HOME WORK
Pandemic spurs teacher’s 25-pound weight loss
For Barbara Smith, the coronavirus pandemic provided the impetus she needed to kick her health into high gear. The Oak Forest resident, 41, was already active. A runner for more than two decades, Smith completed two marathons in 2019. She even created a running team at Houston ISD’s Sinclair Elementary, where she teaches fifth grade math.
Yet even while maintaining a healthy diet and running regularly, she began gaining weight in recent years.
It wasn’t a lot — but enough to bother her.
“I just wasn’t feeling or looking like my activity level,” she said. “In the year I ran two marathons, I was at my heaviest. In three years, I had gained 20 pounds. It wasn’t sitting well with me.”
Then COVID-19 hit.
Smith was on a family vacation in Vermont for spring break when everything shut down. Their flight was canceled and later rescheduled. She returned in time for a major rapid change: becoming a virtual teacher.
“I needed to reinvent myself,” she said. “And literally overnight, teachers had to. It was like basically you’re going to do your job completely differently tomorrow. There was no planning, no strategy.”
Helping students continue to learn, and to emotionally cope with the change, became her top priority.
Smith’s stress level rose. She was already frustrated about her weight gain and now had increased anxiety about teaching online.
“It was like a hard stop,” she said. “I knew something’s got to change.”
Just then, a friend posted a challenge on Instagram. She was
creating a team to try a 100-day Beach Body fitness plan.
“It was perfect timing,” said Smith. She signed up and also recruited her friend Holly Crawford so they could hold each other accountable.
“I was like, ‘This is what we’ve been looking for,’ ” Smith said.
There were about 15 people in the group and they started in July.
“You do it on-demand, online, on your own time,” Smith said. “There were 100 workouts that were 30 minutes or less that you could do from your home.”
She bought some hand weights. “On Day 1, I pushed play,” she said. “It was hard, but I was ready for the challenge. I had been wanting to change things up.”
That included her nutrition. Smith explained that Beach Body provided a systematic way to change her diet, and she quickly discovered that breakfast was a weak spot in her routine. Before, she would grab whatever she could. Now, she has a protein shake every morning.
“One tweak made all the difference,” she said. “I thought the change was going to be working out harder, longer and smarter. But it was actually my breakfast, and everything else fell into place.”
Smith has completed her first 100-day challenge and is on her third Beach Body training program. She has lost 25 pounds and 20 inches since starting.
“The habit is there,” she said. “My healthy lifestyle, I can just maintain it and not feel bogged down by trying to lose weight.”
Smith feels more energetic and positive as well. And that’s been a boon since teachers have returned to campus.
Smith wants to pass on what she’s learned during the pandemic to encourage other stressed-out teachers and parents. It was her success with the program that encouraged Heights resident Erin Hasbrouck to try it for herself.
“Barb said, ‘I’m doing this program, and I’m loving it. I think you would love it, too,’ ” Hasbrouck recalled.
Hasbrouck does not typically enjoy running or working out. She does not struggle with her weight, but she wanted to gain strength. So she decided to give the exercise program a shot.
“I was looking for something, but I wasn’t sure what it was,” Hasbrouck said. “Then Barb texted me. It was perfect timing.”
Hasbrouck started the 100-day challenge in December and already feels more fit and toned.
Smith provided the inspiration Hasbrouck needed.
“She has so much energy and enthusiasm, and it’s kind of contagious,” Hasbrouck said. “She’s a great cheerleader. I knew I’d have her support 100 percent of the way.”
Smith even persuaded her husband, Kyle, to start training with her.
“He used to say, ‘I would never work out from home,’ ” she laughed. “Guess who is now on his second challenge?”
Kyle was searching for a way to get in shape.
“Seeing the results that Barb had through her 100day workout was the biggest convincer,” he said.
And working out at home made it easy, he said. No longer did bad weather ruin a run, nor did he have to worry about how much daylight remained in the day.
“I get the workout in from the comfort of my home, where the weather and lighting are always perfect,” Kyle explained.
He doesn’t even have to schedule which day is arms day and which day is for legs; the program comes with a lesson plan. As Smith says, “you just have to show up.”
He admits to being pessimistic about working out at his house, especially after trying programs in the past and not sticking with them. Before COVID-19, Smith also did not consider a home workout to be a viable option. But the pandemic changed how she looked at fitness.
“You don’t have to drive anywhere,” she said. “And you’re not exposing yourself to COVID at a gym.”
Working out from home made it easier to sneak in a quick routine, Smith added, even when balancing her schedule with her husband and their two children — Olivia, 10, and Henry, 8.
“I’m so busy, but I always have 30 minutes,” she said. “Working out from home can be fun and fulfilling. This feels, looks and sounds sustainable to me. I can easily see myself doing this for the next 10 years.”
In a way, Smith credits COVID-19 for opening her eyes to the change.
“I don’t think I would be working out from home without it,” she said. “I’d be doing the same old thing.”
That goes for her teaching, too. “Never again will I have a parent-teacher conference in person, when it’s so much easier for them to take a quick video call at work,” she said.
She also records her classes now and posts them on her own YouTube channel. If a student is absent, catching up is easier.
“I had none of that before COVID,” she said. “And at the end of the day, I would have never been here without it. It turned out to change my life, not just my year. And I’m going to see where this takes me.”