My Fitness Journey

Guys I promise I’ll start using my own photos soon

When I was growing up, I was a very active person. I played basketball and volleyball, I was on a competitive dance team, I would go biking and hiking at least every other weekend, and before I got a car I was walking pretty much everywhere.

But I never considered myself an athletic person.

Being active was just a part of who I was, though I would tell people I “hated exercising.”

At the time, I thought I was “fit”. I ate smaller portions of food, I had a small waist-line, and I was a dancer.

Sure, looking at me you could say I was fit, but looking back, I would not call myself a healthy person.

I ate smaller portions because I was trying to lose weight, but I wasn’t changing what I was eating. You can eat half a McDonald’s cheeseburger but it’s still a McDonald’s cheeseburger. Granted, I wasn’t eating those hardly at all because I was a vegetarian most of my middle- and high-school career.

But I was still active. I had strong arms and a strong core and walking everywhere gave me a decent amount of endurance.

It wasn’t until I turned 19 that my health really began to decline. I didn’t get sick, per se, but I was definitely not in a healthy place physically or mentally.

I had been working 3 jobs throughout that summer and dropped them all to take a higher paying position at a bank and begin college. I bought a car, moved in with a friend, and thus created my sedentary life style.

See, this one’s me

Some weekends my (then) husband and I would go to the beach or go on a hike, but for the most part I sat in a classroom for 4 hours in the morning, then worked a 6-hour shift at a bank where I would stand in place, go back home and sit at my desk to complete my homework.

And I wasn’t eating that well, either. I know a lot of people say, “When you’re in college you just eat what you can because it’s cheap and you’re broke.” But that wasn’t the case for me (and you shouldn’t use that as an excuse, either). My roommate was vegan and often cooked very healthy meals, which she always offered to me, but I had grown up avoiding eating well so living on my own I still felt compelled to avoid broccoli at all costs.

When I got married we began experimenting a bit with healthier meals, but still found ourselves driving to Burgerville at 8 o’clock at night for the third time that week.

I had gone from being someone who had a fairly positive outlook on life, was active daily, and even if she wasn’t eating the right things she was at least not eating crazy amounts of fast food, to someone who was very depressed, never active, and stopped caring about how she was fueling her body.

In the span of a year and a half I had gained almost 60lbs.

When we moved to California, about six months after we got married, I decided it was time to change.

New year, new state, new life. That was my motto.

I started with daily yoga. It was the perfect combination of movement, strengthening, and flexibility practice that I needed to get back into an active lifestyle.

After a month or two of practicing yoga every day, I started focussing on my food. I downloaded a calorie/macro tracking app, switched to whole grain forms of carbs, began eating more lean protein, and introduced avocados to my diet.

And just like that, four months into the year I was already down 15 pounds and beginning to feel so much more like myself. I was happy again, I felt energized, my I was no longer going to bed or waking up feeling guilty for what I had put into my body—or worse, feeling sick because of what I had put into my body.

By the time my 21st birthday rolled around I was hit with gratitude for how far I’d come. My journey was just beginning and I was so excited to keep going.