8 Honest Revelations From Someone Who Lost 100 Pounds, Gained It Back, Then Lost It Again

Images courtesy of Rachel Batista; Graphic by Valerie Fischel

Hitting your weight-loss goal can fill you with a sense of pride and accomplishment, but doing it twice? That journey can be confusing, encouraging, frustrating, disheartening, and everything in between. Rachel Batista, 39, a professional Olympic weightlifter and CrossFit coach from Coconut Creek, Florida, knows the complexity of this experience—she gained 100 pounds during a complicated pregnancy, lost it in six months and decided to enter a bikini competition, then gained that 100 pounds back with her second son. The second time around, she found a healthy way to lose the extra weight, and has kept it off for nearly 10 years. Through her process of gaining and losing, then gaining and losing again, Batista has learned some pretty life-changing lessons—and she’s using her experience to help inspire her clients and herself.

“I look at so much in my life and it all appears to have put me where I was supposed to be,” says Batista. “I love feeling like I am a strong and powerful woman. I love that my sons are proud of me. It makes me feel like I have found my purpose.”

Now Batista is at about the same weight she was before she had her first son, but with a more muscular body composition and a totally new outlook on her health. Here, she shares what she’s learned about her journey as well as the tips that have helped her feel her best.

Related: Why We Reach Weight-Loss Plateaus—And How To Get Past Them

1. Unhealthy habits catch up with you eventually.

A former gymnast and gymnastics coach, Batista’s early twenties included a lot of late nights, cocktails, and some not-so-healthy habits. At 4’11’’, she maintained about a 125-pound weight but admits that her lifestyle wasn’t healthy or sustainable. “You think you’re invincible. I might have been light, but there was nothing healthy about it. I was either not eating or eating a lot, and I always felt controlled by food.”

When she was pregnant at age 27, though, her usual weight-maintenance tactics weren’t an option. Not only was she gaining weight from carrying her son, but her usual diet of unhealthy foods caused even more weight gain once she wasn’t able to work off the excess calories—plus, she couldn’t resort to her former unhealthy habit of skipping meals to counteract other high-calorie indulgences. “I was always nauseous, and the only thing that would help would be to eat something, suck on a candy, or drink a ginger ale—all high-calorie, high-sugar stuff. That was my excuse, and that excuse made me gain 100 pounds. I over-ate myself into high blood pressure, and with a high-risk pregnancy, I couldn’t work out to expend the calories.”

Of course, weight gain during pregnancy is totally normal and part of the process, but Batista credits an unhealthy relationship with food as a big part of the extreme jump on the scale. “I allowed food to be a crutch,” she says. 

2. Quick fixes just don’t stick long term.

The last time Batista saw her weight during her first pregnancy was at the eight-month mark—220 pounds. (She estimates she gained a lot more during the last month of her pregnancy.) But after her son was born in 2003, she dove straight into work mode and decided to train for her first bikini competition in just six months. “[As a former gymnast], I like performing and I like to show off, and my long-term goal was that I didn’t want to be somebody’s overweight mom or be embarrassed about my weight. But, I needed something more than that to motivate me. I needed to dig into my competitive side.” Through a combination of extreme exercise and calorie restriction, she hit her goal weight for the competition and dipped below 10 percent body fat.

Within a couple of days after the competition, though, Batista estimates she put 20 pounds back on. “Most of it was water weight, so I ballooned out. Obviously, you can’t gain that amount of fat in that time, but it just goes to show you what you can do to your body.”

“I wanted it all at once, but that doesn’t last,” says Batista. “So when you take shortcuts and you try to look for the easy way out, it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It’s not going to do anything.” After trying (and struggling) to get back on another weight-loss plan, she realized she needed a competitive goal to stay on track, so she went on to do five more competitions, steadily gaining and then losing weight.

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5 Simple Tricks For Mastering The Perfect Push-Up

Guido Mieth, Getty Images

Push-ups remain a standard move in fitness classes everywhere for a simple reason: They work. Sure the exercise works your arm muscles, but it’s also great for your core and chest. “It’s a full-body toner,” says celebrity trainer Astrid Swan. “You are strengthening your shoulders, triceps, biceps, back, chest, core, and glutes. Engaging all of these muscles at once means you are upping your metabolic rate, burning a significant amount of calories, and you’re helping to improve your posture, too.”

Simply put, the push-up is one of the best bodyweight exercises you can do—and there are plenty of ways to make the move beginner-friendly or more challenging. Here, Swan breaks down three basic push-up variations, and the essential dos and don’ts that’ll help you master every one.

First, let’s talk form. Here’s how to fix (and avoid) the five most common push-up mistakes.

1. Place your hands in the proper position.

“Common mistakes I see are having your hands too wide, or turning the hands in or out, which can lead to wrist and shoulder pain,” says Swan. Your palms should be under your shoulders or slightly wider, and your wrists and hands should point directly forward, she explains. For the standard push-up you want to have your palms flat and flushed against the floor.

2. Don’t forget to engage your core.

“Letting your belly go is a big no-no,” says Swan. After all, you’ll need to keep your core tight in order to maintain one solid line from your head to your toes.

3. Keep your hips lifted the entire time.

“Letting your hips drop down before your chest lowers in a common issue,” says Swan. Keep your hips lifted throughout the movement, and if you notice they tend to “sag” toward the floor, lower to your knees in order to maintain proper form. If you need more support try separating your feet to create a wider, sturdier base. When you’re feeling stable and want to kick things up a notch, move your feet closer together.

4. Use your breath.

Since a push-up challenges your entire body, you’ll need to use your breath to get you through it—meaning don’t hold it. “Lower down slowly on the inhale, and exhale as you press back to starting position,” says Swan.

5. Keep your neck neutral.

Many people either look up at their reflection in the mirror or drop their heads down and look in between their feet. Neither is correct. “Your head is neutral, in line with your spine, and with a small tuck of your chin,” says Swan. Pick a spot on the floor just in front of your hands and focus on that.

Now here are three super-effective push-up variations that work your arms, abs, and chest.

1. A basic push-up: Start in a high plank position with your hands flat on the floor about shoulder-width apart. Keeping your body in one long line, bend your arms and lower yourself as close to the floor as you can. Then push back up to a plank. 

Justin Steele; modeled by Astrid Swan. Hair and Makeup by Sacha Harford at NEXT ARTISTS

2. With knees on the floor: This is great beginner-friendly variation of the basic plank—it will help you master proper form and work up to building a full range of motion. You’ll follow essentially the same motion as the basic push-up, but with your knees on the floor and feet up in the air behind you. The one important rule to remember: “Roll over to more of the top knee/thigh to protect your knee caps,” says Swan.

3. The triceps burner: The standard push-ups mentioned above will fatigue your chest and shoulders fairly quickly, but by narrowing the position of your hands, you can target your triceps instead. “Place your hands slightly closer than shoulder-width apart and keep your elbows glued to your sides,” says Swan. As you lower yourself down and back up, make sure to keep your elbows close to your torso, which allows your triceps to pick up a lot of the slack of the movement.

Justin Steele; modeled by Astrid Swan. Hair and Makeup by Sacha Harford at NEXT ARTISTS

You may also like: Try this 10-minute plyometric workout you can do at home:

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I Worked Out In Just A Sports Bra And It Changed Everything

Courtesy of Marissa Gold

I’m not the type to show up to a workout in just a sports bra. “But, you wear leggings as pants,” you might counter. Absolutely. And I’ll gladly testify before congress to defend leggings’ rights to count as pants. But something about wearing just a sports bra—leaving so much of my bare skin completely exposed—always felt too scandalous to me. The greater the surface area of my body I can slip into the safe, opaque embrace of spandex, the better.

As a pre-teen in the nineties, I spent most of my evenings in ballet class where the clothing was—by any standard—minimal. But at that age, still blissfully indifferent to my own body, leotards felt as comfortable and modest to me as one of Kyle Richards’ muumuus. It wasn’t until I grew up—and grew breasts—that I started to feel self-conscious.

It wasn’t until I grew up—and grew breasts—that I started to feel self-conscious.

During my early teenage years, I’d accompany my mom to her local aerobics class. She preferred to hang toward the back and always wore loose-fitting clothes to blend into the chorus of moms that made up most of the room. As we grapevined left and right, I couldn’t help but notice the small pride of women in the front row who boldly went sports bra-only. I hypothesized that maybe they did not have the inevitable-for-everyone stomach pudge when they bent forward into a runner’s lunge, so shirts were really superfluous. Maybe their nipples somehow never got hard. What was it that made these women feel totally comfortable showing so much skin? It would be years until I’d finally have the balls to find out.

Flash forward to the present day, and my adult life is still filled with dance and workout classes (though sadly no aerobics). My usual class uniform is spandex. Lots of spandex. Typically a sports bra layered under a tank, and cute leggings. But it was a recent visit to one of my favorite cardio classes, 305 Fitness, that inspired me to peel my shirt off and let go of my sports bra hangup once and for all.

This was the place to let go of that kind of self-talk and shake what your mama gave ya. Even if what your mama gave ya was a mild complex about baring your body in public.

Let me set the scene for you: This is a cardio dance class where you booty pop to Beyoncé in a room lit up with disco balls and neon signs with a live DJ spinning. Teachers scream and crawl on the floor. The wall has “Unleash the beast” written on it. The instructors pretty much never wear full shirts. If you’re going to let your freak flag fly in any workout class, this is it.

Toward the end of class, the lights go off and a black light goes on, illuminating only our teeth and the day-glo Nike swooshes on our feet. You immediately feel a level of anonymity in the darkness that makes you want to hit the ten-minute hip-hop choreography extra hard. On that day, even though I couldn’t see myself in the mirror, I knew I was killing the moves in the dark. I felt confident. I felt sexy. And as I glanced into the mirror, all I could see was my white sports bra glowing out from underneath my tank top, as if to say, you’re ready.

As the lights came back on and the class ended, I gave a high-five to a newbie in the back who had been super reserved and could barely even bring herself to twerk just yet. She reminded me of myself back in the day in my mom’s aerobics class, trying to figure out the women in the front row. As I left class that day, I vowed to come back next time without a shirt. All of my previous fears—from “What if people look at my boobs?” to “What if my stomach looks fat in that position?”—suddenly seemed ridiculous. This is type of place where that kind of self-talk ends.

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5 Incredible Exercises That Work Your Abs And Arms At The Same Time

Christopher Futcher / Getty Images

You can approach your workout one of two ways: You’re either in it to win it, or you are trudging through it because you know exercising is something you should be doing. Both reasons are acceptable, and if you’re like me, you probably fluctuate between the two mindsets daily.

No matter what motivates you to start working out there’s one thing that remains consistent: you want your workout to work. Performing effective exercises that target multiple muscles will help satisfy that requirement—and these five moves work both your abs and arms at the same time. 

The Workout: Do 10 reps of each exercise. Rest for two minutes then repeat the circuit one more time. You can either do this routine five two to three times per week, or add your favorite moves to your regular training routine.

1. Lateral Plank Walk — do 10 reps

• Start in a high plank with shoulders above your wrists and abs tight.
• Step right foot and right hand to right side immediately following with left foot and left hand. That’s 1 rep.
• Do 5 reps to the right then switch directions and do 5 reps to the left.

2. Plank Ups — do 10 reps

• Start in a high plank. Bend one arm to bring the elbow and forearm to the floor.
• Bring the other arm down so you are in a forearm plank.
• Push back up to the start position, placing each hand where your elbows were.
• Repeat this movement, alternating which side you lower first with each rep.
• Do 10 reps.

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5 Ways You’re Probably Doing Squats Wrong

Valerie Fischel

Unless you’ve spent your life in the desert with no wifi (and even then…), you’ve performed a squat. It’s the move that makes an appearance in nearly every type of workout. Why are squats such a popular exercise? First and foremost, there’s no simpler way to strengthen your backside. Second, “Your legs and butt are the largest muscle groups in the body, and the stronger the muscle, the bigger potential to burn more calories,” explains celebrity trainer Astrid Swan. Talk about a two-for-one: By building your gluteal muscles, you’ll get a firmer, stronger booty and build more calorie-burning lean muscle—but are you doing those squats correctly? Here, Swan breaks down the five basic dos and don’ts of how to squat.

1. Position your feet correctly.

“To perform a perfect squat, start with your feet just slightly wider than hip-width apart, and turn your toes about five to fifteen degrees outward, depending on your hip mobility. Remember, not like a ballerina—just a small turnout,” says Swan.

2. Watch your knees.

Your knees should not extend forward further than your toes. If you drop your butt straight down your knees won’t have anywhere to go but forward, so initiate the squat movement by hinging your hips back toward a wall (real or imaginary) behind you. “Shift your weight back into your heels and test this by wiggling your toes. If you can’t wiggle, shift back more,” says Swan. Your heels need to stay glued to the ground the entire time in order to protect your knees and properly activate your glutes. And you want to avoid having your knees buckle in—imagine that you’re slightly pressing them out to help keep them in line with your shins. 

3. Don’t arch your back.

“Keep your spine in a neutral position, arms extended straight out in front of you for balance,” says Swan. Avoid tucking your pelvis under or overarching your back—use your abs to keep your back long and straight.

4. Keep your chest up.

“Often I see people diving their chest forward as they lower into the squat,” says Swan. Instead, keep your chest lifted. An easy hack to learn this is to, “Keep eye contact with something level, straight ahead,” says Swan.

5. Use the proper range of motion.

How do you know exactly how low to go? “Starting slow and with no weight is best when beginning,” says Swan. Only go as low as you can while maintaining all of the proper form points above. Then, “Exhale and keep your core tight as you stand up to starting position.” With a little practice you’ll be able to get lower and feel stronger with each rep!

Ready, set, squat!

Now try doing a few squats keeping these form tips in mind. Start with three sets of 15 bodyweight squats. Once you nail down the basic form you can start to get ~fancy~ with your variations as well as start to incorporate dumbbells, kettlebells, and more. Here’s Swan showing off A+ form during a weight squat:

Justin Steele; modeled by Astrid Swan. Hair and Makeup by Sacha Harford at NEXT ARTISTS

You may also like: Try this 10-minute plyometric workout you can do at home:

The post 5 Ways You’re Probably Doing Squats Wrong appeared first on SELF.

Here’s Exactly What To Do If You Only Have 15 Minutes To Work Out

Monkeybusinessimages / Getty Images

A bodyweight workout is the perfect option when you’re short on time. It’s an anywhere, anytime type of routine: No gym, no weights, all you.

Rebecca Kennedy, NYC-based trainer, shared her go-to 15-minute bodyweight workout with SELF—use it to kick things into high gear the next time you feel like playing workout hooky because you don’t have time. You’ll check the cardio box by taking minimal rest to jack up your heart rate while doing strength moves, too. Here’s how your 15 minutes will break down:

1. Start with a quick three-minute dynamic warm-up.

Yes, even if you only have 15 minutes, you still need to do a proper warm-up. This will help prepare your muscles for harder work and increase your range of motion so you can make the most out of each exercise in the following section. Don’t slack off during these three minutes, ease into the movements then begin to pick up the pace to get that heart rate rising.

1. 90 Seconds: Spider Lunge With Twist + Jumping Jacks

• Start standing tall, then fold forward.
• Walk your hands out to a high plank, then bring your right foot and set it on the floor on the outside of your right hand.
• Reach your right arm to the ceiling and twist your torso to the right. Return your arm back to the ground and step your right foot back so that you’re in high plank. Repeat on the left side.
• Then walk your hands back to your feet and roll up to stand. Do 10 jumping jacks, and start again from the beginning. Continue for 90 seconds.

2. 45 Seconds: Squat To Front Lunge

• Start standing with feet hip-distance apart. Shift your weight into your heels and sit back to perform a squat, bending your knees to 90 degrees without letting them go beyond the toes.
• Push through your heels to return to standing and now take a step forward with your right leg, and bend both knees so that you’re in a lunge position.
• Step back to standing and repeat, starting with a squat, but now stepping forward with your left leg. Continue alternating for 45 seconds.

3. 45 Seconds: Reverse Lunge To Straight-Leg Front Kick

• Start standing with feet hip-distance apart. Step your right leg back and lower into a lunge, aiming for a 90-degree bend in both knees.
• As you return to standing, sweep your right leg forward into a front kick, keeping the leg straight.
• Repeat on the left side and continue alternating for 45 seconds.

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8 Running Must-Haves That Will Make You Ridiculously Excited For Summer

Logging al fresco miles during the summer is a magical but challenging time. That’s partly because you’re in a constant struggle between loving and absolutely despising the warmer weather. And partly because all of the sweat. Regardless, ‘tis the season for outdoor running, and these are the eight pieces of running gear that are making me really excited about tackling those hot, sweaty, delightfully challenging miles.

1. Ridiculously cute leggings that also hide sweat.

Splits59.com

I’ve never loved running in shorts so I am all about capris that have stylish and functional mesh panels that help keep me feeling cool during the hotter summer months. This pair boasts a few in sweaty hotspots including behind the knees and around the upper thigh. Plus, the color blocking is varsity-level cute while the black fabric along the backside will help hide awkward butt sweat marks. Get it here.

Odyssey Performance Capri, $118; Splits59.com

2. Easy, breezy, sneakers.

AthleticPropulsionLabs.com

These sneaks are white and black (you know, like a panda), lightweight, and extra-cushiony. They’re designed to give you that extra spring in your stride. Stylish and functional? Game on! Get them here.

Women’s TechLoom Phantom White/Black, $165; AthleticPropulsionLabs.com

3. A cute headband that tames the flyaways.

UnderArmour.com

I’ve been playing both sides when it comes to the fitness debate over headband thickness. Currently I’m on team mini and these thin headbands are my summer jam. Get them here.

UA Mini Wordmark Headbands, $12; UnderArmour.com

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