This is my fitness journey and how I’ve applied fitness my life. I’m also going to share with you how I have kept going with it throughout the years. It’s not always easy to stay on track, but you should always come back to it. Your health is the most important thing in this world.
I am not a trained professional and you should not take any of this as advice until you speak to a doctor.
My Fitness Journey Story
Weight-lifting all started high school when I enrolled in a a senior fitness class. A few of my friends were taking it, so I figured it would be a good way to hang out with them and skip having to read text books. Little did I know, that soon I would start a Pinterest fitness board and start learning about weight lifting my entire life. During this period of my life, I would sometimes go to my home town’s community’s gym, but mostly to do the cardio machines. Which today, I do not enjoy at all. I rather be outside.
A quick mention on my nutrition and diet story, in high school and middle school, I had a pretty bad relationship with food. In college that went away a little bit from partying and not worrying about it much. Then after graduating college, I started to really focus on how to get the most nutrition in my body to feel good and lift more.
Back to the fitness journey, during college, I would walk every where. I’d walk from my apartment complex to my classes which were about a mile or more away. Then I’d walk somewhere to get lunch or meet up with friends. I’d also go to my apartment complex gym’s sometimes if I had one where I was living, or go on campus a few times to the gym. I started to get into a good workout routine my senior and super senior year of college. I think the use of fitness and nutrition mobile apps helped push this consistency and organization.
When I graduated from college I started to go to Planet Fitness and pay for a membership to a gym. This definitely helped me realize that I needed to go frequently to get the most out of my money. I started to invest in better workout clothes and bought weight lifting gloves. Another thing I started to do was try out different machines that I hadn’t used before such as the barbell squat rack. I started to see a lot of changes in my body when I started to do barbell squats and I became hooked. It felt like I had finally cracked the code of fitness after so many years of not really seeing results or definition in my muscles. This was due to focusing on cardio too much and not enough on lifting heavy and regularly.
I was never one of those woman who was worried about bulking up or believed that weight lifting bulked them up. I just had never actually tried out the machines or been consistent with it enough for me to see a change. A lot of my free time was being spent on walking for cardio. I even walked 36 miles one week and really started to notice my weight fall off of me (so not saying that cardio doesn’t work, but it takes a lot of it!). This was the most in shape I had ever been in. I was weight lifting for 2 hours a day very heavy (with pre-workout supplements) and walking about an hour a day.
At this time in my life after graduation, I started to get into protein shakes and supplements that would help me recover fast. I started to be better about what I was eating before and after workouts too. Basically, I drank copious amounts of protein shakes.
After a year or so after graduating and moving up to Northern Virginia, I paid for an even more expensive gym (which you don’t need to do btw) and started to focus on doing routines that were created by people on bodybuilding.com . This was amazing! This was the fastest I got into shape. I highly suggest following a program. I only did it this one time, but for people who like them and can stick with them, its worth it.
Moving forward in my fitness journey, I moved up to Northern Virginia and finally had a place of my own. I immediately started to invest in a home gym weight set from Dicks Sporting Goods. This weight set has moved with me every year for the last 10 years, and it is one of my most prized possessions. Having this weight set means to me that I can’t use “oh the gym is closed” or “oh its snowing outside” in order to get a quick workout in. I really enjoy being able to go into my living room and knock out some sets and reps whenever I feel like it or need to.
There have definitely been months where I fell off of my routine and then had to get back into it which is why I wanted to share my story. This is a life long lifestyle. It is not something that you just do once and you are in shape the rest of your life. It takes being consistent and persistent everyday the rest of your life to stay healthy.
Now that I am in Colorado, I enjoy hiking and outdoor actives a lot. I have recently started weight lifting again after being very busy for 6 months with family.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about my fitness journey. If you’d like more fitness content from me check out my fitness posts here. and I would love to hear your fitness journey in the comments below! I want everyone to live their best life so I have put together my 5 top tips for being able to stick with the fitness lifestyle. If you have any you’d like to add, let me know.
5 Tips on Getting Back into the Fitness and Nutrition Mindset
1. Go to the Gym and Do What You Can For However Long That Is
This is my favorite tip for staying on track. I use this one a LOT. Even if you go for one exercise for 5 minutes, that counts. You just need to get back into the routine of going, and do what you feel like you can do. Do this for as long as you need to get into a routine of going. Add more and more to your weight lighting routine.
When I do this, it looks a little like this:
- Day 1: Go into gym and do side bends with a 25lb plate for 25 reps. I may leave after this depending on how I feel.
- Day 2: Go into gym and do 25 barbell squats with no added weight. Add 20 lbs. and do 25 more reps.
- Day 3: Skip
- Day 4: Go into the gym and do some leg machines. Add on some assisted pull-ups. Add on dips because I felt like it and was feeling good.
- Day 5: Go into gym, decide I’m going to make Friday’s back day. Do 25 reps of 2 sets of barbell rows, 3 minute rowing machine, and max out on lat pull downs.
- Day 6: Skip
- Day 7: & you get the point! JUST GET IN THERE!!!
Let me know how you like this tip in the comments! I am curious if anyone else does this.
2. Use Pain and Emotions to Keep You Going
Pain comes and goes in our life. There are lots of ways to deal with pain. Some people meditate, some party (seriously, skip doing this if you are), and some hit the gym really hard. If you can take your experience and turn it into a motivating factor for you to work out really hard, this can carry you through some periods of fitness lulls.
For example, maybe you just got broken up with, had a bad relationship, or had a loss in your life. Use it as fuel for your exercises. It will make you FEEL better about yourself mentally and physically. It can also help with your healing process of whatever you are going through.
3. Do it to FEEL Good, Not to Look Good
Stop the visualization of what you want your body to look like. Just accept it as it is now. Forgive yourself for the past accumulated mistakes you have made. Love yourself for where you are now, start building a positive self-concept. When you start working out to FEEL good, and not to get a specific result on your body, you will find that it takes the pressure off of the entire process. This will lead you to going more often.
4. Get Up and Workout Before Your Body Processes What is Going On
If you can get up out of bed and do some planks, sit ups, push ups, or any kind of body weight exercise that is easy to do anywhere within the first 10 minutes of waking up, you will have an awesome chance of making it happen! Try this one out tomorrow.
5. Staying on Track with Apps
I love to use apps to help me along in my fitness journey. Specially when they keep count of the days you have logged and remind you. My favorite two apps that have helped me a lot are MyFitnessPal and Fitlist. My Fitness Pal is a nutrition tracker where you can count Macros and scan in food items quickly and easily. Fitlist is a great app for you to start to put together workout routines. I think being organized in both nutrition and fitness is a great first start to tracking some progress and metrics for success.