Former Gymnast Overcomes Body Dysmorphia at Hitch Fit

Former gymnast overcomes body dysmorphia at Hitch Fit.

Franchesca improved her fitness and gained a healthy perspective on her body and eating habits at Hitch Fit!

Transformation by Hitch Fit Gym Kansas City Personal Trainer Jamie Eschrich

Franchesca’s Before and After Healthy Weight Loss Photos:

Former Gymnast Overcomes Body Dysmorphia at Hitch Fit!

Franchesca’s Hitch Fit Gym Transformation Story and Review:

“I’m writing this to exemplify how much Hitch Fit and Jamie have completely transformed my life. I have have “only” lost 10 pounds and 4 percent body fat, but during this journey I’ve gained so so much more.

My name is Franchesca and I’m 23 years old. This journey for me starts at a very young age. I was 4 years old when I started gymnastics. I absolutely loved the sport and loved nothing in my life more. It quickly wrapped itself into my identity and truly my entire life revolved around the sport. From a young age I was spending hours in the gym burning calories and eating whatever I wanted just to stay energized.

When I hit puberty things in my body started changing. Weight started “sticking” and although I was very skinny and fit, there was this pressure from the gymnastics world to stay stick thin. I remember being so tiny (5’7 and 120 pounds) and thinking I was fat because I passed over 100 pounds. The sport of gymnastics is filled with abuse of many kinds. Body dysmorphia for me and many of my teammates was very real issue. At the time I didn’t realize this was going on but at such a formative age, the people around me and I were not being taught the right things about our bodies and the normalcy behind weight gain during/after puberty.

Fast forward to college and most gymnastic coaches encouraged extremely restrictive diets yet we’re extremely uninformed about nutrition. Being that they deal with women who already face massive societal pressures, mixing in a restrictive diet at such a young age generally does not lead to girls having a healthy relationship with food and exercise. From my experience, my college coach was very relaxed about our diet. She let us eat whatever we wanted. Often times if she saw us eating too little we were made to eat more.

I think this may be partly because of the amount of eating disorders in the sport and she was scared to have that happen to any of her girls. Although I’m thankful I was never put under a restrictive diet, I also knew nothing about nutrition and approaching food in a mentally healthy way. It makes me very uncomfortable knowing that these same people who are so uneducated about nutrition, are the same people who are working with women and helping them form opinions about how you should interact with food, diet and exercise.

Nutrition is so much more than food. It’s learning how to treat your body with care. It’s a form of self care.

In my opinion the sport of gymnastics has failed on so many levels but especially in this area. The people in these leadership roles have failed to teach young girls how to how to take care of themselves properly. Just like anything, you wouldn’t get a job if you didn’t have the proper experience for that job. You wouldn’t drive a car if you didn’t have a license. More importantly, one should not be helping women formulate how they view food and how to take care of their bodies if they don’t have the proper training to do so. Ones relationship with food is a relationship they will have for the rest of their lives so it’s extremely important that it’s handled correctly. Instead, your taught these important life lessons by people who simply want 4 years of “results” and then send you off into the world with no structure or guidance.

This all became very apparent to me after my time in gymnastics was over. It’s very common to see former Gymnasts gain a lot of weight after they’ve left the sport. Us gymnasts are simply not equipped to integrate ourselves into a normal society with normal diets and workout routines. When I was finished with college I gained a little weight but I absolutely hated how I looked and I was so scared to experience this weight gain that I saw so many athletes go through.

Before I went to Hitch Fit I tried to exercise and diet on my own and it did not work out for me. Cutting weight was an extremely emotional experience. I ate too little and workout too much, only to find myself binging at night. I’ve had perfectionism issues and anxiety since I was young. If I would miss a day of working out I would skip that whole week because “I failed for that week”. In my messed up brain this made total sense at the time and I would repeat this cycle every Monday. Looking back, I was constantly binge eating and didn’t even realize it. I put so much emphasis on what I was eating for every single meal because it seemed like the only thing getting me through the day. I was obsessed and I felt like crap after every meal because I was fueling my body with the wrong things! I thought this gross feeling was completely normal because I didn’t know any different.

My journey to Hitch Fit was maybe a little cliche. I saw myself in the mirror one day and was reminded of how much I hated my body. I decided to do something about it and decided to look up transformation gyms online. Hitch Fit was the first one that popped up and I immediately signed up for a consultation and was paired with Jamie.

Jamie gave me a meal plan and a workout plan and at first I didn’t see results because I wasn’t following it as good as a should have. That is until one day I told myself, “I got on this train and I’m not getting off until I see results, you either give up or give it all you got.”

It was from then on that I really started to follow the plan. I started losing weight and my skin even started clearing up. However, these were just the small victories I experienced while working with Jamie.

We slowly worked through all the body dysmorphia and lies I held onto about how to achieve the perfect body.

She helped me un-weave that toxic web and it was the most freeing feeling I’ve felt since I hit puberty. I realized that how I looked on the outside was just a reflection of the inside. All of the self hatred, unhealthy thoughts and habits were showing through my skin and I didn’t know how to take back control until going to Hitch Fit. I’ve learned so much and I even inspired my boyfriend, Zachary, to join me in the journey. He shed almost 20 pounds and 13% body fat and I am so proud of him!

Jamie has been one of the most impactful people in my life. She gave me so much more than just a diet and workout plan. She has taught me so much about nutrition and dieting and how to do it properly without it being this huge emotional/unhealthy experience. She recommended books and lead me to other resources to help me through my battle with perfectionism. This was a big hurdle for me and was necessary for my growth! She taught me to embrace failure and made me aware of the toxic world of social media and how that plays so heavily into our unrealistic beauty standards. I’ve not only learned so much about my body and how stress has affected it greatly but I’ve also learned so much about the female body!

She may have given me the best gift I have ever been given and that is how to take care of my body and how to love and respect it. There’s no amount of money that is too much for what I have gained. I’m going to take what she’s given me and apply it for the rest of my life. I have gained a great mentor, an encourager, and a dear friend.

What’s next for me is I feel to lead and to help other young women experience the transformation of the mind and body that I did. With social media forming so many of our identities and options these days, there should be just as many resources to help combat that. So many are in the dark about how to treat their bodies, leaving them without the tools to live a healthy lifestyle. I would love to share what I’ve learned during this transformation with other girls who are experiencing the same struggles I once did.”

Are you READY for your TRANSFORMATION with Jamie Eschrich at Hitch Fit Gym Kansas City?

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