“What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.” ― Martha Graham

"What you do speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying" - Henry Adams

24 August 2016

Huge Life Changes

I've begun to notice getting older affecting me in ways I'm not happy about in the last year or so. Yeah, yeah... I'm only 23. I'm no kid anymore though, and I'm feeling it. I'm getting heavier and curvier and forget eating whatever I want whenever I want without any effect. It's a battle I can't win without some major changes. Now, I've tried this before... and obviously it didn't go well because I'm back to try again, but this time I'm gonna get it. I have to, because I can't keep letting myself feel uncomfortable with how I look. This is not however a crusade to become skinnier, or lose weight. While that would be nice, I'm happy with both of those things and they don't matter to me. I need to be healthier and more active... That's all I want to change about myself. Replace some of the fat with muscle and make myself feel like I look as good as I used to before I had to give up dancing for medical reasons. Now that I have a better handle on all that it's important to me to get back into shape and go back to what I love. A huge part of health is happiness and it's important to me to enjoy not only my life but also to enjoy myself. I have a huge goal I want to achieve, but it will take diligence and hard work to get there, but this time I will make it. We all can do anything we put our minds to, and right now it's my turn to put my mind to it and get going.

About a week into beginning to work on this I decided I needed some more knowledgeable help, so I joined a gym, and teamed up with the personal trainers in order to get myself on track to accomplish my goals, as well as to grow my knowledge on what I should do to get where I'm going as well as maintain it once I get there. So here I am, spending 2 days a week in the gym, one with a trainer and one on my own with the trainer's notes to guide me through my work out.

You may be asking yourself what it is I want to achieve, well here it is:

I lost all my core strength and definition when I stopped dancing due to a chronic injury a few years ago, so my goal is to get at least most of that back.
Around the same time I began to notice problems with my balance and a lack of flexibility stemming from the same injury which I would like to fix.
I have a lot of back and shoulder strength, but not a lot of arm strength which I would like to change.
Along with that I need to build my leg strength in order to help keep my chronic knee injury and pain away.
I want to learn how to work with my body to get where I need to go, and how to keep it there once I get there.
But the most important goal is to be happy with myself and feel healthy.

I've had my first real session today with the trainer and so far things look good. I'm definitely struggling because of how weak most of my muscles have become, but I push as hard as I can to get where I'm going.

Join me on my journey into healthiness. Weekly updates to come.