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My name is Susan Lucy and I am a 42 year old stay-at-home mother of 3
children, ages 10, 9, and 7. I have been married for 14 years and live in a suburb outside of Boston, Massachusetts. This is my story.

For the better part of my adult life I was obsessed about my body image. I grew up active and never had to watch what I ate. When I went to college, I gained the freshman 15 (which was more like 25) and spent the next 5 years
punishing myself horribly about how I looked. I tried every diet and gimmick in the book and got more depressed each time I failed. I wasted so much time obsessing during those years. When you are 41, those years seem much more precious.

After college, I became a "cardio queen” and lost most of the weight I had put on in college but I still obsessed about how I
looked for many years to come – through getting married, having kids in 3 years (talk about body image issues) and leaving my career to stay home with my children.

After my youngest child was born in 2002, I got more serious about getting
fit, again by doing mostly cardio and not much weight training. I worked out a lot, mostly to compensate for my bad eating habits. I still had many issues
with food and I would get so angry with myself for “going off my diet” or
eating “forbidden foods”. In 2004, my husband got me a gift of personal
training for Christmas. While I was working with the trainer, I did awesome. I
gained some upper body strength, which is what I had wanted for a long
time. Around the same time, I also got my certification to be a spinning
instructor and started teaching at a local gym. After, I stopped the personal
training because of the financial burden, I found it difficult to continue with
my program. I no longer had a plan and so I would usually just do cardio at the gym.

The summer I turned 40, I was sitting up one night and saw the infomercial for P90X. I
was very intrigued but very reluctant to buy it. First of all, I never was
successful working out at home. I am a hardcore gym rat. Second of all, I
had purchased so many gimmicks and gadgets in the past, I didn’t want to be
let down again. If it said, “as seen on TV”, I owned it. But the next time I saw
the infomercial, something grabbed my attention. There didn’t seem to be
any gimmicks just hard work and some discipline. I still didn’t purchase it.
Could I do this for 90 days? Would I fail again? What ultimately convinced
me to buy it was, I wanted to get some upper body strength and this seemed
simple – push-ups and pull-ups were core exercises. Little did I know how
humbling it would be to try to do a pull-up? I also realized very early on, how important
good nutrition was to be successful on this program. When I got my P90X, I
was very overwhelmed. It seemed so “extreme”. I didn’t even want to take my
measurements initially, but I did, because I think part of me was convinced I was going
to fail again. I had my daughter take Day 1 pictures and I started on
September 1, 2007 - 7 days after my 40th birthday.

I thought I was in pretty good shape before I started but I got my butt kicked
pretty badly that first week. I did great with the cardio as a result of my spinning, but the weight training, primarily the
push-ups and pull-ups were so hard. I couldn’t even do one pull-up. I kept
thinking “What have I gotten myself into? I can’t do this”.

It was around day 45 that it all clicked for me. I felt myself getting stronger
and instead of obsessing about what food I had put in my body, I was
thinking "What do I need to consume to fuel my body for my next workout?"
I was stronger but not just on the outside. I had more confidence and felt
better because my eating was cleaner. I didn't like myself for so many years; it was refreshing to be proud of my efforts.

P90X has taught me how to work out properly and efficiently. Every day when
I get up, I have a plan on what I am going to do. I do most of my weight
workouts at home but I am at the gym a lot for my classes so I also weight
train there. I even follow the nutrition plan, most of the time.
Because of my past, I will always struggle with eating issues, but they don’t
control me any longer. I am a totally changed person. Mentally, I am more confident and physically I am stronger than I could ever imagine.

Fast forward to 2009, I am still using P90X as my primary workout, although I have integrated TMT , Chalean Extreme, Insanity and Tony Horton's One on Ones as well. I am now teaching a bootcamp fitness class in addition to spinning and I feel better than I ever have in my life. I am a better parent and spouse because I am happy how I look and feel. I am constantly asked how I achieved my results. Because I work in a gym, people expect me to say that I spent all this money on a trainer etc. When I tell them it's from a program I bought from an infomercial, some are speechless.

Thank you Tony and Beachbody for helping me change my life.