It has been a while since I posted...I am still new at this whole blog thing. Boot camp is going GREAT. My best friend asked me the other day if it was getting easier now that I am in week 3 and I was able to tell her that the boot camp was not getting easier but that I was getting better. I used to look in the mirror every morning and criticize the parts of my body that I thought were fat or ugly but as a new resolution I have actively tried to tell myself to stop doing that if I start to. My friends have been able to see improvement not only in the way I look but my mood as well. Getting up at 5am for a college student Mon-Fri is a struggle, especially when I do not have class Thursday or Friday but it is paying off big time. My arm strength has gotten better as well as my recovery rate at the end of the workout.
Something I have come to realize through personal experience is that you only get out what you put in and you are your biggest critic. The body truly does here what the mind says, takes it personally and reflects those thoughts. I have been able to push myself harder than I expected by keeping simple things in mind throughout the workout: "if I cheat I am only cheating myself," "I haven't fainted, I'm not puking, and I'm still breathing so I can keep going," and my favorite... "Kris comes home in May!!" Kris is my boyfriend who is a soldier in the Army currently deployed in Afghanistan. I cannot wait until he comes home in May and I want to make sure I look great. Although Kris is huge motivation for me to keep going, I am ultimately doing this all for myself. I used to criticize myself to a sick extent and I knew my friends would become beyond irritated with the way I treated myself and talked about my body, but for some reason I just could not stop. There are no reasons to hate my body because it is a beautiful, strong tool that allows me to live my life and do all of the things I do. Time is wasted when it is spent dwelling on things that require action. Telling myself I need to lose weight, get more toned, etc will not get me there, going hard and giving 100% every workout will. I cannot wait until my next benchmark test next Friday to see my improvements.

First Post :)

Hello fellow bloggers and interested readers! I am a college student wrapping up my senior year and looking forward to graduating with a B.S. in Kinesiology concentrating in Exercise Science. Fitness is my passion. Being fit and healthy has always been an emphasis in my life, but it was not until college that I realized the true meaning and value of those two things. It used to be all about losing weight to be skinny for me, but more recently I have accepted my body for what it is and thrown out the image of the cookie cutter society says all girls should look like. My body has curves and I am going to love them for what they are and flaunt what I got. As everyone does, my fitness has its highs and plateaus.  My reason for starting this blog is to help inspire me to keep pursuing my fitness goals. I have heard from many people that blogging about things really helps them, so I figured I would give it a shot!

This past week I started up at a workout boot camp which is at 5:30am Mon-Fri...I have always been considered crazy by my friends for my habits when it comes to exercising, but this took my craziness to a whole new level! Being in college already implies less sleep and throwing in this boot camp has been the cherry on top of that, but it is paying off. I was very hesitant to start something like this because it has always intimidated me due to the intensity, plus I was not very fond of the thought of having someone yell at me. With relief, I am able to say that there is no one yelling at me and that I have much more potential than I give myself credit for. It is amazing what one can accomplish with the right kind of mindset and support from friends or fellow fitness freaks!  After one week of boot camp my body feels amazing, extremely sore, but I love it. Yesterday I put on a pair of jeans that normally fit me just right, but for one of the firs times in my life they were saggy on my butt and in my thighs. (my butt is rather large in proportion to my waist). It was such a great feeling to already see that kind of difference because I have been at a plateau for so long. Today was our first bench marker test which we will also take at the end of camp to see how we have improved over the weeks. The test consisted of: 3/4 mile run, 100 push-ups, 100 bi-flys, 100 power curls, 100 jump squats, 50 burpees, 50 tricep extensions, and 3/4 mile run to finish it off.  I was pretty happy when my time came to be 34:10 minutes and the top time of camp this morning was around 29 minutes. Something I found helpful today in succeeding this test was to kick out any negative thought that began to enter my mind. I repeated several positive statements to myself and encouraged my body to keep going. "Your body hears everything that your mind says," one of my favorite fitness quotes. 


I have been through many struggles surrounding my body over the years. There was a period of time in life when I suffered from EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified), but every day I look in the mirror now I tell myself how strong I am, not only physically but emotionally and mentally. Nothing beats a happy person with a positive outlook, no one wants to be around the negative Nancy. You are only as strong as  you allow yourself to be, so once we all stop putting limits on our own abilities we can exceed even our greatest expectations.