Once upon a time…
There was a girl stuck in a rut…she got caught up in this thing called life, and just lost control of herself. She ate and drank WHATEVER she wanted, and periodically lifted a weight or two with no real direction. As you can guess that girl was/is me. As you can see from the first image I was perhaps not in the healthiest of mindsets. Possibly because I just ADORED sweets and crap food. I was riddled with a bad back and knees, so you know I def. couldn’t exercise. Truthfully cardio was the last thing from my mind. I was was for sure in the obese category, maybe even the morbidly obsese (I didn’t care enough to find out). Everyone wrote it off as oh you just had a baby, oh this, oh that. Blah blah blah. Excuses and nonsense is what it all was, over the course of many years. You see we as humans loooooovvvveee to make excuses to validate doing whatever it is we want at the time. The human mind is really very fascinating. Now, my rememberer (I like to make up words while talking with my kids) isn’t always so great, but I don’t recall anyone speaking a little bit of truth to me. No one saying, hey you could be leading an unheathy lifestyle. Why? Guess no one loved me. Nah, more likely there are two reasons I’d imagine. 1. no one wants to be THAT GUY 2. when we are close to it we don’t always notice it. In any event, veeeerrryyyyy long and drawn out story short, somewhere around June 2012 I started running. While I’d love to say this was the beginning of a grand awakening in my life and fitness, it was not. My first run was .16. Yes, you read that right, .16 miles. Not even 2/10 of ONE mile. Now mind you this should have come as no surprise to me, as I was the kid in gym class that they pulled off the track during the mile run, because class was over. I did however keep at the running, and eventually fell deeply in love with it. Currently it’s a balmy 35 degrees, and I’m waiting for the first light so I can get my run in. I didn’t really start my fitness journey until I got my hands on p90x3. That program jump started my journey and I have never looked back. Tony Horton, I will be forever grateful to you my friend. Around that time my life started to fall apart as well. I had two kids, a business and also went through a divorce. I didn’t know it at the time, but those workouts played a pretty big role in getting me through. I joined a church that was a fantastic fit and things started turning around. With each program I did on beachbody, and every mile logged in my Nike app, I learned something new about myself. As if all that wasn’t enough, I found myself in a totally unexpected whirlwind relationship, which ended up in marriage, deployments and another kiddo. It was a pretty incredible time of growth in my life. I was falling in love with fitness and didn’t even know it. You see most every fitness journey begins with weightloss, but if you stick with it long enough it becomes about so much more. I’m not going to keep you here all day (if you’ve even made it this far) but if you let it, it can become an incredibly influential part of your life. I met my husband in the midst of the journey, and he was already pretty in shape. We’d run together and go for really long walks, and do things like that. I used to tell him all the time we were going to be the fit couple…then when we wern’t like all those couples you see doing the push-ups on eachother I’d tell him we got the wrong vowel. I still tell him we got the wrong vowel pretty often. Fit…fat…potato…potattoe…I don’t know how you spell potattoe, but you get the drift. For the record we are still not the fit couple you see in instagram.
Enter Orangetheory. While looking for a local gym close to my kids school I went into our Orange. At the time it wasn’t a good fit for what I was looking for so I left. I did tell my friend about it though and she ended up joining. After a couple weeks she asked me to go. So I took a class with her. I ended up really loving it and being there for 4 years, 5-6 days a week. The biggest takeaway I have from this experience is that inspiration truly comes in all forms. You can be inspiring and not know it. The people around you and their efforts are just so incredibly cool. I get pretty tunnel visioned when I’m taking a class, (unless your form is really off and it grabs my attention) so I didn’t notice if anyone was watching me. I have over those years had so many people tell me the sweetest things, that I’d have never known, a part of me I didn’t even know existed was revealed under that orange glow. I had so many amazing coaches push me a multitude of ways over the years, made some awesome friendships. They all pushed me to be better. A performance drive I didn’t even know I had was ignited. A goal to inspire others formed. A whisper to get certified to train and coach was planted. I have recently switched up my training program which was a very hard decision to make. I love to run and to row, so leaving behind the that orange glow for uncharted territory was very scary. My comfort zone was there for a long time. Those faces, and passing high fives got me though so many awful times in my life, but again that drive had been ignited. So now I’m at a different gym which is cycling based. Has more cross fitish elements to it, doing things I’ve never done before. My favorite part of this place is learning that I can do so many things I never would have dreamt I could do. God put on my heart to get certified and to work with women and kids coming out of bad situations, a faith through fitness sort of thing. While this piece is still unknown, I did meet a member who has been here, and has a daughter in this situation now. There is a need, it will happen, all in God’s time.
At the end of the day If you had told that girl on the track that she’d be running 12mph on a treadmill one day, or a half marathon without stopping, or climbing inverted walls and swinging through rings and monkey bars, she’d have busted out laughing right in your face! The body will go where the mind let’s it. Your brain is the most powerful muscle you have. I personally remain in a constant state of retraining my brain, a daily battle if you will, but the rewards are oh so fun! I love seeing what this body can do, and blowing out my own expectations, or moreso the no ways, and I can’ts that are forever passing through. Don’t let one more day pass you by! If you’re aren’t up and moving get up and get out! I had someone ask me recently how I got into running. My response was “I put on a pair of shoes and walked out the door.” Put on those shoes, walk out that door, whatever that looks like for you! If you need help, give me a shout, I’d love nothing more than to help you along your journey!
