TT Thursday – Weight Loss Challenge Week 16 and Coach Tulin, a plus-size fitness coach

TT Thursday – Weight Loss Challenge Week 16 and Coach Tulin, a plus-size fitness coach

A Huffington Post article mentioned in passing that a fit overweight person is more healthy than an unfit skinny person.  This is true but the article did not talk about the fitness studies and that the overweight person was exercising regularly.  The studies showing that the fit overweight person is usually as fit as the fit moderate person had as their study group, overweight people who were exercising one to two hours a day.  Getting fit is actually more important than losing weight although if you have knee, hip, and/or back problems, losing weight is very important because it lessens the pressure.  The problem with becoming fit is finding exercise that is suitable or can be modified for weight issues because honestly bouncing more than 200 pounds on these knees ain’t happening.  The article talked about the pressure doctors put on people to lose weight.  Ironically, Coach Tulin became fit despite her doctors.  While the doctors told her to lose weight, they discouraged her from getting fit. Tulin ignored their advice and focused on getting fit and healthy.  Her weight loss came as a result of becoming fit.

(Note: this post is longer than I thought it would be because Coach Tulin chronicled her fitness journey on various social media and I enjoyed reading/seeing it.  I hope you do too.)

Coach Tulin, becoming fit while being happy with being plus-sized

So while the Huffington Post did a hero’s glamour shot of overweight women, this is one woman I think they should have featured.  Coach Tulin is incredible.  She started off on you-tube recording her journey of becoming fit. In the beginning, she had to modify exercises so that her body could handle them and then eventually she could do them without modifications. She is now a coach and loves being a plus-sized woman.

Unfortunately Coach Tulin’s first You-tube video which I viewed a while ago is no longer up showing when she first started.  This is the earliest video up now but it does show her  75 days after she began.   She started at more than 300 pounds.  In the video she showed how she modified the exercise in the beginning so that she could do them and how she had improved after the 75 days.  There’s a hilarious scene where her cat joins her in exercising.  She’s a lot braver than I am because she showed herself in a before and after shot in a turquoise bikini at the end.  This video was made November 2, 2012.

Her early videos which are no longer there were more like home videos.  I think she redid them to add the text on the side because a lot of the videos look familiar but a bit different. Here she is again at 113 days.  She does the bikini again from the side. I wish she hadn’t taken off that first video though.  It was in a cramped room and she was huffing and puffing and it made me feel like I could do it too.  I just needed to start.

I wish I could have been that brave to document my progress in losing weight especially from the side like she did at the end of this video.  Thinks about it.  I’m still chicken.  I can go nude at a naturist place without embarrassment because nobody cares but I’m embarrassed to take a bikini photo?  Ironic, right?

This Coach Tulin video was made December 9, 2012.

 

Many of her you-tube videos focuses on how to modify one exercise to your ability.  In this February 1, 2018 video, she shows how to modify an inchworm plank for different abilities.  She often says it doesn’t matter how slow you are on your fitness journey, just that you are on the journey.

In 2016, she was asked to be part of a test group for a new Country Heat exercise program (country dance centered exercise routines) created by Autumn Calabres.  The first day the test group started, her husband was in the hospital  due to a flare up for MS. She ended up doing the exercise in the hospital in the narrow space between the hospital bed and the wall.  In Tulin’s you-tube notes, she said that it was important her husband was the reason she took care of herself, not the excuse of why she didn’t.  In another video, she and her husband did the routine together although he had to modify the routine due to his MS restrictions. She said he does have MS but he is not defined by MS.

This is the routine after she got it down .  She uploaded her videos were released after the “secret” testing period was over.

 

Lately she hasn’t been posting many videos on you-tube but I think that’s because like a lot of other people she has moved from the you-tube platform once they made payouts negligible despite thousands of views.  Like many people she has moved to Facebook.  Her latest video was 19 hours ago on her Facebook where you can find her latest videos.  This Facebook video is from 24 hours ago. In the video text she asks, “What if fitness companies didn’t worry about flattering and focused on true fitness… normalized a body in motion… all bodies?”

 

She also posts on instagram.  I love this pic.  (Note: with instagram, there’s no easy to just do the pic, so you have to link the whole post which is good because it gives people an easy way to visit the post but it does take up a lot more space on a blog so sorry if it makes things seem longer than usual.)

She started Instagram before she started her fitness journey so it chronicles the fitness journey from the very beginning.  However, you don’t really see it until she mentions in this August 11, 2012 post that she started the Insanity workout after finishing two rounds of Power 90 Extreme, is a DVD intense exercise regimen done at home promising it’ll give you a ripped body in, you guessed it, 90 days.   So I’m guessing her fitness journey started in February of 2012.   Those rigorous workouts last 60 to 90 minutes done 6-7 days a week. In fact, it is suggested to take a fitness test before starting the program and if you are not up to the mark, to take the easier Power 90 course.  Tulin took the Power 90X but as she explained in her you-tube videos, she modified the exercises to her ability until she could build up to doing them as is.  She didn’t just throw up her hands and decide it was too hard for her.  She made her own path.

Quote posted by Coach Tulin on November 5, 2013

I think that’s one secret to becoming fit when you’re overweight.  Honestly most exercise programs aren’t made with overweight people in mind.  They don’t take into account the extra strain the weight can put on knees and backs if you’re trying to do jumping jacks, for instance.  So the exercises have to be modified in a healthful way without giving up.  Since she has become fit, Coach Tulin focuses on helping other overweight people to start and continue their own fitness journey by showing them how to modify exercises to their needs.

I feel the mass media ignores the fit overweight.  They don’t fit into the couch potato stereotype of overweight people.  By not showing them, it makes it harder for other overweight people to get started on their journeys.  Having role models assists people to get started, opens up paths that are easier for having already been blazed by forerunners. In working on this post, looking at Coach Tulin’s videos and words over her journey and the way she modified the exercises, it is inspiring me to become fit.  I’ve been putting it off because honestly changing my eating habits seemed easier.  But now that my knees are feeling stronger, I think it maybe be time.

While she started chronicling her fitness journey pretty regularly starting with the Insanity workout of 2012, an earlier photo hints that fitness became important to her quite a bit earlier. This photo is from November 15, 2011 and as she says in another photo on the same day, “Finally plus-size activewear that keeps up with me.”

 

From August 11, 2012 when she started her first Insanity workout to the 30th day of her 2nd Insanity workout on November 27, 2012, she chronicled the changes below. December 4th, Coach Tulin said, “Do you know what “they” said to me? That there was nothing I can do. Oh…. lose weight. That was the doctors cure. Just lose weight. I know I am not the only plus-size women who walked into their docs office with everything going wrong: PCOS, endometriosis, insulin resistance, and hypothyroid. I experienced most of the symptoms associated with the above including male pattern baldness and facial hair. I am not ashamed and I am not ashamed of my body. It has done so much for me and has gotten me through so much. Doctors and meds are not an option right now. So I committed first to loving myself and the skin I am in. I changed my mind. Then I was determined to make change … in my mind first. My after is not my goal; progress is. I am going to make the best of it. Get fit and healthy … size doesn’t matter. I made a choice… a choice to believe “them” or believe in me. I am going to continue to do my best and forget the rest. What are you going to do? Are you going to believe in yourself or what “they” say? It’s in your hands. I am not talking cure but the quest for a better life. To grab it by the balls and live it my way and be my best everyday.”

As she lost weight, her health improved which was more important to her.  She would talk about it in many of her posts.  Her PCOS, insulin resistance, migraines, high blood pressure and depression dwindled as she shone with health.

May 13, 2013, Coach Tulin said this which I feel is inspiring : “It’s not super human willpower. It’s that I am willing to find power in being human … It’s about progress, not perfection”

 

The quotes she finds doesn’t emphasize the quick fast route but rather the consistent route even if it is slow.  Tulin’s not the grasshopper.  She’s the ant.

Instagram isn’t just her workouts and changes.  She did start posting about being on Shakeology fairly early on.  Later gorgeous salads and dinners started popping up.  I do love food.  Isn’t this pretty?

Every once in a while something would happen to make her realize how far she had come on her fitness journey like when she accidentally did a 5 mile hike.

(Note by the way the next instagram post contains a cussword so stop here if you are easily offended)

This next quote that she wrote felt so true to me.  When I started blogging I was worried about writing consistently, about motivation.  What happened to me was I built a habit of writing whether or not I felt inspired.  She found her way on her journey by creating a habit of fitness.  She said:

Coach Tulin is still on her journey.  Her weight fluctuates a bit but she doesn’t focus on that.  She focuses on getting stronger, walking further, becoming healthier.

Coach Tulin admits she’s not perfect.  The journey is not perfect.  It’s progress.  For her the journey started before she started.  Her husband had MS and he hit a point where he could not walk.  He believed he could walk although at that time she had no faith in him or herself.  He had hope.  She talks about him in this instagram post.  He’s there in the background working out.  Some of my favorite posts are of them together whether it’s date night or exercising.  She learned to have faith in him and in herself.

Coach Tulin said:

She is one of my heroes.

You can follow Coach Tulin on Facebook, Instagram, You-tube and her website. Coach Tulin also did an 8-episode podcast called Fit has no Size. Her fitness journey continues.

You can do a search to find something on Amazon like I did with “plus size workout dvd”.  If you’re interested in looking at plus-size video workouts, the search term “plus size workout” won’t work here (for some reason when I did it here, the results showed just clothes) but when I clicked on the “go” button, it took me to Amazon and showed me the workout DVDs. If you click on one of the results, it also takes you to the Amazon site. It’s the first time that there was distinctly different results on Amazon’s shortcut search engine they encourage affiliates to add on blogs and their actual search engine. Usually the results are mostly the top 6 results from the Amazon search engine. (see Amazon affiliate disclosure at the bottom of the post)



Week 16 Weight Loss Report

Okay, my weight loss progress.  Last week I finished at 221.2 pounds on Thursday although the previous Sunday I had been at 220.6.  So where am I at this week?    So this morning I hit 219.3  so I’ve lost 1.3 pounds for the week.  Not a lot but I’ll take it. Especially since I was a little bad this week and ate carbs (White rice three days in a row.  Yeah, I had asian food — Indian and Thai.  Oh yeah, and there was the garlic naan too.  And one raspberry white chocolate scone.  Sighs. Happy.)  No ice cream though and I am still doing the intermittent fasting thing.  Basically I eat one healthy meal a day — sometimes with meat and sometimes just veggies.  That gets supplemented with veggie snacks like tomatoes. I sprinkled coconut on tomatoes one day just to add crunch.  It was really different tasting so I’m not sure I like it.  I did like the tomato and the crunch though.  Maybe I’ll try toasted almonds instead next time. And I drink a lot of water.  Oh and coffee.


Weight Loss Challenges with Cash Prizes Starting All the Time

I wrote a lot so I’m wrapping this up quick.  Monday I walked 10,127 steps taking photos of murals.  Usually I walk an average of 5,000 steps if I leave the house so that was excellent for me.  The last time I walked 10,000 steps was September 4th and that was by accident. I’m doing okay on my challenges — basically the same as last week.  One challenge I committed to hit 219.7 pounds which I have done but it’s still showing 99% complete.  I think even though it says 219.7, the actual goal weight may be 219 to hit the 100% complete because I heard they go down.

That’s it for today.  I’ll post a pic tomorrow.

Note: I am a HealthyWage affiliate because it worked for me, Got me down from 252 to 219.3  and I’m still losing after decades of being stuck. The double whammy of positive and negative reinforcement works for me. (The positive reinforcement is I bet money per month and if I lose the money I get the money back plus some. Negative is if I don’t lose the weight, I lose the money.  How’s that for incentive?)

References:

What is the P90X workout? Rep. Paul Ryan credits Tony Horton fitness routine for keeping in shape
Aug 15, 2012

The P90X System
By Michael Esco, PhD, WebMD, 2010

Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong
by Michael Hobbes, photos by Finlay MacKay, Huffington Post, September 19, 2018

 

8 Replies to “TT Thursday – Weight Loss Challenge Week 16 and Coach Tulin, a plus-size fitness coach”

  1. Congrats on your weight loss. There is another lady many find motivating. Her name is Mirna Valerio. They call her ‘The Mirnavator,’ because she is motivating.

    1. Thank you! and thank you very much for the consistent support. I appreciate it a lot.

      Hope you’re having a great day!

  2. I really enjoyed reading about iamtulin. What a wonderful person and well done. Im on the opposite end of the scale. Im losing weight because of stress as my 21 year old son has schizophrenia and is in hospital. Most days I feel weak and ill. How I would love to be able to love myself and look after myself. Oh! Loved when the cat joined in. Ha ha.
    Well done on your weight loss. x???

    1. oh no! be sure to eat more. if you don’t have time to cook, maybe easy to eat veggies and fruits tht you can grab to take with you to the hospital? like apples, cherries, tomatoes, bananas? things that don’t take prep time. You probably aren’t home much to cook if he’s in the hospital

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