As I sit here tonight I am hardcore avoiding my homework, eating chocolate chips, I am somewhat not excited to get up at 5am once again tomorrow. There are times when life just gets so hectic that I want all of my responsibilities to go away and to sleep and play all day. When times like these occur it is key to keep goals in mind...although waking up at 5am is not ideal for anyone, college student or not, it really is a great start to my day. I do not have to worry about working out for the rest of my day and starting my day with such an intense workout gives me the satisfying feeling of accomplishment before half of the town is even awake. School work on the other hand is slightly less rewarding in my eyes...graduation is in 69 days. Hard to believe it seems so close yet so far. The closer graduation comes it seems the harder it is to stay focused on classes and homework. I try to keep in mind that regardless of how long I put something off, I am still going to have to deal with it in the end...so I might as well just get it over with now.

My major is all about human movement, the body: what it does and how it works, so it is fairly easy to be interested in the things I am learning, but I have recently decided to changed my career path from physical therapy to...well...that is the hard part...I am not sure what I want to do with my life anymore. I want to do something in the medical field but physical therapy has disinterested me lately and I do not want to get stuck dong something with the rest of my life that does not totally thrill me. I would love to be paid lots of money to work out every day..wouldn't that be nice. I have been thinking about becoming a personal trainer when I graduate to make good money to save up for graduate school. I guess we will see what the world has in store for me, but for now I suppose I should stop procrastinating and do what I need to do. Gotta get to bed by 10pm, which I now consider late lol.

Made it through week 3!! I must admit this week seemed to be a lot tougher than the first 2 weeks, but it feels so good to know that I can still get through it. This month was my trial month for boot camp and I officially signed a contract for 2 more months...it would be 3 but after graduation in May I am not really sure where I will be. The things I feel in my body just give me so much confidence in the way I carry myself. There are parts of my body getting stronger that I never thought would. Today we did a fairly rigorous circuit with the hardest part being "get-ups." Get-ups use every single muscle in your body and by my 3rd time through the circuit my legs could almost not stand up from a lying position, but I pushed through and was able to make it through without having to drop my weight. I definitely struggled today and thought I could not do it, but that is when I stopped myself and said, "HEY, YOU CAN DO THIS!!!" Other things in my life may not be going so great at the moment, but I cannot even begin to describe the amazing feelings I get knowing that I can count on working out to make me feel better about myself and life in general. 

Working out used to be all about getting skinny, looking like this or that thing girl, look good so this person may be attracted to me....NOT ANYMORE.  This is all about me, how I feel in my own skin and being HEALTHY. I want to be healthy so I can live a long life where I am not disadvantaged by my body's capabilities. Sure...having a rockin' bod is the cherry on top of the sundae, but it is no longer the only driving force for my crazy fitness habits. It is crazy how much I have developed as a woman through my years in college. My friends may not understand why I do what I do or why I love it, they may not support it and try to get me to give it up but I just keep telling myself that it doesn't matter what they say because it is something I love to do and I am going to keep doing it. When I look drop dead sexy in a bikini this summer in Vegas, maybe then they'll stop hating lol or not...either way! If there is any kind of advice I can give to people who have those "haters" in their life...it would be to focus on YOU and remember that your own happiness is what matters, if other people can't support what makes you happy then maybe they aren't the best people..or maybe you should just ignore what they have to say in regards to that aspect of life. A good workout will never let you down, criticize you, or make you feel like you are worth less than you are..its does the complete opposite! Ever need motivation to push through those last few reps? Think of all those who say you can't...and show them you CAN.

Today was one of those days where getting out of bed seemed like the hardest thing I could possibly do...but when I got to boot camp I found out that getting out of bed was the easiest part of my day. Due to the rain we were inside today which is not nearly as fun as being outside, but I did appreciate staying dry...aside from the beads of sweat that soon dripped down my face. Once a week we do a little thing called tabata training. After doing the chopper warm-up and 10 minutes of cardio hell (which was definitely hell today) we started tabata training. This type of training follows the high intensity interval training that we do throughout the entire boot camp but this one burns so much more. Tabata training only lasts 4 minutes per exercise, 20 seconds all out reps, 10 seconds rest and repeat till you reach the 4 minute mark. I pushed myself harder than I ever thought I could today which made me feel extremely accomplished by the end. After boot camp I felt so accomplished that I went to the gym for an hour. Working out makes me feel so much better about myself and my life no matter what is going on in it. Once I get through a tough workout I feel like I can conquer the day and anything that is thrown at me. 

Someone who has really helped me through the toughest of times at boot camp and the not so tough is my boot camp buddy Brittany. We met on the first day of boot camp and from that moment on we buddied up. She pushes me when I feel like giving up, as I do for her. I have never been able to have a solid workout buddy that I can rely on because all of my friends either think I'm crazy, don't want to workout, or we just have completely opposite schedules. For a while I just thought I was better off working by myself, but now I do not ever want to now workout with Brittany. It is one thing to push yourself but when you have someone else telling you "You can do it," "Don't give up," "Keep going," it makes a huge difference. Nothing has to be accomplished alone. It is hard to find someone with the same crazy level or aspirations as you, but I now know that it is worth it to find that person because you can come to accomplish things you never thought you could. So to all you out there that ever feel like giving up, PUSH HARDER!!!! :) Don't ever give up because you will regret it.

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.