How CrossFit Helped Allison Lamay Lose Nearly 150 Pounds and Recapture Her Life
At 26 years old, Allison Lamay weighed over 300 pounds.
Lamay played softball and basketball in high school and college, but when daily practices and strength and conditioning were no more, the usual post-college weight gain came on quickly.
Lamay started drinking after work, eating fast food, and moving less — the recipe for weight gain, especially in your twenties. She decided to try and solve the problem with a personal trainer.
- “My trainer set me on the right path. We had the initial consult, and she asked me what I wanted to get out of it,” Lamay told the Morning Chalk Up in an interview. “She said she was concerned that if I didn’t change my lifestyle or my path, I was going to die young and have a host of health problems.”
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Lamay sat quietly, taking it all in.
She started to cry as she realized that this was the slap in the face she needed. Lamay signed up for personal training and did well with it, but it did not fit her life financially.
Enter CrossFit
About six months later, a friend, herself a CrossFit newbie, invited Lamay to join her in a workout.
- “It was 2011,” Lamay remembered, “and if you googled ‘CrossFit,’ you saw these pictures of Rich Froning, Annie Thorisdottir, and tons of incredibly fit people. I knew that wasn’t going to be me.”
Despite her fear, Lamay emailed a local affiliate, and they told her to observe a class.
- “I went on a Saturday and watched,” she said, “and I was terrified the entire drive over. I just wanted to turn around and head home the entire time — trying something new can be scary.”
That was in 2014. Lamay has been CrossFitting ever since and has lost close to 150 pounds.
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The road has not been easy. As with most people who start CrossFit, Lamay lost weight immediately, but she knew she needed more to truly change her relationship with nutrition and food for it to stick.
That’s when she found CrossFit Games athlete Meredith Root and Tactic Nutrition.
Lamay was taking a nutrition workshop with one of Root’s colleagues, so she signed up for the program, and Root became her coach. They hit it off immediately, and Lamay was one of Root’s first clients when she started her business.
She speaks highly of Root and the change she put into motion.
- “I think you can really tell she gives a shit — she really cares about what she’s doing,” Lamay said. “Once I started working with her, I stopped yo-yoing, and my progress was consistent.”
Another issue that Lamay has had to deal with on her fitness journey is a bad knee that stems from a torn ACL she suffered while playing basketball in high school.
- “It had been bothering me for several years now,” Lamay reflected. “It was impacting my range of motion and my strength. I had been complaining to my ortho for a while, and he referred me to a surgeon who said a knee replacement would improve my quality of life, and I was a great candidate.”
Setbacks (and Finding the Path)
Lamay had the surgery at 37, and while she felt good immediately after, it was another story once the painkillers wore off.
- “It was terrible, and I had a lot of regrets for the first week due to the amount of pain; I struggled to do PT,” she said.
It’s been nine months since her surgery, and returning from the injury has been challenging. She felt like the people around her were improving, while she felt stuck.
“People around me were getting better, and I was just doing my little quarter squats in the corner,” she said. “Some days, I know I had a shitty attitude, but then other days, I would just think about what I was doing just months out of a knee replacement. It’s been humbling and difficult, but it’s a very good challenge and helped me grow as a person.”
As Lamay was rehabbing her knee replacement, life threw another curve ball.
After months of feeling tired for no reason, even after eight to 10 hours of sleep, she went to the doctor, knowing something was up. After a litany of tests and referrals, her naturopath ran a full thyroid panel and diagnosed her with Hashimoto’s disease, an immune disorder that can cause an underactive thyroid.
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Lamay is now taking medication and continually works to keep herself dialed in. It’s been a challenge.
- “I try to be positive, have a good mindset, and work through challenges, but some days, I wonder why it has to be so hard,” she said. “But I just accept the challenge because there’s nothing I can do about it.”
All the challenges have led to intense growth in Lamay’s life and will continue. She is now a coach at her affiliate.
- “I love coaching. I think about the amount of lives that you can impact when you don’t even realize the impact that you have,” Lamay said. “People in the gym will look up to me because of what I have done to lose weight or want advice, but I consider myself to be a hot mess most of the time. At 311 pounds, I never would have imagined being in this place.”
She paused, clearly content with her journey: “I just want to keep coaching and positively impacting people’s lives.”
Featured image: @barbells_and_bad_decisions / Instagram