Fitness Friday:

This Friday I decided to finally tell you all a little about me, how I got started, and where my goals are at this part in my "fitness world."

First off, I have realized that I use "fitness world" a lot. I use that term because I literally feel that it is a world of its own for me. I am a completely different person in the gym than at my house, hanging with friends, etc. Majority of the time it is because I am focused and determined, but nonetheless, it is another world for me. Also, my fitness goals take up a lot of my time and day. Not because I "live" in the gym, but because it is also about my lifestyle, my eating habits, my health.

Growing Up:

When I was growing up, I was chubbiest child in the family. I was born the smallest baby of my siblings, but soon grew to be the chubbiest of all. Both of my other siblings lost a lot of their baby fat once they began school. Not me. It took me several years later, in to my high school years, to finally lose my baby fat. Needless to say, that explains a lot. I was always the larger one and told from a very young age that once I got older I would have to watch what I eat to maintain a healthy weight.

In high school, I slimmed down quite a bit. It was not until my Freshman year in high school that I slimmed down to my smallest. I loved the feeling, but my body had naturally did it on its own. 

How I Got Started:

In high school, there was always the talk of everyone that gains the 10 pounds after graduating from high school and beginning college. Then there was always the 10 pounds that people gained once they got married. Well, I was engaged by my senior year in high school. (Yes, you heard that right!) I was not only facing the 10 pound gain from graduating, but also the 10 pound gain from getting married. 

Since I had always worried that I would easily gain this weight, because I do gain weight very easily and very fast, I began thinking about things I could do. With Mr. Man just graduating from Basic and Tech School, he was already into the cardio routine and encouraged me to go with him to the gym. We did this for a year of our marriage and that was that.

Well, a few days after our 1 year wedding anniversary, Mr. Man deployed for what was suppose to be a 6 month deployment. When he left, I was working full-time. I quickly began shedding the pounds because I was going to the gym everyday in order to fill up my time, plus working many hours. I knew I wanted to loose more weight because I knew being so short, I still looked like I had extra pounds that I could leave behind. The StairMaster and Elliptical became my best friends. (Oh, and the sauna!) Mr. Man and I discussed the workout regimen and the eating habits (because I had horrible eating habits). He was working out there and wanted to get "big." He did his thing, I did mine. 

He came back from his deployment, and that is when we hit it off. I realized how obsessed I was with becoming fit, always improving myself. Once I would see one goal, I pushed harder realizing that it was all so reachable. One thing lead to another, and here I am today. We've been working out together as a couple for 3 years now. I am including the time he was deployed (the first time) because we were both working out, but obviously not together. Now, we had both thrown around weights and did cardio from the very beginning of our marriage, but we honestly did not have any idea of what we were doing and we were not as focused as we are now. So I can not and will not include that. 

The beginning was hard. I will not lie. I would get so sore and could not move that I would be so miserable. But I always reminded myself that if there was no pain, then there was no gain. It is hard, especially first getting started. It sucks. You have to train yourself, your mind, your thoughts, your body, everything. There were days where I would just want to give up, and Mr. Man was there to encourage me. Sometimes I would get so exhausted and frustrated where I would tell him that if he didn't love me for me without all the working out then oh well. It is not easy, but it is well worth the fight! Still to this day I get tired of it, frustrated, have a mental block, but after a week or two of letting go, I always have to go back. And when I do, I go back 100 times stronger than the last time. And really that is what it is all about. 

My Goals At This Point:

Originally my goals were to be healthy and lose weight. I lost some weight and began getting healthy, but then I started to see my muscle definition. 

I have a lot of people ask me what is my goal. They ask me because they say I am so small and I look so healthy, so why more. I really have a hard time answering this because I do realize that I am small. I do recognize that I look healthy. But that really isn't what it is about. It's about how you feel about yourself and what your own personal goals are. My goal is just to be happy and confident in my own skin. 

So right now, I can say that my goals are to maintain my size but lose more of my body fat and gain muscle in its place. This is something that takes time. Definitely does not happen over night. I really like to get back where I was with my lifting, but my schedule right now is not allowing that because it messes with my eating schedule, which in turn messes with my energy level. Overall, my most important focus is my legs because I have large hips and thighs. 

A new workout that Mr. Man showed me today that I really want to be able to do is Medicine Ball Crunch/Hit. I did it today to see if I could handle it, and it HURT! My abs are sore from yesterday, so I ended up having to drop the ball on myself so it would not hit as hard. And of course, I used a 6 pound weight ball and not a 12 like in the video!

Hopefully, I can post some pictures soon. I just got to remember to take my camera to the gym with me!