One of the things that has been interesting is that I'm the first teen Marci has ever taken on in her program. The age range before I came in was around early 20's to 60 (our Mamma Jone!). After I started, my neighbor that was in the first group got her son into the program, too. Thank goodness I'm no longer the youngest! He's two years younger than me, and is like an awesome little brother! :) Being one of the youngest has been an interesting experience. It's like having a big family of wonderful older brothers and sisters that are constantly encouraging you and looking out for you. Every day it's "do you guys want a ride tonight? No? How about tomorrow?" "Can we do anything for you? You know we're always here!" "Anytime you ever need anything, you just give me a call!" They're all amazing and I love them so much!
One of the interesting things about being so much younger is listening to the adults in the group. Most of the women in the group are moms, and they talk about things that I was honestly shocked to hear. Talking trash about their ex, mother-type-things (well, how else do you say it??), and, with one or two, quite a bit of swearing. Not just cussing, swearing. After the shock of it wore off in about a week, I came to the sad conclusion that I have lived in a wonderfully sheltered bubble for most of my life. I have sadly gotten used to the loud and unreservedness of most of them, but the swearing still makes me cringe. Why they must use that language, I do not know.
Being one of two teens makes things really complicated. No one else in my group is going through school, and their schedules are fairly flexible, even with work. Braden and I have tight schedules that have almost no wiggle room for things like the six small meals (more on that in a second). Being in school makes this whole process even more exhaustive and confusing than it is for the others in the group.
Nutrition. My mom was lucky (strong?) enough to not have a very hard time with her nutrition changes. The hardest part for her was the intensive workouts. For the first 3 weeks, Marci had us count calories and fat. When I heard that, I was not very excited. I did that with a nutritionist, and it drove me crazy.
The workouts. Marci rightly calls them High Intensity workouts. Her theory (or can it be considered a law, since her groups are proof that it works?) is that high-intensity workouts are more effective than spending an hour at the gym. You can do a quick, intensive 20 minute workout and burn fat for 2 days. She's constantly telling us "Slow and controlled! Slow and controlled!"
