An Introduction

"Who are these people? What on Earth does SUGARPHIG mean? Why should I read this?!" Keep reading, and we promise to tell you! ;)

PC: Good and Lovely Things

Welcome to your official "meet-cute" with Ryan & Rachel and our couples wellness journey: SUGARPHIG GETS FIT. Even if you found yourself on this post by sheer accident, we're excited to have you with us, and hope that we can at least make you laugh via this candid account of what it's like for us to get fit, healthy, and well.

Speaking frankly, we have always been "big" individuals- the designated chubby friends with "great personalities". It's just a part of our personal identities, and has become a part of our identity as a couple as well, which (on most days) we deal with quite well.

You learn to poke fun at it, whether in sincerity or as a copping mechanism, and you deal.

Well, we're still dealing, but we realized we don't have to continue to do so in a way that lacks action.

But before we get too far into the kind of action we're talking about, we thought it might be prudent to do a brief intro to ourselves so we'll start there...

About Ryan,

I'm not used to this kind of thing so bear with me. Hi! I'm Ryan, the Phig half of Sugarphig.

I'm pretty laid back- quiet until you get to know me (then I won't shut up), I'm told I always look angry (that's just my face, I promise), and I will always tell you like it is.

I work with my hands, play video games, enjoy the occasional movie/musical, and love cooking.

Not much else to tell that I'm sure you'll find out soon. Now, for the much prettier and better half of Sugarphig...

About Rachel

Hi, there! So a little about me...

Dog mom. Human wife. Lady boss. Gemini. Oldest sibling. Extrovert. Harry Potter fanatic. Smart kid. Type-A. Football lover. Crafter. Decorator. Musical. Prolific reader. #shopsmall advocate. Competitor. Faithful. Hilarious.

Haha! In all seriousness, while I am technically (and proud to be) all of those things I listed, I'm mostly just a 90's kid that is head over heels in love with another 90's kid that the universe believes are old enough to be adults. So we're going through this crazy thing called life together being the best at adulting that we possibly can be- and it's hard. So. Very. Hard. But honestly, I can't imagine having it any other way. Cheers!

Okay, now I know who Ryan & Rachel are but... what is a "SUGARPHIG" exactly?

Backstory: the term started as a quirky couples moniker created by Rachel's dad in the midst of a wedding hashtags discussion (prior to our 2014 wedding). Ryan's childhood nickname was PHIG, and Rachel's was SUGAR PLUM, thus SUGARPHIG was born!

At first, SUGARPHIG was simply part of our wedding hashtag (#sugarphigwedding) for social media, because it was unique, unused, and a throwback that our close family and friends got a chuckle out of. But after the wedding, it really kind of grew on us as a lens from which we could tell our story together as a married couple. #sugarphigwedding transitioned to #sugarphigmarriage; when we bought a house, we created #sugarphighome... you get the picture. So, it became a natural step to use this moniker again as we embark on our wellness journey, which we so lovingly call #sugarphiggetsfit.

PS: You can follow these hashtags on Instagram for additional content!

The "Before" and SUGARPHIG GETS FIT 1.0

These photos were taken during the 2014 Christmas season, just a few months after we got married. We'd both been through pretty stressful work situations, moved across the country, were living with family until we could close on a house, and were overall pretty unoccupied by health. This became visibly evident as we grew in size, both topping out at weights we never thought fathomable. But, there we were, and those numbers flashing across the scale were in short - Earth shattering.

So, we did something about it. We started SUGARPHIG GETS FIT 1.0, and got a lot healthier through consistent diet and exercise, which lasted about a year or so, thanks to the support/encouragement we got from our family and friends (thanks, team!). We were happy. The scales were happy (or at least happier). All the happy, sooo YAY, right?

Right, YAY indeed!

But, what was less "yay" was that as our health got better, we started taking that improvement for granted.

We started giving in to cravings a little more often, because we "deserved" the break. We stopped charging and wearing our Fitbits consistently, and gradually fell into more sedentary habits that largely went unnoticed. And slowly, but surely, we had a yo-yo effect with our weight...

Weight Loss Yo-Yo Effect: this is a phrase coined by Yale University's Kelly Brownell. It refers to the cyclical weight loss and gain experienced by individuals who were successful in their initial attempts to lose weight, but were unsuccessful in maintaining that weight loss- eventually gaining some (if not all or more) back.

SUGARPHIG GETS FIT 2.0

Luckily for us, we caught on to the up-swing of our yo-yo before we had re-found all of our combined weight loss from 1.0. The fact remained, however, that we DID gain back a lot of what we lost thanks to reintroducing many of our old bad habits, and that was incredibly frustrating, defeating, and overall just unfortunate.

All of that negativity aside, we're back at it more motivated than ever to not only get back to where we were, but move beyond that point and actually meet our health and fitness goals- then maintain them! Seriously, we are so over this yo-yo.

Being "so over this yo-yo" is one of the biggest reasons why we decided to start this account. To be honest, we're doing this for pretty selfish reasons. 1.0 was successful in many ways, but obviously we didn't sustain it all. There is not a top secret silver bullet for healthy sustainable weight loss. Trust us, we've tried everything, and you simply can't beat eating healthy, getting active, and drinking more water CONSISTENTLY. What you can add though, is some fresh creativity with how you're staying accountable to your goals, and that's what we're doing here. This account is meant to be an open record of our experience and a full-time accountability buddy where we can track and project how we accomplish our goals. The additional perk is that we hope our journey is able to encourage (and humor) others, because we plan on being honest with the ups, and downs, and all arounds that come with it.

So, alas, here we are embarking on the second iteration of SUGARPHIG GETS FIT - and you're here with us, which is all pretty exhilarating. We hope you continue to join us, and feel free to add commentary of your own! We definitely do NOT consider ourselves experts in any of these areas so please keep that in mind as you follow along and engage! Here's to a memorable journey!

Always,

Ryan & Rachel