It’s a new week! A new opportunity for self improvement! I’m coming off of a fabulous weekend myself, and hope you guys are the same!
I learned a lot this weekend… some very interesting things. 1. No matter where you are in your fitness journey, just starting out and squishy (like me) or the epitome of fitness.. there will always be naysayers. 2. Having a partner to push you is an amazing experience!
My fiance and I are big professional wrestling fans. We are fortunate enough to live locally to WWE NXT’s home base and get to attend multiple shows (sometimes more than once a week lol). My fiance takes a lot of photos at the shows and we will often get them printed for the wrestlers to autograph or to give them. We ordered a photo of Charlotte Flair this weekend. She is in immaculate shape and works incredibly hard to have the body that she does. We went to pick up the order and the woman who processed the order said “Oh, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at in this photo.” We were a little confused and told her “She’s a professional wrestler.” The woman responded “Oh, is that what it is?”. My fiance then said “Yea, she has about 0% body fat.” The woman kind of rolled her eyes and said “I would say so.” As we walked away with our photo of the lovely Ms. Charlotte I was becoming increasingly annoyed. This woman had completely judged someone purely based on their appearance, totally forsaking that she not only did not know this person but also how hard this person must have worked on their physique. It was certainly unprofessional to share those opinions with us. Even more disheartening to me however was how this woman was trying to tear down someone’s hard work. Often these kinds of reactions come from a place of insecurity in one’s own physical appearance/well-being.
Charlotte is incredibly inspirational to me. Just a day before this experience I had spoken on twitter with her and asked her for fitness tips. One of her responses was to “never compare your fitness goals to someone else’s.” I am definitely heeding her words and I only hope that one day I’m at a point where someone might roll their eyes at me… but decide not to.
The photo that had this woman so ‘confused’ is on the right:
Secondly, having a partner to push you is amazing! Whether it is your partner in life, your best friend or a fur buddy… having someone/thing to push you can push you to new heights!
My favorite vacation spot growing up has always been Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee. The waterfalls there are like no other and there are so many hiking trails that you could spend days and still not do them all. One of the hiking trails that used to be my favorites is the Cable Trail. The Cable Trail is an incredibly steep incline that leads to the base of one of the more secluded beautiful waterfalls. There typically are not many people at the base of this falls because it is so difficult to navigate to. Due to the incline of the trail there is a large metal cable that leads from top to bottom…it is recommended that you use the cable to navigate the trail safely.
Last year my Brian and I had the opportunity to go to Fall Creek. It had been probably close to 10 years since I had been and since I had gone on the cable trail. It was a huge reminder that I was no longer in my mid 20s! I made it only about a third of the way down before I got ‘stuck’. I didn’t have the confidence to make the 4ft drop from one boulder to the next even with the guide of the cable and my fiance to steady me when I came down. I basically became paralyzed with panic. It was incredibly embarrassing and heartbreaking to me. I felt so ashamed of myself and who I had become. I vowed that the next time we make it to Tennessee I would be going down that Cable Trail.
This past weekend we went hiking. We went to a park that has some “Florida Mountains” aka glorified dirt mounds 🙂 The park that we went to is often used by cyclists for off-road adventures. Typically when we have gone to this park we will venture off the trails and go up on top of these ‘mountains’ but I’ve always struggled getting down them and I’d only go up as far as I felt comfortable. This weekend was different. I’ve been feeling a little more confident in my strength and flexibility since starting DDPYOGA and I was in the mood to challenge myself. There were times when I got scared and felt I was going to fall but my fiance was there to cheer me on. I don’t know that I would have been able to conquer my fear of falling if it were for him being there. I felt amazing after climbing up and down those bad boys and I felt strong. I can’t wait to challenge myself some more as I know my confidence will grow with each stride.
My 30 day results photos are coming up at the end of this week. I won’t lie, I don’t expect to see much in physical changes in the photos. This month has been a month full of trial and error, falling off the horse and climbing back on. I still struggle to get in 3 workouts/week let alone 5 and my diet isn’t 100% on point. BUT… I keep pushing forward and I can feel in my strength, flexibility and just overall feeling that things are changing inside of me. Mentally, however, I feel the biggest changes of all. I’m finally starting to get that motivation bug back. I’m finally starting to want to challenge myself and improve. That is a great feeling! We will see what the result photos hold but as far as I’m concerned..I’m totally on the right track!
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