March 28 2015

I spent years restricting foods that i deemed bad for myself. I spent years hating myself and trying to find a way to make myself "perfect". I spent years with this image in my head of what perfection was. One of the main things that I spent hours upon hours looking at and trying to hide was my stomach. I never deemed it good enough. I would spend hours upon hours picking out clothes that would hide the things that i hated most... which meant i wore sweaters and layers everyday to hide the one thing that I hated most. It's been almost 3 years to the date that I hit a wall and realized that I needed help. In the past three years i've gone through phases where I love my stomach and hate my stomach at the same time. I've gone through phases where I cover it up and hide it for the simple fact it's the only part that I wish that I could change. It's been almost 6 weeks. It's been almost 6 weeks since I decided to hire an online trainer and work towards getting my abs and a toned stomach. I had spent so long restricting myself of things that when I decided to recover I refused to restrict myself from anything... which wasn't helping me in anyway at all. Overall health isn't about restricting foods, it's about eating towards your goals and treating yourself. It's about embracing your body and the changes that it's making. There are so many things have changed in the past 6 weeks... not only has my body changed due to the workouts and my nutrition. But my thought process has changed. I've broken out of the fear of getting hurt again in a race, and signed up for a 5k in May. I've decided that i'm not going to let the fear of hurting my knee, or my hip, or my ankles again hold me back. I've decided to not let the fear of falling back into where I was hold me back from things. There has been so many times that I was scared to try new things, try new meal plans, or even new workouts because of the chance that i could relapse and end up back to where I was. It took so long for me to realize that I've grown so much from where I was three years ago. That i've been able to fight this for years. I've come to realize that the fear that I have in the back of my mind is what will keep me going and what will keep pushing towards a healthier lifestyle and not falling back into the place where I once was.
The pride that I have in myself each and everyday after my workouts is something that nobody can take away from me. The pride that I have in myself for overcoming the things that I've been through is something that nobody can ever take away from me. The amount of confidence that I've been able to build for myself is something that I continue to work on everyday. I've learned to put myself first and that loving yourself not selfish. We're told so many times that loving yourself and putting yourself first is selfish that nobody does. Nobody takes the time to take care of themselves first... and thats something that I will continue to work on, because when it comes down to it... you need to take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of someone else.

 I look at myself in the mirror and I smile. I look at myself in the mirror and I love what I see. Three years ago it was a completely different story. Three years ago I looked at myself in the mirror and broke down into tears. Three years ago I looked at myself in the mirror, and sat on the floor in utter disgust. I look at myself now, I look at where I am and what i've accomplished and I look back on where I was and the road that I was on... and I thank the people that left and I thank the people that stayed because without those people... I wouldn't be here. I don't know where I would be... I may have continued on that path... and then I wouldn't even be here at all. I'm a fighter.. I'm a survivor.. and I'll never stop fighting, because the second you stop fighting the voices in your head is the second that they win. I refuse to lose. I refuse to go back to where I was and I'll do whatever it takes to never go back to that thought process. 

Week 3

I'm into week three of the first phase of the working with Anthony my online trainer and I still could not be more happy as how it's going. Not only do I feel fantastic about myself and how it's coming so far but there's still so much more that I can accomplish. I feel so good after each workout and so proud of myself for crushing myself everyday.

These three weeks have gone by so quickly, and with so little struggle that it's hard to believe that i changed that much of my diet. But it's really gone to show that your nutrition changes everything when it comes to working out.

For the most part before I was eating a pretty balanced diet, but I would have late night binge sessions of cookies and tons of other junk food. It all eventually adds up. Now that i've cut out the bingeing on junk and cut out the extra sugars and bad carbs I've seen so much more results in fewer time.

This is just after a couple of weeks ... I can't wait to see how much progress i'll have made after the full 6 weeks when i'm heading into the second stage. My goal starting this six weeks was to lean out and get some abs before summer. I can honestly say that i'm well on my way to achieving my goal.

If you've thought about getting a personal trainer before but don't have the money to get someone that's one on one for your workouts.. go with an online trainer. At first I was a bit nervous as to how it would work out, because i'd never done it before.. but it was probably the best decision that i've made in a long time when it comes to my health and being able to change up my program and find something that works. It doesn't matter how much you know about working out, there's always someone out there that is going to be able to teach you something, and that's going to be able to enhance your workouts that much more and give you that push to bring you to the next level. I didn't think that I needed a trainer... but I thought I would try it for the experience ... now that i've tried it, I can't believe it took me that long to get one.

I love not thinking about what i'm going to workout that day. I love not having to think about what i'm going to make when I get home. I love that I can just open the book and look at the day and find the workout and know exactly what to do everyday without a second thought. It makes things 100 times easier. 

March 9 -- 1WK into new Program

Going into my second week with a trainer and I couldn't feel better about it. The nutrition and carb cycling is probably the hardest part, but everything else seems to be coming along easily. The workouts and being able to make it to the gym are fantastic.. and after the first week my body hasn't been completely and utterly in pain. I think the change in my diet combined with the new workout program sent my body into a shock and my muscles were not ready for it.
Now that it's been a little bit over a week i'm slowly starting to see some progress as well as feel it. The better i feel and the more minor progressions that I see in myself, the more excited I am to keep going and to continue in order to reach my goal.

I spent the first month and a half of this year going back and forth with the mindset of how I used to be. My workouts were slowly going downhill and my nutrition was a mild combination of bingeing and not eating enough of anything let alone what I actually needed. I was stressed and I couldn't concentrate on things. But I've managed to get things back on track, and now working with Anthony for this past week and a bit i've managed to pull myself back together and out of where I was slowly starting to fall back into.

It's just as much of a mental thing as it is a physical thing.. and I can't wait to reach my goals both physically and mentally.