Tonal News & How I started with Tonal

We start off with some amazing tonal news , with programs and challenges coming for March . Also a quick little back story about me and how I got into fitness and found Tonal and Joe for my training . 

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You're at a point where you want to transform your life. You want to sculpt that awesome body that's in there. From never lifting a weight in her life, she started from the beginning at the age of 40. She knows what it's like to start something new. Welcome to Strength in Numbers. Unbreakable Mind. Unstoppable Strength. Inspiring listeners to lift heavy, push boundaries, and embrace the power within. We all We all have an unbreakable potential of our minds and bodies. We just need to find it. As a die hard tonal gym fan and advocate for training at home, Katie has witnessed first hand the incredible transformations that can occur when we commit to our fitness goals. She knows what it's like to get jacked. All with dedication and determination. Plus nutrition. It's so important. One word, tacos. Mmm. Together, we'll embrace the mantra of being stronger, not smaller. This is Strength in Numbers. Unbreakable mind, unstoppable strength. And now your host, Katie Dunford. Again, to strengthen numbers. So today we're going to start off with some tunnel news updates going on in the community, some programs that are going to be dropping, some programs that are wrapping up and some exciting stuff that is going on with the coaches going out into the wild meeting members. First off tunnel became a partner of the Spartan races. Woody and Joe went to California, they did some meet and greets at the showroom. The pictures were absolutely epic. I loved being tagged in them, I loved seeing everybody's smiling faces, and I was so jealous, and I had so much FOMO, but I know how they felt. I could just feel the joy, and I was so excited for all those members. I got to meet the coaches, and it looks like Tunnel will be doing more of that. The Spartan race is May 18th in Tampa, Bay, and Florida. That's my Florida in me. Yes, I'm from Florida. At Ray J, June 22nd, City Field, September 21st, Angel Stadium, November 9th through the 10th at Fenway Park. Will the coaches be going to those? I'm assuming that they are. I'm excited to see this with all the coaches getting out in the wild, meeting members and stuff like that. I think that is a great idea on Tunnel's part to get the coaches out there. And with challenges for for February, it's getting wrapped up with Woody. She did sculpted abs and glutes. I actually partook in one of those classes at 5 o'clock in the morning. Because why? A friend asked me to. Did I want to willingly? No. Because who willingly gets up at 5 o'clock in the morning and says, Let's do some glutes. Let's do some hip thrusts. Why not? And especially it being a hit. It was, it was awful. I was like, it is way too early for this, but it was so much fun. We did a zoom and I could see all my friends faces, which made it a hundred times better. There were so many laughs, everybody cheering each other on. And it was so cool to hear people get PRs. So I kind of like feel like how the coaches, like how the coaches feel when they're coaching, doing live classes and up on the screen they probably see, you know, a person getting a PR and that's so awesome. I was so excited by that. So that was so cool. I will definitely be doing more Zoom workouts on Tunnel because that was amazing. So for the March Challenge, that drops March 1st. But the challenge in the community on Facebook that starts March 4th. So the program drops March 1st. Make sure I get this right. But the challenge starts in the Facebook community on March 4th. So Akeem had a Facebook Live the other day talking about the ultimate arms. He had me at arms. He had me at biceps. He had me at biceps. And Akeem gave a little short story about himself of kind of, we did a little true or false. And he has not won a arm wrestling competition. I think there needs to be a tunnel arm wrestling competition. I don't know. I could always make it to, I could get on a plane, Akeem. I could get on a plane, but I may need the assist from Joe. But we can arm wrestle. We can arm wrestle. We can make that happen. The program is four times a week for four weeks. So four classes a week for four weeks. The program is accumulation hypertrophy. So it's going to be a lot of reps building muscle. It is advanced, but I say go for it. Go in, you can always modify, you can adjust, you can meet, you can adjust as needed. I think getting into that hump of just taking your first advanced class is such a huge accomplishment and a huge confidence booster. Coming from somebody that never weightlifted before, I will tell you with 100 percent certainty, the first advanced program that you take, you will never forget it, you will always remember it, and it will have a special place for you. Special meaning to you, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that in a second. You will have two leg days. Two. Leg. Days. Don't worry, you leg lovers, there's two of them. Unfortunately. My bro lifting self, sorry I had to take a sip of water. So yes, there are two leg days. You know, arms. We just can't work out arms all the time, Katie. That's what I tell myself. It's just, you just have, you have to suck it up and do it. Some other programs that have been dropped recently is TIMS, Ascending Muscle Mountain. That's a classic program. It's German body comp training. So muscle with burning fat kind of coexist. It has, I've seen a lot of people are absolutely loving. That kind of program. The German Body Comp was dropped in the January challenge. So it seems, it seems, I'm betting that there's definitely going to be more programs with the, uh, German Body Comp. Because a lot of people like it. Also some new yoga was dropped with Shelby. She's a guest coach for Tunnel. So a lot of new yoga classes being dropped. So that's exciting. The live schedule, I've seen it like Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Come on, tunnel. We need four week programs and I'm just going to say it. I'm just going to say it again. And I'm going to say it like a million times. Tunnel is going to get sick of me, but how long can they ignore me? They can ignore me for a while, but power build three. Can we make it happen? I think it's a, it's a possibility. It's a possibility, but I'm hoping that tunnel goes back to more with the live classes. You know, getting a four days and, you know, adding some more four week programs because I'm a four week program kind of gal. I'm a live format kind of gal. So that's, that's kind of like where my happy spot is on tunnel with training is I really enjoy being in the grind, being like in it with the tunnel coaches. So that is about it for the tunnel news. But of course, you're here too. Hey, Katie. So, I will give some, a little background about me if you're just new to meeting me, or some things you may have possibly not known about me. So, I was born in Chicago raised in Florida, went to private school the whole way in Florida, and then went to work in a cath lab. I started doing stents and, uh, worked in the Coumadin lab doing blood draws. And then I was also a dancer. I know that is the hot topic. I've gotten multiple messages. Are you going to talk about when you were a dancer? Because who is this girl? I want to know her. I was a dancer at the Hard Rock Casino for six years. Five, six years. Um, and I also danced at Clearwater Beach Shepherds worked there. And, um, yeah, the Hard Rock Casino, what an amazing time in my life. It totally built my confidence up. And I am a huge, as you all know, I am a huge EDM fan. I love EDM music. I'm a huge DJ fan, so that's pretty much all I work out to. It's either EDM or we're headbanging. There's really no middle ground, really, so, so if we're working out, we're either fist pumping or we're headbanging. So yeah, I worked at there for about five, six years met some incredible people and shortly after that, I got married, we had a daughter, Abby, she's now 12, and you know, our kind of world at that time was all, it just, Not went up in flames. Cause that's not, that's not way to put in it. It definitely was a soccer punch. Abby was diagnosed with a rare blood condition called autoimmune neutropenia. She was diagnosed at eight months old and her body can't fight bacterial infections. So fevers skin lacerations you know, normal things that happen to kids. Would send Abby to the ER and nine out of ten. She was being admitted You know Colt, you know strep all that stuff normal kid sicknesses was just not normal for her So when we found out that she had the blood condition we decided okay I'm gonna stay I'll be a stay at home mom. I Will homeschool and pretty much I lived isolated You know it was It was a hard decision and it, and it affected me in certain ways, but my mindset was set on keeping her healthy and keeping her out of the hospital. So I pretty much never, honestly never left my home for like 10 years. So I know I know. And I just was so scared. I was so scared of Abby getting sick. Of something that I gave to her, you know, um, the hospital stays that we did have. The, the vision of having to hold my daughter down while they started IVs on her will just never leave my brain. It's, it just, it's that anxiety that it is literally imprinted in my brain. I'm literally visualizing it right now. So that affected me in ways with, socializing and, you know, getting out with people, and dealing with my germophobia and, you know, my social anxiety because I, I stopped socializing and that kind of took us to the point of when we got the Peloton, the bike, I figured if I can't socialize, people in real life because I'm scared. Maybe getting a bike where there's people on the internet, where there's people, on the screen that it will help me because I had gained a lot of weight during this time. And it definitely was unhealthy and not taking care of myself. I was, you know, of course you're, you're a parent. A mom, and I think being a mom, you know, there's, there's never that, this book that somebody hands you and says, this is, this is how motherhood is going to roll. This is what you're going to do. This is the right way. That is the wrong way. There is no plan. There is no how to. I think you just pray and cross your fingers that you do everything right. And I felt like I was doing everything right. So when we got the Peloton bike in 2017, it changed. It changed me. It brought what Katie Dancer was in her 20s. And it brought the love of EDM. It brought the love of movement back. It was something that was Katie. That it wasn't, it wasn't something that It wasn't this scared mom that, you know, never left her house. I had an outlet. And slowly I started building my confidence up. I met some amazing friends. They're still my friends to this day. I conquered some big milestones. I Um, we got the tread, the tread plus, and I did multiple races on there. I did a full marathon. I ran a full marathon, 26. 2 miles on a treadmill, all because I had a friend that inspired me. Her name is Jillian. I'm going to say her name. Her name is Jillian. She is an ultra marathon runner. She is absolutely incredible. She inspired me every day to, to do amazing things because she does such amazing things. And I looked up to her so much. I still do. Even though she does, you know, she's, she's still doing amazing races. But it shows what your body is capable of. It shows what you're, what you're capable of when you put your head into the training like she does. She still runs on her Peloton and stuff like that, but she, she sticks to her training. She sticks to her goals, what she has to accomplish, what her train, cause she has a trainer, what her trainer says. And that is like the first time that I got my little foot into training was when I ran the, the marathon. Did I do it right? Absolutely freaking not. Was I fueled? No. At that point in my life when I was working out on Peloton, I was doing a lot of working out and not so much fueling. Not so much mobility. Not so much yoga. Not so much recovery. Not so much mental work. I kind of put myself in this thing that if I work out more, my mental health will be better. If I take more classes, my mental health will be better. If I dive into this exercise thing, I'll feel better. And it just wasn't the case. It was more or less just putting a blanket over it and hiding it instead of facing it. So my husband, he, it was back in 2021, he had purchased the tunnel for our home. And he was an avid tunnel person. I took the assessment and I just could not, I don't know. I just, I was not ready to let go of what I've known for so long. You know, with Peloton and stuff like that. And I was like, I can't, I can't do this. I'm going to get bored. I can't do the same moves over again. I don't, I like random. I like different stuff all the time. I have to have the music, I have to have, like, it was excuse after excuse, after excuse for not embracing change or open to trying something. So back in twas September, twas September September 2022 is when I took the jump to Tunnel. It was the hardest thing for me because I was like, the thoughts in my head were you're going to lose friends. You're going to lose that support system that you've had for so many years. You're not going to be successful. You're you're not going to be accepted. And all these thoughts were going through my head because everything that I thought I had, I didn't. So I was in this limbo of what do I do, I'm kind of not where I want to be right now. I'm not where I want to, I'm not where I'm at. So I was like, well, where do I go from here? So I had a talk with my husband and he said, give tunnel a shot. He's like, you're going to, you would love it. You'll see a hundred times more. Muscle growth, strength with how tunnels resistance training is all the modes on tunnel. And I was like, I, I have to do something because at that point in my life, I was just down and out, completely down and out. And that is when tunnel hired the New York coaches to the platform. And I had. Actually followed one of the coaches before he started at Tunnel, and that's Tim. So that made it a lot more at ease. Or, not at ease, but I was like, okay. I know, I know Tim's, you know, followed him on Instagram. So I was like, okay, let's do this. Let's show up for him. Let's cheer him on. It's his first class. This is, let's just do this. And. It was amazing. I, I tagged him in my stories and he messaged me back, Thank you so much Katie for showing up and, and, and supporting. And I was like, that is so nice, first off. Second, not everybody on Instagram responds to people. And, You feel like you're messaging or tagging nobody or somebody's PR person or whatever you want to call it. So I was like, that's so amazing. So I started taking more tunnel classes. I was still taking Peloton. I was still overtraining. I was taking all these classes still at the same time because I was still trying to hold on to one thing. And too scared to go all in on a new thing. And that was, that was I was in limbo. And I took a Joe class back in July and he had talked. It's so funny. He had talked about, it's an X Man move tricep extension. and he started talking about Marvel and I was like, because I'm a huge Marvel fan, you guys know I love Venom. So I was actually wearing my Venom Brittany Allen bra on that day. And I was so excited and I took a selfie and you could see my, you know, my speaker. And I had tagged Joe in it and he was like, that's some setup. And he like messaged me back and he's I hope you enjoyed class. And I was like, when is happening? These tunnel coaches, like, they, they're responding and that is something that I was searching for, like, I wanted help, you know, I had never strength trained before you know, yes, I lifted weights, but did I know what I was doing? No. Did I know what training was? No. Did I know what proper form was? No. I learned, I was trying to get myself good at pushups, which I did, was my form perfect? No. Um, so it, it was, I wanted help to get better. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, these coaches are actually responding. I'm like, this, this, this could help me. And I started taking more and more Joe classes. And. It came about, gosh, when was it? August 2022. Joe had his first program power build. And when I said before that your first advanced program that you get into and you try this program is like extra special to me and this is why. I decided to take the program knowing it was advanced and I had only been lifting weights for like a year, a little under, you know, wasn't training or anything. Um, you know, didn't my, what was form never did a deadlift. I never picked up a bar, a barbell, uh, never did a bench press with a barbell. All these Bulgarian split squats, never did those before. So all these moves that were on tunnel, all of this was new to me. Um, you know, learning what proper form was, I had absolutely no clue. I was just moving weight around, and, I took the first, it was the first class. On Powerbill and I was like, okay, that was hard and I thought to myself, I don't know if I can do this, but then I came back for day two and I messaged him back and I met, I'd sent Joe a message and I said, I don't think I can do this, this is too hard. It's too advanced for me. And I was giving like all these excuses to why I couldn't do the program. And Joe was like, yes you can. You can do it. Stick with it. And I did. Um, Joe is just one of those people that are infectious in such a good way. Um, I don't think there has ever been a time where he ever said, you know what, that's fine. You can't do that. Okay. That's fine. No, because there has been multiple messages that I have sent that have said, Joe, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can do this. And he is the most inspiring. Uplifting, positive person. And he just loves coaching. He just loves helping people. He wants to see people get better. And especially from a girl that weighed 120 pounds, really never trained before, never lifted weights. Had no clue what she was doing. Totally clueless. And Joe, you know, he's, he's, he looks like a linebacker. And there, there's, there's me. He helped me. You know, he got me to take all these programs, all these classes. And each time I got better. Each time my form got better. If I ever had a question about form, about a program, he answered. And I was like, the amount of knowledge that I have learned from him is incredible. What training is, what fuel in your body is, taking creatine. I never, what's creatine? Taking protein, fueling your body, resting, recovery, when, when to dial it up, when not to, when to slow down, listening to your body. And that is such a valuable, and I so appreciate the time that he takes with helping everybody in the tunnel community, all the coaches. From all their Facebook lives to being active in the tunnel community, they are always there to help everybody and to help them reach their goals and get stronger. And Joe has just been, and I, I told him this in, when I went to New York, and I said, I was in this day and age, you know, with social media and stuff like that and how, sometimes the personal connection is lost. You know, it's just a person on a screen. It's not so much a human being that's there. It's just a screen. And I told him, I said, thank you for seeing me. That was so amazing being able to go to New York and tell him, thank you. Because I really thought about just quitting, you know, not working out anymore, just kind of like going back to the, overtraining and just doing all this cardio and, and that just didn't happen. And I'm so thankful. And I've changed, and people think that, you're lost,, you feel like you're lost because what you once knew is not there anymore, you know, you're, the people that you surround yourself with aren't there anymore. And I think that's life, you know, when you get married and you have kids and you move. You know, you get new friends, you meet new people, and you embrace change. You get excited about change. You get excited about meeting new people. You get excited about new adventures. And I finally figured out that I wasn't lost. You know, I was just growing into a new season, a new me. And I was accepting that the old, I had to let the old self go. But my new self? She's incredible. She's strong. She's confident. And I finally come to grips, finally discovered that, you know, change is good. New adventures are good. And it's so amazing to embrace them and just go all in. Cause if you don't take chances, you never know. And I'm so thankful that I took the chance because it has been life changing for me. I was always so dependent on the outside, you know, clapping, the outside validation. And I don't need that anymore. I want to, I want to accomplish amazing things. I want to do the impossible. I want to inspire people to, to go for it, to take a chance and that don't be afraid of stepping away from something that you've known for years or that you're just comfortable with. I don't think I ever want to be comfortable again. Like, I, I, I want the challenge, I want the, I want the bar to be raised for me. And if somebody says something is hard, something is impossible, I'm coming for it. You've been listening to Strength in Numbers. Unbreakable mind, unstoppable strength. Your mind and your body can do anything and our passion is to show you the unbreakable potential. Katie is a diehard tonal gym fan and she's all about training at home. She's proven that anything is possible with dedication and determination. Thanks for listening to the show. Make sure to like, rate, and review. Find Katie on Instagram. Instagram at katie underscore H underscore Dunford and on tonal at strength underscore N underscore numbers questions or comments hit that email strength underscore N underscore numbers 82 at yahoo. com see you next time