I named this article not with my mind attached to the operatic concept (surprise!) but with my focus on the metaphysical metaphor of the butterfly. The butterfly is a symbol of metamorphosis and transformation. It is a sign of letting go of the old and fully embracing the new and I can’t think of anyone better to embroider with that concept than Rachel Mac.
Rachel is a commercial litigator working out of Chicago, Illinois and her physical transformation came to me one day via a newsletter from Quest Protein Bars. I was immediately astounded by her ‘before and after’ pics and immediately tracked her down to find out more. So here, without further ado, is her story….
First of all you have said on your blog at Quest Nutrition that you were more ‘indoorsy and bookish’ than sports orientated, and that the pressure of college and law school saw your weight spiraling out of control. So what triggered you to finally take control of your weight and how difficult was it to adopt an exercise program?
“I was out drinking with a group of coworkers, we were all playfully teasing each other, and one of the guys called me a “fat bitch.” I have a feeling he wasn’t teasing. It hit me really hard because I was living under layers of denial about my weight. I told myself that my clothes had shrunk, clothing companies were changing their sizes, and that everyone gained a bit of weight as they got older. That comment made me realize that other people were seeing me in a certain way. And I didn’t like it.”
What do you think your biggest temptation was during this transformation and how did you overcome it?
“It’s funny—I get this question a lot. I don’t remember many temptations during the initial stage of weight loss. I made one tiny change after another, making sure each little change stuck before I moved on. First, I started by ordering skim milk in the cafeteria instead of chips when I was hungry for a snack during law school. It was just a tiny thing, but I’d read that skim milk had lots of protein and could keep me full for a long time. It worked, so I pressed on.
“Temptation now, that is a different story and something I battle hard with nearly every day. Some time in the last year or two- after I lost the initial weight—I developed a killer sweet tooth! I could eat a dozen cookies in a sitting, three cupcakes, anything sugary! I sometimes sit around so distracted by the thought of sugar that I can’t focus on my job! But I find that the longer I stay away from it, the less I crave it, until after a couple of weeks I’m not even interested anymore.”
Well they do say that sugar is a highly addictive substance!
Now, moving on, can you tell us about the support network you joined SparkPeople.com? How did interaction with that community help you?
“When I was on my own, trying to lose weight, I felt like an island. I felt it wasn’t fair that everyone else ate junk food all the time—especially people who looked slim—and I “had” to eat small portions of clean foods all the time. But I joined SparkPeople and suddenly the world of people living like me got a lot bigger. The social-networking component of that site was huge for me, I knew if I turned down a temptation, I could run to the computer and type up a blog about how strong I’d been and I’d have thirty comments in half a day congratulating me for being strong. Giving other people advice also helped me to reinforce my own new health eating habits.”
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| Rachel Before | Rachel After |
The ever present pressures of law school must have made it difficult to maintain a healthy eating and exercise schedule though nevertheless. You must have experienced setbacks at times…can you tell us about those and how you eventually reached the ‘enough is enough’ stage and took control?
“Certainly there were setbacks. Graduate school is a Mecca for unhealthy eating habits. Money is tight, student groups offer free pizza at lunchtime talks, and you have to work so hard and for such long hours that the thought of getting up to cook just doesn’t cross your mind. It was all too easy to just click-click-click and order a pizza. I also felt a lot of pressure from my classmates, who saw the big shift in my eating habits and constantly questioned whether I was being healthy. This is something that follows me to this day; but by embracing being “the healthy eater” at school, or at the office, I’m able to show people that this is my lifestyle, and I’m focused on my health.”
What were your sources of inspiration and who were your role models at this time?
“Britney Spears circa, like, 1998, had the best body around, hands down. She had a ton of muscle, but never crossed the line of looking too masculine. Even now, I strive to have a lot of muscle (which I love) but maintain that girlish femininity she had. When I first started to lose weight, I remember looking at pictures of Jessica Alba and wanting a butt like hers. I really just wanted to be skinny, and it took me a very long time to get past that. I spent hours and hours on the elliptical, wishing to just be smaller and thinking that muscles would make me bulky. When I was starting to think about toning up, I looked on bodybuilding.com for tips and saw Jamie Eason. It clicked in me that muscles were totally sexy and I was off to the weight room.”
Now after you graduated you used your new found confidence to do some pretty adventurous things, you have to tell us about that….for instance climbing Mount Kilimanjaro!
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“Kilimanjaro was a trip—it made me realize how incredibly fortunate I was to be young, strong, alive, and with the resources to see the world. When I was heavy, I never would’ve made it up Kilimanjaro, or done all the other awesome things I did in two months in Africa, like kayaking the Nile, carrying a 35-pound backpack from bus to guesthouse to public taxi, wandering through the streets of Old Stone Town, Zanzibar when it was 100 degrees out, or trekking through the jungle in Uganda searching for silverback gorillas in the wild. I wouldn’t have even dreamed of taking a trip like that. I was so incredibly grateful to myself for changing my life; all of those things meant a million times more than looking good in a bikini.”
Okay so the weight loss and personal achievement areas were going pretty well (understatement of course!) but at that time you have described yourself as still being ‘skinny fat’ and were still having issues when it came to really making changes in your body….can you tell us about the difficulties you were encountering as I am sure a lot of women will be able to identify with them…
“I was too focused on being skinny, there’s no question about that. I was technically maintaining my weight, but now that I look back on it, I was slowly putting on fat and then wasting muscle tissue to make up for the difference on the scale. I had maintained at 126 lbs (I’m 5’5’’) for about three years, but my body fat was at 24%. I was so focused on being a size zero that I didn’t care about muscle—I spent 90 minutes a day, 6 days a week on the elliptical and took in just 1300 calories a day.”
Time for another transformation, so what was the plan?
“My bodybuilder boyfriend challenged me to try things his way for a month—eat more protein, lift weights instead of doing cardio all the time—and just see what happened. I knew he was right when he said “how much damage can you possibly do in one month?” but I thought that a small-framed girl taking advice from a bodybuilder was just stupid. He challenged me to increase my caloric intake to 1700 calories a day—but make up the entire difference in protein—and lift weights just 45 minutes a day and drop all the cardio I was doing.”
Any fears at this point when it came to training with weights increasing your calorie intake? And how did you overcome them?
“I was, quite frankly, terrified that I would turn into a massive Hulkette. But it was nice to be able to eat. I trusted my boyfriend and knew that it wasn’t in his best interest to make me look like a bodybuilder, too, so I took on an experimental spirit and gave it a shot. The funny thing is, now I get most of my information from bodybuilding-focused websites and use those same principles to stay lean and toned. Oh, and I’m still a size 0.”
So to competition…what drew you towards actually getting up on stage?
“I was looking for the next step—the next challenge. I loved lifting weights, but wasn’t sure where I would go from where I was. I was walking around at about 18% body fat and around 127 lbs. Fantastically lean and toned for a normal person, but I wanted more. I started casually looking into it; I’d heard of the Arnold Sports Festival, so I signed up for the bikini competition there, only partially aware that I was signing up for an enormous international competition.”
Any uncertainties regarding competing at that time?
“I cherished my lifestyle, which involved healthy eating 5 days a week and whatever I wanted on the weekends. I knew giving up those cheats would be hard. I was also extremely apprehensive about standing on stage, in what essentially amounted to a thong, with hair and makeup and glitter and sparkles. I’m not really all that high maintenance on a day-to-day basis, so a lot of that stuff really intimidated me.”
By this time you were a practicing lawyer…how did you fit the training around your day?
“This is the hard part. I often don’t leave the office till 10:00 at night. Being a lawyer means you work for other people, which means you work after other people. Our clients do their work during the day, and then send their problems to us to manage. My schedule is terribly unpredictable, both on a day-to-day basis and on a longer-term basis.
“Fortunately, with this unpredictability comes some (necessary) flexibility. There is a gym in my office building, and most of the partners I work for sneak away during the day for a run or a lift. I followed suit. The beauty of strength training is that my workouts are nice and short, and I can get to the gym and back in a short time, while still being in the same building in case an emergency were to come up.”
Your first show was at the Arnold Sports Festival in the Amateur Bikini division…how was that whole experience?
“The Arnold was a trip—I had no clue what I was getting myself into. But it was a fantastic experience. Being at the Expo, being back stage before my competition, I was surrounded by people whose lives are based on fitness, just like mine. I remember sitting around backstage after tanning and seeing a bunch of other girls eating protein powder dry and thinking “I can’t believe other people do this!” There’s a kinship born out of going through the same hellish pre-competition process when nobody else in your ordinary life is going through it with you. Although I didn’t place or advance to the finals, I had a great time at the show, and I’ve already signed up for my next competition, May 14 in Chicago.”
Of course no interview would be complete without a mention of your addiction to ‘bars’…
“I wish I could eat clean, healthy food that I prepped at home every single meal. But the reality is that I have weeks when I’m in the office every hour I’m not asleep, and I may only have a few minutes at home each night before I have to go to sleep. I rely on bars, but hated that most bars on the market were full of glycerin and sugar alcohols. Don’t get me wrong, I love the taste of candy as much as the next girl, but if I was going to eat something convenient, it had to be healthy. I saw an ad for Quest Bars on Simplyshredded.com and ordered $50 of them before I’d asked a single question about the taste, the macros were so good. Now I’m hooked, and I can’t even keep them in my office in any quantity or I tend to pig out on them.”
So what are your hopes for the future?
“I’m working on figuring this out right now, actually. I have a few photo shoots under my belt, and I love the idea of doing fitness modeling. It fits easily into my career because I can do shoots on the weekends. I’m looking into some sponsorship opportunities that look like they’re coming my way. I am actively preparing for my next competition while exploring Biosignature Analysis and making some changes in my diet. Most of all, though, I love sharing healthy recipes and tips with my Facebook friends, many of whom are in the process of losing weight or trying to transition to a healthy lifestyle. I know what it’s like to start out and feel like you know nothing and the world is stacked up against you losing weight, so I love to be able to provide some support and inspiration to people on that path.”
How can people contact you?
“Add me as a friend on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/rachelmacfitness, or follow me on Twitter at Rachel__Mac (that’s two underscores). I love hearing from other like-minded people, and I post lots of fun recipes, meal ideas, and pictures every day.”
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