Alex Lyons is a beautiful, inspiring Mum from the Sunshine Coast, you can follow her journey over on Instagram. Alex recently completed her first 8 week challenge with F45 Training Sippy Downs, below we share her motivating transformation story, how she lost 7.6kg of body fat mass in just 8 weeks and reduced her visceral fat level from 9 down to 6. Alex also shares how she used her InBody results to stay on track during the 8 week challenge.

After the birth of my second daughter back in 2014 I weighed in at 115kg (my heaviest was 125kg). I was breathless all the time, grossly unhappy with my appearance and was pre-diabetic. I had always had an emotional relationship with food and at that particular time in my life when I was struggling to breastfeed my newborn baby, food felt like a familiar friend who wouldn’t let me down. I was caught in a cycle of constant grazing on high calorie foods in an attempt to boost my milk production and to try and make myself feel better about feeling like my body had failed me. Instead my weight ballooned, and my mood spiraled further. I felt trapped in a body that didn’t match the person inside. My light bulb moment came when my youngest daughter was 5 months old. I’d gained at least 15 kilos (taking an already overweight me, to an even bigger me) in the time since she was born. I saw a photo of myself and I looked unrecognisable. It was then that I needed to do something about my weight.

“I’d heard lots of interesting things about body scans and their ability to precisely record your body composition but at the time I made sure to steer well clear of them out of fear that they would tell me the cold hard truth (that I was drastically and dangerously overweight).”

When I first began my weight loss journey 5 years ago, I started by doing a moderate level of exercise, like walking coupled with a nutrition protocol which aimed to reset my metabolism for life. After shedding the first 35kg I ended up practicing aerial yoga and Aerial Silks/Lyra at CircStudios on the Sunshine Coast, up to 10 hours per week, and had fallen so in love with the practice that the owners trained me up to be a Level 2 Certified AntiGravity instructor – where I still teach today. Moving my body on a daily basis was so instrumental to my positive mindset and I quickly saw the effects on my mood if I skipped a session.

Fast forward to July this year, I decided to really kick it up a notch to lose those last extra kilos that just wouldn’t budge and I made some pretty drastic changes at first. Firstly, I went on Be Fit Food’s Be Rapid meal plan for 8 weeks, and signed up for an 8-week challenge at my local F45 studio. During my time on Be Fit Food, I trained at F45 five times a week, in addition to teaching and practicing Aerial Yoga as usual.

Before the 8 Week Challenge began I had in my head that I wanted to lose 5 or so kilos. I had considered myself fairly fit, and eagerly awaited my first InBody scan. What I didn’t expect was it to tell me that I still had 8-10kg of pure fat to lose. If I’m honest, my weigh in scan was a bit of a shock. I’d been working fairly consistently over the last couple of years so I had developed a good amount of lean muscle mass, but my diet had become a little lax which contributed to those extra kilos.

“As the weeks on the Challenge rolled by I made sure to book in for the midway scan. I’m a really visual person so seeing the changes in the figures really helped to motivate me!”

Having my initial and midway scan only 20 days apart I was so shocked – albeit thrilled, to see such massive and positive changes in my body composition in such a short time. In those nearly 3 weeks by dedicating myself 100% to the Challenge and my nutrition I’d managed to lose 4.2% body fat, gain 400g of lean muscle mass, and drop 2 levels of visceral fat.

The changes to my body composition didn’t stop there though and armed with my midway scan I set my sights on bettering my results for the second half of the Challenge.

In the last 4 weeks I trained harder and kept my nutrition clean, and again at the final Challenge weigh in I was rewarded with my results. I’d dropped a further 4% body fat and maintained my muscle mass – no easy feat when you’re eating in a caloric deficit. My visceral fat level dropped a further point and over the 8 weeks I took my total InBody score from 79 points up to 86.

With my past weight loss efforts I had been used to weighing myself daily to look for inflammatory responses in my body – but my bathroom scales only provided me with an overall weight. They didn’t account for the extra skin on my tummy that I’m left with from being so overweight for so long, or the water retention on any given day depending on where I am in my cycle. Nor do they show me the breakdown in my lean muscle mass vs my body fat mass. This affected my mental health and has lead to some pretty compulsive behaviours – a behaviour that I’m trying very hard to break, and behaviours that I’m thrilled to say have less of a grip on me now that I can see my composition breakdown.

InBody scans I have had have helped me to understand more about my body and has shown me now that my above average BMI means nothing when it comes to my health. My BMI is above average because of all that glorious muscle, not because of my fat mass.

“InBody scans will become part of my new normal as I track my progress towards a leaner and stronger body and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the next 8 Week Challenge!”

In the last 4 weeks I trained harder and kept my nutrition clean, and again at the final Challenge weigh in I was rewarded with my results. I’d dropped a further 4% body fat and maintained my muscle mass – no easy feat when you’re eating in a caloric deficit. My visceral fat level dropped a further point and over the 8 weeks I took my total InBody score from 79 points up to 86.

With my past weight loss efforts I had been used to weighing myself daily to look for inflammatory responses in my body – but my bathroom scales only provided me with an overall weight. They didn’t account for the extra skin on my tummy that I’m left with from being so overweight for so long, or the water retention on any given day depending on where I am in my cycle. Nor do they show me the breakdown in my lean muscle mass vs my body fat mass. This affected my mental health and has lead to some pretty compulsive behaviours – a behaviour that I’m trying very hard to break, and behaviours that I’m thrilled to say have less of a grip on me now that I can see my composition breakdown.

InBody scans I have had have helped me to understand more about my body and has shown me now that my above average BMI means nothing when it comes to my health. My BMI is above average because of all that glorious muscle, not because of my fat mass.

“InBody scans will become part of my new normal as I track my progress towards a leaner and stronger body and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the next 8 Week Challenge!”

With my past weight loss efforts I had been used to weighing myself daily to look for inflammatory responses in my body – but my bathroom scales only provided me with an overall weight. They didn’t account for the extra skin on my tummy that I’m left with from being so overweight for so long, or the water retention on any given day depending on where I am in my cycle. Nor do they show me the breakdown in my lean muscle mass vs my body fat mass. This affected my mental health and has lead to some pretty compulsive behaviours – a behaviour that I’m trying very hard to break, and behaviours that I’m thrilled to say have less of a grip on me now that I can see my composition breakdown.

InBody scans I have had have helped me to understand more about my body and has shown me now that my above average BMI means nothing when it comes to my health. My BMI is above average because of all that glorious muscle, not because of my fat mass.

“InBody scans will become part of my new normal as I track my progress towards a leaner and stronger body and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the next 8 Week Challenge!”