#TransformationTuesday

I first met Stephanie Soffer at one of Matt Freeland’s boot camps in the summer of 2014. When Matt insisted she step up to use the heavy kettlebell, I felt a serious girl crush coming on. (I wasn’t there yet, muscularly.)

When she complimented me on my pigtail french braids, our friendship was official.

Steph invited me to try killer classes like Willie’s at Jaco’s Boxing gym. “Thanks a lot girls…I THOUGHT I was in shape.” I remarked after my first class.

Hot date at the statue at 6:30am anyone?! We also met up to sprint the Ringling Bridge before work. But this is not our story. It’s hers.

And when I saw a recent #transformationtuesday instagram photo from Steph I wanted to know more.

Photo from Stephanie Soffer’s Instragram

Unravel: Wow. Your transformation is impressively drastic! Congratulations! Was there a certain event that “triggered” you to make a change?

Soffer: My mom had been making some comments – not in a mean way – she’s from Jersey, she’s just brutally honest! She was like “you need to start working out”. It was really these photos I saw of myself in a wedding. These were professional photos and I thought I looked terrible. I remember thinking, “that’s IT!” Professional photos are not taken at a bad angle.

How have your family and friends reacted to your transformation?

That’s a great question. My Mom is my biggest fan club and biggest support group. And my friends have been extremely supportive. They continue to compliment me on my success, tell me how proud they are and inspirational I’ve become. I got one of my friends to start doing what I am doing and she has already lost nine pounds.

Woah. What is she doing?

She is doing the exact meal plan I am on and working out about 2-3 times a week, like I did in the very beginning. When I started I was working out only two days a week – a lot of it was the food prep and not drinking. I did not drink for 3 months. Cheers! [laughs, takes a sip of wine]. The food prep was 7 days a week. It was intense.

When did you start to increase your workouts?

I started training with Liz Lowe. Liz is actually the one who got me started on this entire clean/fit healthy lifestyle. She worked out my macros for me and helped me to create a meal plan that I’ve been using for 10 months now. She continues to help me on a day-to-day basis, since I’m still learning what works best for my body.

But shortly after I started she had to go to Boston for a show. I found a Groupon for the Title Boxing Club and went there four days a week. I didn’t have motivation to train by myself at the time. Liz ended up staying in Boston for another month and that’s when I started going to Matt’s boot camps. Then I hired to another trainer for the next couple of months. I worked out with Charles three days a week from 7 a.m. – 8 a.m. at Evolution downtown. He was awesome. I started learning how to do machines and getting faster. I play softball and I could feel my strength and my speed.

That is so cool! What happened next?

I was spending so much money – it was getting to be too much. So I started going with my friend Sara to Flaim Fitness boot camps and I absolutely fell in love. We talked about how we didn’t just want to do boot camps though and also wanted to do heavy lifting so we lift 5 days a week. And hopefully yoga on Saturdays.

There was a point that I got really psycho and started doing two-a-days and I realized that was going to hurt me more than help me. You need rest days.

Are there any foods or drinks that have been 100% exiled from your diet?

During the week, I don’t drink. I try to keep the drinking to strictly holidays, birthdays and celebrations. This is completely different than my old lifestyle and how I originally gained all my weight. I was that girl that would go to the 5-7 happy hours after work three times a week and once Friday came along, I was a weekend warrior. I went to the bars Friday and Saturday nights and of course Sunday Funday. Now that I don’t party, I find sober activities to do: laps in the pool, Farmer’s market downtown Sarasota, play dates with my puppy and her friends, yoga.

What about the weekends? Are those “cheat days?”

I’d rather not cheat but lately there has been something going on almost every weekend.

So…drinking?

Yes. Eating clean but drinking alcoholic beverages.

Stephanie Soffer uses SnapChat to record how she preps and plans her meals each week. Photo by Rachel O’Hara

Your meal prep Snapchats sparked recipe requests from Facebook friends. I find your meal prep and vacation meals-to-go prep snap-stories inspiring! What do you get from it?

It’s so funny because I just started them for shits and giggles. I was just putting it out there like “Sunday prep!” It’s something different because on Instagram if you follow a bunch of fit healthy people they don’t show you the prep. They just show the prepared food. I am showing it raw, chopping it up, all that shit. My snaps look like fun but keep me in mind the whole process does take up about four to five hours on a weekend.

If you factor in the food shopping, loading/unloading the car, the actual prep (chopping/cutting), cooking everything, weighing my protein and carbs and putting it into the container, it ends up being a lot of work, but totally worth it for me.

Favorite workout?

Probably deadlifts.

Favorite food?

Oh my God. Favorite clean food?!

Sure.

I found this recipe that I have made five to six times – its curry chicken served over white rice. I’ll email the recipe to you.

Okay, favorite naughty food?

Pizza.