Athlete Profile: Peggy Rainbow

You might think that someone with the nickname “Pancake” wouldn’t exactly ooze lean, fit athleticism. In fact, you’d assume the only thing oozing is the glob of syrupy butter over her white-flour flapjacks.

But 38-year-old Precision Nutrition member and Lean Eating alumnus Peg Rainbow is nothing like that vision.  Peg absolutely loves the nickname (given to her by a fellow PN member) almost as much as she loves her pancakes.  Whether it’s her standby, homemade healthy version she has after most workouts, or her once-a-week treat of organic oatmeal pancakes with warm peach compote from at a local organic restaurant, she owes much of her recent transformation success to the pancakes.

Coming from a family of overweight people and always overweight growing up, Peg was ridiculed, teased, and tormented by kids in school.  As soon as Peg realized that she could do something about it, she started to put some time and energy into training.  She added some muscle, lost some weight and looked “decent”, but still felt more changes were needed. As she got older, Peg found her goals changing and results harder to come by.

When Precision Nutrition introduced the Lean Eating for Women program last June, Peg saw this as the perfect opportunity to get her motivation back, change her nutrition, and get the help she needed to reach her goals.  At the start of the program, Peg’s application pictures and measurements put her at 5’3.5″ (that .5″ is important!), 149 lbs (67.5 kg) and 22.2% body fat.

Peg knew the program was going to push her out of her comfort zone by day one. After seventeen years of always lifting super-heavy and doing an hour of steady-state cardio five days a week, she had to change her entire mindset and put complete trust in her Lean Eating coaches.

So she did. Peg gave up everything she believed in and had faith that the program would lead her in the right direction. When she started practicing what the coaches were teaching her, everything started falling into place.  At the end of the first month, the result of switching up her training and getting back to basics with her nutrition were easily visible: down 13 lbs and over 2% bodyfat, Peg’s physique was undergoing a drastic transformation.  And this was just the beginning.

As the weight came off, Peg’s attitude about nutrition and training changed. Peg was committed to following the Lean Eating workouts and found a good groove with her eating. Finding that structure and consistency kept her on track, Peg found success in sticking to the following meal and training plan:

4:30am: a protein drink made of water, protein powder, and Greens+

5:00am: workout (Lean Eating workouts plus an extra 30 min of energy systems work 5 days/week where 2-3 of these were HITT)

7-7:30am: either a post-workout meal of protein-oatmeal pancakes or, on non workout days, an omelette made with 3 egg whites, 1 omega 3 egg, 2 sliced mushrooms, huge handful of spinach, ¼ cup fat free cheddar cheese, 2 tbsp fresh salsa.

10:30-11:00am: 3 oz raw zucchini, 3 oz roasted eggplant, and 1 oz of raw mixed cashews and walnuts. With the recent purchase of a food dehydrator, Peg has begun experimenting with making healthy beef jerky and turkey jerky and often substitutes 1 oz of that for the nuts on some days.

2:00pm: PN Mediterranean Salad with 4 oz lean sirloin and the PN Greek vinaigrette dressing (Peg’s favourite meal of the day!)

4:30pm: 2 tbsp of hummus from PN V1 with 3 oz raw broccoli and the chocolate peanut butter protein bar from PN V1.

7-7:30pm: This is the one meal that Peg does differently every evening but always opts for something out of one of the PN cookbooks.

Over the course of the day, Peg includes three capsules of fish oil with four of her meals and drinks green tea and water all day long.

By three months in, friends and acquaintances were starting to take notice.  People were asking what she did to take such good care of herself and how had she lost so much weight, even commenting on how good her skin looked.  Her progress was astonishing.  At the end of the 16 week program, Peg was down to 121 lbs (55 kg) and just under 15% body fat.

But even though the physical changes were obvious, Peg was still having trouble connecting mentally with her new body. When her partner Rhonda looked at her and said “you‘re skinny”, it barely even registered with Peg.  She never thought she would hear those words come from somebody about her.  Shopping for clothes after a big closet purge, Peg was in denial about how small a size she actually needed. Despite the fact that Peg could see the positive changes in her body and was feeling and looking the best she ever had, when she looked in the mirror she still saw the fat kid she used to be.

Then one day during the final weeks of the program, Peg’s mental attitude finally started to shift.  As her body fat dropped and the physical changes continued, she began to feel comfortable in her own skin for the first time in her life, and stopped critiquing all the things she wanted to change. She realized suddenly that the fat kid was gone and the real Peggy was here.

Peg’s learned that you need to eat clean and healthy if you want to achieve your goals.  It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to lose body fat or build mass — if you don’t eat right, it won’t happen, so “quit wasting your time”, she says. She’s also come to realize that aside from training with intensity, it’s important to be flexible and open your mind to the opportunity for change.  Doing the same thing all the time is not the best way to reach your goals.  Just like in life, if you need a certain outcome, being flexible will usual lead to a more favorable result.

Despite the fact that Peg loves to train and does it regularly simply to keep her sanity, she always makes sure to challenge herself.  When the Lean Eating program ended, the very next day Peg began working with Luke Nielson from Exercise Advantage and has been following his programs ever since. So far the workouts have been “phenomenal and kicking her butt” and though they haven’t killed her yet, she’s sure he’s working on it.

Peg always feels much better when she’s done her workouts and if she finds her motivation lagging, she cranks the tunes on her iPhone to get herself pumped up.  If that doesn’t work, she can take her training and focus to the next level by “doing it for the pancake”.  Any time she feels herself slacking, she finds that thinking of her favourite recovery meal helps her to push out those couple of extra reps.

Now that she’s decided to enter a bodybuilding competition next year, she has to keep pushing herself to get ready for when she steps on that stage. After her success with the Lean Eating program, Peg now knows there is no secret training program or nutritional plan that will help her reach her goals. Instead, what will propel her forward is the amazing support of the PN community.   Surrounded by people just like herself whose only desire is to help others succeed, it’s the passion of the community that will put her dreams in motion.

Peg began the Lean Eating program thinking that it would be simply be a sixteen-week journey to achieving her goals. Yet changing her physique transformed her into the person she always wanted to be. Peg now believes that this journey is her life –- always evolving, with the destination to be determined.  Wherever the Universe is leading her, she’s willing to follow.  There’d just better be pancakes there too.

Peg’s PN log
Luke Neilson of Exercise Advantage: www.exerciseadvantage.ca