by Rachel Tallant
A member since HAC opened almost 20 years ago, Barbara Albani had always heard of the Lifestyle Challenge but never thought it was for her. Even though she had a competitive spirit and worked out often, Barb finally took the plunge to make a different kind of change to her fitness journey.
Barb Albani leads a very busy lifestyle. A doctor with 3 teenage daughters, she’s always on the run and receiving calls. As her girls got involved in more activities and her schedule became more taxing, fitness became more of an afterthought. Although she had always been active, she was gaining weight as she got older. “Now, I don’t have the time to put 3 hours into the pool as I did before,” Barb explains. “My kids and work schedules are demanding. I got into a rut where I gained weight and felt terrible and sluggish.” When she was younger, she worked out constantly: swimming, cycling, triathlons – Barb even holds a Black Belt. Her mentality was completely focused on exercise. “I didn’t pay attention to my diet. I always just worked harder and exercised more, and the weight would come off,” Barb says. As she has aged, she has realized that she’d need to pivot to achieve the results she wanted.
At her heaviest weight and in an excuse loop, Barb asked her personal trainer, Anthony Brown, if she should do the Lifestyle Challenge. Anthony noted that Barb was starting the challenge from an already healthy baseline, meaning she had less room for dramatic body-fat loss than many competitors. Barb embraced the challenge anyway. “Put me in a competition, and I become laser-focused. I thought, ‘Let me just try this.’” So, Barb finally signed up for the Lifestyle Challenge, and for the first month, she was dead last.
For the first couple of weeks, Barb did what she always did: lots of cycling, swimming, and weightlifting. But nothing was working. She was actually gaining weight. “How can I be gaining fat when I’m working harder?” she remembers thinking. “This is insane!” She shared her frustration with Anthony and other members of the personal training team; they informed her that, during perimenopause and menopause, exercising more isn’t always a good idea. Barb did her own research and learned that, for these women, excessive exercise and long-duration workouts can trigger chronic cortisol elevation, which can increase belly fat and create fatigue. Her two-hour intensive workouts weren’t going to benefit her anymore. Barb realized she needed to take another look at the whole picture of her fitness journey.
“I realized I was doing it all wrong,” she says. “I needed to work smarter and not harder. I needed to really hone my eating and really support my body as I was exercising and use food as a fuel, which I’ve never done”.
Barb began religiously tracking her calories in MyFitnessPal. She started cooking more for her family, and eating out became a rare occurrence. “I called it my bank account of what calories I’m allowed to eat, and I stuck to protein and carb budgets as a rule.” Once Barb was consistently tracking her calories, she took it to the next level. “I started looking at ‘Does it matter WHEN I eat?’” She learned of data suggesting that carb-loading before or after a workout can boost performance and decided to try it for herself. “This is nothing revolutionary. Every athlete knows this, but I didn’t”.
Cooking for her family changed her relationship with food, too. “I have a different engagement with food now. It’s not a grazing mentality. I know I’m making the food, and I’m involved with it. The preparation and cooking of the meal curbs my appetite. I know the meal is coming.” For Barb, food prep became part of the routine. “Coming from a military background, I would just plan and execute. I would prepare my lunch and dinner ahead of time and then lock and load it for the next day.” Barb’s diet changes, paired with her training with Anthony, brought her back into the running.
Earlier in her life, Barb might have powered through a 2-hour cardio session and still felt disappointed for not making it to 3 hours. But during the challenge, she cut down on her cardio, increased her weightlifting, and focused on her diet. “I had less feelings of guilt towards working out,” she says. “I started allowing myself that grace.” She was listening to her body, and it was making all the difference. “Once I made that tweak, the weight melted off.”
For Barb, working with Anthony seemed natural. They share a strong bond. “There’s nothing that I can say about him that is not incredibly positive,” she says. “I legitimately could not have done this without him; he’s instrumental.”
Anthony also trains Barb’s daughter, Ellie, in the mornings. And when Ellie asked Anthony to do the Frozen Frogman BUDS Challenge with her, he couldn’t say no. Because he doesn’t normally run, he bought a new pair of running shoes for the occasion and started running to train for it. “As a father, when you think about trusting your child or your children with somebody, the fact that she trusted me with Ellie, I feel great success.” He also says he loved the interactions of the early morning group in the PT studio. “These people created a family”.
“Anthony’s leading principle on the best way to improve your core is laughter,” Barb giggles. With a community by her side, Barb demonstrated absolute grit, perseverance, and competitiveness, going from “dead last” to placing in the Lifestyle Challenge. She made changes that would improve her and her family’s health for the rest of their lives. In Anthony’s words, “Barb doesn’t miss.”
