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The One Secret To Fitness Success

Does any of this sound like you?

  • I wanted to exercise to be skinny, and would give up when it wasn’t going to happen
  • Similarly, I wanted to lose weight and would give up when the scale didn’t move
  • I thought of my goals as a destination, like I could get off the ride once I arrived
  • If I missed workouts or took an extended break, I would beat myself up and quit over being a failure

This is how I used to approach fitness!

 

Pinterest Pin - 1 Fitness Secrets

 

What’s The Secret?

 

Changing all of these toxic thought patterns!

 

  • I wanted to exercise to be skinny, and would give up when it wasn’t going to happen

This was my goal and failure over and over for as long as I can remember. I’m not a big girl, but I’m not a small girl. I was, still am, and will always be the biggest and most “solid” girl in our family of four sisters (by a lot, they are all 0-4 and I’m a size 10.) If that doesn’t make you discouraged from the outset, I don’t know what would.

The reality is, and you can roll your eyes all you want, we are all built differently. Good things about having a bigger body: I carry more muscle, I can get more swoll, I have boobs. All good things!

 

Which ties me into the next mental shift nicely:

  • I wanted to lose weight and would give up when the scale didn’t move

I will never, EVER, be able to explain this phenomenon to you. I’ve gained about 30 pounds since I got married and no matter my exercise plan or how I looked, the scale either never moved, or often went UP. “Muscle weighs more than fat!” the fitness folks cry, yada yada, heard it all before. In my mind I’ve gained 30 pounds so there should be some wiggle room there. Nope.

 

Did you read how I said “no matter how I looked?” So why did I weigh myself? I would always step on the scale in a moment of confidence, sure that my hard work had paid off in numbers. Every time I just hurt myself. I am happy to say that I haven’t weighed myself in probably three years, and breaking up was the best thing I ever did. Even the last time I was at the doctor’s office, I politely asked for her to not tell me the number. She didn’t care, I don’t care, we’re bad bishes.

 

This is a really good time to start getting into fitness actually, because I feel like there has been such an amazing shift to being STRONG from being slim. We can get tight and not worry about our weight or even our clothing size. I will always be a size 10. I can be a firm, curvaceous 10 though!

 

Summer 2020 I was exercising regularly

 

  • I thought of my goals as a destination, like I could get off the ride once I arrived

The reality (and it doesn’t have to be a sad one) is that you are in a lifelong relationship with your body, and that shouldn’t and doesn’t end when we reach a certain goal. So lets not go hard off the jump and kill ourselves. Let’s think about how we can fit exercise that we like into our lifestyle long-term.

 

I started out initially by saying I would lift weights once a week and go for walks. People laughed at me, because what is once a week going to do? At this point I am no longer ashamed of my body and I am doing this for me, so I don’t care if people think it’s stupid. I am building exercise into my life, and actually something HAS to be better than nothing. I was right. It is, and I enjoyed it, and I increased it over time because I liked exercising for the first time ever.

 

Two months after I first started working out with my new mindset

 

  • If I missed workouts or took an extended break, I would beat myself up and quit over being a failure

It is hard to get back into exercise after a long break, I won’t lie to you, but when that last point is taken care of, I no longer feel like a break is a failure. I am currently on a break for the last couple of months and picked up the weights twice last week to start getting back to it. It’s not a failure because I decided to take the break knowing 1.) that I wasn’t eating properly or sleeping enough and would injure myself, and 2.) I would pick it back up when I was ready. It might be months, but it’s about the relationship now, not the destination.

 

Just like a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while, the relationship is still there and when you are in a position to nurture it, you will.

 

One year of fairly regular exercise

 

Finally, something I heard a while ago is that no matter where you are at with your body, you are someone’s goals. Just like you might look at other people and they have your goal body, you are that to someone else. Someone is working towards their next fitness goal, and that goal looks a lot like you!

 

This was supposed to be an exercise tips post, but I realized that I had a lot of negative thinking to unpack here! Click here for the tips post: A Lazy Girl’s Guide to Working Out!

Stay tuned to see if exercise and I start dating again!

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