🦋☝🏼ONE YEAR OF WORK🦋
Same girl, same messy bun, but completely transformed.
In both photos the right side is a few weeks ago, the left side is last summer (in the first photo May 2018, and in the second photo June 2018). I’ve been on this journey for just over a year now. An uncomfortable and grueling year both mentally and physically but the biggest year of growth I’ve ever experienced.
In May of last year, I was next to clueless on macronutrients, gagged at protein powder, my training up to that point was completely self taught from Instagram workouts and bodybuilding.com and was clueless as to what the word adherence meant.
Now, I’m wrapping up my NASM CPT certification, have multiple coaches, and feel so passionate about spending my life helping others change their life through fitness and nutrition.
When I took these photos a year ago, or even while taking these photos a few weeks back, I never thought I would be posting them online. No makeup, no hair brushed, no shower, nothing. Just a girl freaking proud as all get out of this body.
I.👏🏼MADE.👏🏼THIS. 👏🏼 I was unhappy with how I looked and felt about myself and I changed it. Not overnight, not by eating Keto or taking a fat burner, but by putting my head down and working all year long.
I was being presented with two choices: evolve or repeat, and man am I sure glad that I leveled up.
I am proud of this body. But we’re not done yet. 😈🔋
If I had to restart my fitness journey, here’s what I would do:
If I had to restart my fitness journey, here’s what I would do:
✖️Prioritize sleep: when I first started my journey, saying I was stretched thin was an understatement. I was in class 30+ hours a week, working another 30+ hours a week, planning a wedding in a different city, aside from being a fiance and dog mom. Sleep is like nutrition for your brain. 💤 It balances out your hormones, helps control hunger and is an essential player in muscle repair and recovery.
✖️Progress not perfection: I used to spend so much energy on making sure everything was perfect. Perfect meal prep, perfect outfit, perfect products, perfect lifts, always getting stronger. I didn’t want to recognize my growth, because I was still unfinished. I didn’t want to celebrate a work in progress, I wanted to celebrate a finished product 🤦🏼♀️ I did a 180 in my life overnight and I was so caught up on looking like a competitor or fitspo that I didn’t even cheer for myself because I was still working on myself.
Give your all every single day. Clap for yourself. Repeat. 👏🏼
✖️Stop focusing on the scale: the sooner you can start looking at the scale as ONE WAY to track your progress and not THE ONLY WAY, the better. Your weight fluctuates from day to day. What really matters with your weigh ins, is the trend over time. Is it going down? Plateauing? Going up? Stop stressing about the number. Go hard every day and the numbers will correlate.
It starts out as a weight loss journey or a new years resolution, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a physical change but a mental transformation.
One of my favorite quotes of all time is: “I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.”
This journey has taught me so much more about myself and about life than any class or college experience ever did. I am hardworking. I am mentally tough. I face challenges head on.
Is my story perfect? Nope. Is it over? Double nope.
My journey has crafted me into the woman I am today and I am so freaking proud of who I am now because of it.