Meet our Superhero of the Month for August: Misha Rutherford!
It’s time to reinstate our Super Hero Of the Month and August is a perfect month to start! We stopped highlighting the Super Hero of the Month in April after the Pandemic due to overwhelm. However, our Super Hero of the month is a vital part of our culture and community because our super heroes inspire us and remind us of the deeper, impactful reasons we show up in-person and on Zoom every day.
Now more than ever we ALL need DAILY inspiration and our we need our tribe. We all have different stressors in our lives, and they are probably changing often right now. These stressors are most likely affecting you even more quickly and more heavily right now due to our current environment including the pandemic, the quarantine, fear and uncertainty, overstimulation and frustration from way too much information (both real and misinformation), politics and all of the natural consequences of these events.
I am personally so proud that we’ve stuck together as a tribe and helped each other get through this incredibly interesting and difficult time. And I want to remind you the Team Mo and I remain 100% committed to you at this most important time in our nation’s history. Your physical and mental health are imperative right now! And we will find ways to deliver the Mo-Mentum Fitness Experience wherever we are, inside, outside, on Zoom or on a remote Island away from all this madness!
Our Super Hero for August is a bright light and an incredible inspiration!
If you haven’t met Misha in person, you really need to! Misha has been with Mo-Mentum since the end of December 2019. Misha is a driven, passionate and exceptionally fun woman. Misha came to Mo-Mentum with big goals. She wanted to lose fat keep it off, feel better and be healthier overall. As simple as it sounds, losing weight and keeping it off, transforming your body for the long haul is not as easy as we’d all like it to be…. BUT it’s definitely doable. When you are determined, transforming your body is definitely achievable.
Misha is determined! She has a clear vision of the health she wants to create in her body, mind and spirit. She knows the body composition she’d going to achieve and the internal and external strength she’s going to build. Like every person, who starts a body (and life) transformation, Misha is taking her journey one day at a time. Some days are frustrating, and some days are awesome. This is a part of life and it means we are making REAL progress!
About a month or two into her program, Misha noticed that she felt thinner, she felt more tone, but the scale did not reflect how she felt. She looked a bit shocked when my response to this was an emphatic, “THIS IS EXACALLY WHAT WE WANT TO SEE! WOOOHOOOO!” Huh? Yes! REAL sustainable body transformation, (not just the quick fix “lose 10 pounds in 10 days”) is slow! When you TRANSFORM your body and life, it takes time. You need time for your metabolism to heal, time to learn new eating habits, you’re building muscle and teaching your body to use fat for energy more than it uses sugar.
Muscle requires blood flow and blood flow is water. Remember this; a liter of water weighs one kilogram which is 2.2 pounds. Muscle size comes from blood flow, so more muscle, means more blood, and blood has a weight. A pound of muscle is much smaller than a pound of fat. So you feel the changes in your body and you even see them before you see them on the scale when you’re transforming your body!
Misha is an excellent example of this! She trusted my enthusiasm about her lack of weight loss on the scale, and my focus on her consistency in her actions, and the small changes she could feel going on in her body and she’s continued to lose weight. Today, Misha is seeing bigger changes on the scale and experiencing plateaus as well. This is the true path to sustained weight loss. It’s an adventure filled with discovery, not a linear path.
Misha has used her consistent exercise to fuel her energy during these difficult times. She’s shared Mo-Mentum with her friends and she constantly inspires Mo-Tribe with her passion, her humor and her heart! She is a lighthouse in this world for Mo-Tribe and other.
Misha we couldn’t be prouder to call you the Mo-Mentum Fitness superhero of the month for August. You are an incredible woman that personally I am grateful to get to call my friend.
We love you Misha!
A few words from our Superhero herself:
I am honored to be chosen as a Superhero of the month!
A year ago I was a member of a different local gym and after 6 months of not seeing any results I was searching for a small private gym, close enough to my home to be encouraged to visit daily.
I found Mo-Mentum on the internet and after visiting the website and seeing all the classes available I was very intrigued. So I decided to sign up! I took every class available, my schedule permitting! So much variety : spin/weights, turbo, boxing, yoga, weightlifting, stretch ……
Super energetic coaches/instructors and welcoming members! I felt at home! Keeping track of my attendance, checking up on me if I do not show up one day (thank you Amanda), everyone’s encouraging words when I first started and struggled in classes really helped me to push through and keep showing up and not giving up as I often have in the past.
Challenges set up by Amanda to help with understanding nutrition better have been a big deal as well! I LOVE food and always have…. And always will!
I have read many books about how and what are the right things to eat, I have tried many diets and ended up at the same point every time….after losing weight fairly quickly, not keeping up with it and gaining it all back plus some.
As many of you know, I work in a restaurant, late nights, always around food. I think of my love affair with food as an addiction. It has been a struggle for me for many years.
Our bodies need food as fuel, there is food all around us, commercials, fast food places, restaurants, it is the center of entertaining! There were many times when I drove home from work around 11 pm and talked myself into one last drive thru visit. “I will start again tomorrow,” I told myself. But, tomorrow came and I would do the same thing. I would justify by thinking to myself, “What’s one more day? I will start Monday!”
When I was invited to a party or a dinner, I would put off sticking to my food plan for another day or two, or the weekend or the entire week. It got to the point that I would start declining invites by friends and family. And not because of the food ! Because I could not find anything to wear that I felt comfortable in and I refused to buy a bigger number in my pants and tops.
I used to struggle to walk up the stairs without getting winded, my back hurt most of the time, and when I woke up in the morning I had a hard time standing up straight. I used to take afternoon naps daily. I knew I had to get serious and make changes.
Honestly, getting on board with Amanda’s food plan was not easy in the beginning. I took as many classes as I could. I tried to keep a journal of what I ate (I am not very good at tracking my food so I took photos of my food). Amanda worked with me to help me find what worked for me.
I stopped drinking for a while (and I LOVE my wine). I do not eat as much meat as I used to. I now plan and prep my food for several days ahead and what I think really helped is intermittent fasting. So far I have lost 17 lbs. I don’t feel deprived and I do indulge here and there.
I did hit a plateau a while ago, I just kept going and after a few little tweeks in my food and my exercise program, I am seeing more progress. It is very rewarding, not only see the scale move in the right direction, but to put on clothes that I have not worn in a while (yes I do hold on to my favs ).
I have more energy, I move better, I sleep better, I am happier! Thank you everyone for all the support you have given me! I could not do it without you all!
Love, Misha.
Team Mo and I choose our SUPERHERO OF THE MONTH based on several important factors that we believe reflect the values on which the Mo-Mentum Fitness world-class culture has been built upon.
Mo-Mentum’s Core Values Include:
· Mindset for growth, constant never-ending learning – if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking.
· Over-deliver on all we do.
· Tribe – we all need a supportive and inspiring tribe, people we can be ourselves around and who nudge us to be one percent better every day.
· Transparency – We believe in honesty with ourselves and with others of course.
· Vitality – We believe in living vibrantly and living all out with courage and passion.
Love,
Amanda and Team Mo
