I'm 6 feet tall and I've always struggled with my weight. I just didn't find working out fun. I would join a gym, go once, and never go back. When I was pregnant with my son, I developed preeclampsia, or high blood pressure, and had to be on bedrest for 2 months. Being sedentary contributed to my weight gain during my pregnancy. At my heaviest, I was 265 pounds. My son was a big baby—10 pounds!—so I attribute some of that to him. But I struggled with getting the rest of it back off. I developed hypothyroidism after my pregnancy, and my metabolism had slowed, making it easier to gain weight and that much more difficult to lose it. (Get a flat belly in just 10 minutes a day with our reader-tested exercise plan!)
In October 2014, I was down to 250 pounds, and I started searching the internet for fun workouts. I came across FXP Fitness, which uses a weighted Hula-Hoop in a routine that borrows from barre, yoga, and pilates. I remembered how much I loved hooping as a kid and signed up for a class. I drove from my home in Portland, CT, to Massachusetts, the only place classes were available at the time. "Let me go see what this is all about," I remember thinking.
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I immediately loved it. It's impossible to not smile while Hula-Hooping. I wore a fitness tracker and a heart rate monitor and watched my heart rate spike like I was doing a high-intensity interval training workout. I could burn as much as 800 calories in an hour, doing the class's combination of ballet movements, yoga poses, strength exercises like squats, and of course traditional waist hooping. We even hooped around our arms and our hands to give our waists a break. We used the weighted hoop to do stretches and hooped while we did dance routines like the YMCA and the Macarena.
I took the 2 lb hoop home with me to Connecticut and started hooping on my own. I started with just 10 minutes a day and built up my stamina. It was easy to stand in front of the TV and whip it around my waist, even if I had toys all over my living room floor from my son. It didn't take me long to decide I wanted to become an instructor myself. I decided I was going to push my fears aside, and I went to Boston to get certified.
Hooping helped me slowly and steadily lose weight, and in about a year, I was down 85 pounds to 165. It helped that I now have a 2-year-old I have to chase everywhere! Once you start exercising, there's a snowball effect: You have more energy to do more things. I started eating a little bit better, because I now had the energy to cook instead of going to the drive-thru. I had the energy to play with my son instead of watching him at the playground. Now, I teach hooping three times a week.
I competed in pageants when I was young, and 20 years later, I gave it another shot: I was recently crowned America's Fit Mrs., and I Hula-Hooped as my talent. I was even recently featured as Trainer of the Month with FXP Hoop Fitness. If you told me 2 years ago I would now be a fitness instructor, I would have laughed at you.
The most important thing is that it's fun. Most people crack up when I tell them I'm a Hula-Hoop instructor and tell me they can't hoop. But I have yet to meet someone I can't teach to hoop! I have 21-year-olds and 65-year-olds in my class, petite people and tall people, couch potatoes and marathoners—it's for anyone and everyone.
