
derail me for quite a while so I try to go more towards savory
cheats like pizza or wings.
Those are my favorites.
For me, I try to just have one cheat meal a month.
I tried to do a cheat meal once a week and, for me, it didn't
work because I would undo a lot of the progress that I had made
earlier in that week.
On the clean treats, we prepare them the same way most of
the time because it makes it easier for our daughters to see
familiar things and since they're used to eating those
same foods over and over, every once in a while, I'll change it
up but, for the most part, we just--we keep it the same
for them.
I really think that when you start when they're little,
they learn what you introduce to them.
So they do love broccoli, they love sweet potatoes.
They love chicken.
All the foods that we eat, they eat.
When we go to a restaurant, I usually pull up the menu before
we go and take a look at what they have and make sure that
there's a healthy option.
Once I get to the restaurant, I can make an informed decision on
what I'm ordering and ask them to leave off the butter and
the oils that there may be on the menu.
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I definitely think that supplements are a vital part of
my overall success in fitness.
I don't think you have to have them to get in shape but I think
they are so helpful.
I really like to keep it simple with supplementation.
I don't think it's necessary to go overboard and buy everything
that's out there.
So I just--I pick the things that I know are gonna help me
meet my goals and leave it at that.
I like to use a pre-workout and BCAAs, CLA, EFAs,
and a protein powder.
As far as pre-workout, I get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and
so the caffeine in a pre-workout really helps me wake up and get
going and I've just--I've had a lot of success with those.
They help me feel strong.
I get the most out of my workouts when I take them and I
notice a huge difference when I don't.
CLA is one that I first heard about a few years ago.
I read that it's something that just occurs naturally in foods
and helps you break down fat in your body.
I decided that would be a nice easy thing to add just to give
me a little bit of an extra edge in fat loss.
Our family does not consume a lot of dairy.
And so I prefer egg protein but, when I'm out and need a
quick meal replacement, I keep packets of whey protein handy
and those are great to help me feel full and go on with my
errands and do what I need to do.
I think the best thing for people to do is to start off
simple and pick maybe a pre-workout supplement and
a protein powder and maybe a multivitamin and just start
reading up on the other ones and see what they do, what their
intended purpose is and match that up with what their personal
goals are and see if that's something that they might need.
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I've had a lot of people whether it be military members,
family members, some friends, all tell me that they're willing
to give it a shot because I did and they've seen that you don't
have to have a personal trainer, it doesn't have to be expensive,
you just have to have the discipline to do it.
My mom is the most recent example.
She's signed up for a Transformation Challenge on
Bodybuilding.com and is gonna hit it hard for 12 weeks
and I can't wait to see what happens with her.
So if anyone has any questions for me and you need words of
encouragement or would like some more details then they can look
for me on my BodySpace which is rdf803.
So for more content and articles like this,
keep coming back to Bodybuilding.com.