Dare to Lose Winner? Sarah! (And the Rest of Us)

When Sarah Hunnell was revealed as the winner of Dare to Lose, I have to admit, I was a bit shocked.

Surprise hit me first because, in a competition like this, the people who are the heaviest often have the best chance of winning. Pounds sometimes come off more quickly when one is first starting a program, as compared to Sarah, who had already lost some weight, but couldn't get past a plateau. To do it, she had to take it up a notch.

To be honest, she was surprised she won, too. She kept us abreast of what was happening with her own blog.

I am at a loss for words, one of the few times ever in my life. When I signed up for Dare to Lose of course I thought about winning, I am a naturally competitive person, but in the last two months of the competition I didn't think I had a chance of first place. It seriously wasn't on my radar, I had become more focused on completing my goals of moving beyond my plateau and running my fastest BolderBoulder. I did both!

I'll be honest and simple here--Dare to Lose was a crushfest.

The contestants crushed workout after workout throughout the entire 3 month competition.

Sarah was sweating and skipping with a smile after we finished an hour with Ethan. This was on top of 30 minutes she had already done with him before our small group personal training class. She was doing two hardcore workouts in a row. All the time.

Emily was doing 3 a days.

3 different workouts in a day. I just love the saying '3 a days'. As a kid, I remember being so proud to tell people that we were doing 2 a days for football camp the entire month of August. And that was only 2 a days! This girl was doing 3 a days. No wonder she placed.

The workouts were so efficient.

Ethan, Tyler, Michelle, Matt and all the other trainers we've worked with kept us close to muscle failure while allowing us to still make it through the entire workout. What we accomplished in 3 months would take a person 9 months to do on their own, because it's almost impossible to push ourselves as hard as a good trainer knows we can go. Our bodies are beautiful powerhouses of amazingness, and good trainers bring that power and amazingness to the surface.

The workouts were fast and furious and fun and focused on an end goal.

We had a schedule in place of how we were going to improve ourselves. It included weigh ins and other body analysis, workouts, nutrition coaching, wellness coaching and contributing content for the blog and social media. We set our goal and said "We're staring here, and ending there, and if we do what our team of experts has told us to do along the way, we should end up with great results."

Guess what? We did. The accountability and planning worked. We saw amazing results. Sarah tells us what it means to move forward with a class.

I am so happy to have a year premier membership to Miramont Lifestyle Fitness. I have also decided to keep taking Ethan's small group training class. It will give me the support and motivation I need to help with accountability and I will have three workouts a week that I don't have to do anything other than show up and sweat.

We wanted real and lasting change.

We wanted to learn how we could continue to do it ourselves. I also think we wanted to see what we were still capable of. All of us had been in good shape in the past, but had let it go. Could we get it back? Were we still strong, vibrant beings? Could we do this?

We did. All the way through, each participant, from winner to trainer to marketing genius to Derek from the Point and me, we did it.