New Series: For Fit Sake

Okay so obviously I wanted to write about my fitness journey or health journey or weight loss journey – whatever you want to call it – when I started this blog.  In my mind it would have a bit of everything from my life and right now the three most important pillars that define my day to day life are my love life, my career and my quest to get healthier with the side effect of getting smaller.  If I’m really honest it starts with wanting to be smaller and I just know that the truth is I need to be healthier if I want to shrink.

Notice something about the blog? Two of those things get posted about all the time but something is missing. I haven’t been able to write honestly about my fitness journey because truthfully it’s been a mess.

Like anyone else, I prefer to write about my successes. I imagined myself writing these posts about having done this exercise or eaten that food and seeing results that made me happy.

Well here I am at my heaviest.

Damn it – that sucks to write. It sucks to admit publicly and to even think about going on, talking and writing about being here. It feels like the same old same old – I’ve been ‘at my heaviest” for some time now, except that number, what that phrase means on the scale, has been creeping up.

One of the most successful strategies I’ve had for losing weight in the past has been when I posted more regularly to my fitness-focused instagram. Of course I plan to get posting and engaging there again because it helped but I realized that this blog was always meant to have fitness on it so why shouldn’t it be a part of my accountability posts?

For Fit Sake is going to be an ongoing series posted every Friday where I’m making myself stay accountable about the week. I don’t want it to be just a diary so i’m going to encourage myself to learn each week and have something with a bit more substance to share and hopefully in the process of creating a series I’m proud of I’ll also be building a lifestyle that matches.

Things to look forward to this Friday and in near-future Fridays:

• I’m starting again with the Body Love app by Anna Victoria. I really like her workouts and her as a fitness coach – she’s created a great community and a beautiful app so there’s no reason for me to go somewhere else at this moment. (Hint: 1 week in it’s going well!)
• Updates to my fitness journal – what it looks like, how I use it, I’ll try to share.
• Setting up space for myself to workout. I’ll share what working out at home means to me and how that’s changed.

You can find my instagram if you’d like the daily updates and details, too! My fitness focused instagram is @fitish.kitten

Since I’m starting here I want to know – what are you biggest struggles in creating a fitter or healthier lifestyle?

For the Love of Fitness

Real talk: There’s a lot I love about fitness, of course. But I’ve fallen off the wagon so instead of talking about what’s happening or going well today I need to talk about what’s not happening on this journey and how I ended up where I am now.

I’ve been thinking about the factors that hinder my fitness journey.  I mean, you’d think if I really wanted it then the commitment would be easy, right? So how am  I sitting here at the heaviest I’ve ever been feeling like today I’m at the beginning, again? (or still?)

Of  course, I’d be starting today because it’s a Monday – all new journeys are best started on Mondays.

But what makes it so hard to get anywhere with this journey?

This week I realized that one of the biggest factors has been the source of my motivation.

You see, the very first time I even thought about a treadmill or “getting in shape” it was because I hated my body.

But the longer I’ve been on this fitness journey the more I’ve found it’s a journey of love, not hate.  It’s a journey that encourages us to love what we do. Be it yoga, running, lifting, swimming or a sport – we’re supposed to enjoy it. And when it comes to our bodies, we’re supposed to love them too. Love them because they carry us, support us, they are how we participate in that activities we enjoy. So we owe them some appreciation.

How can I enjoy an activity I’m only doing to change a body I refuse to love? I was trying to enjoy a lifestyle that is full of positivity but I was approaching it with all the wrong ideas about motivation and dedication.

Hate only gets you so far.

There are lots of enlightened quotes about karma and positive vibes and letting go of the negative in our lives.  We usually think of these mantras as survival tips for jobs, and friendships and family.

But they work in fitness too.

You have to let go of that negative energy and not act on it.

I get about two and half weeks of progress when I’m working with hate. I get two and a half weeks of routine treadmill time, vegetables and daily water quotas.  I get two and a half weeks of forcing myself to do all the things I’m told will help me leave behind a body I hate and build the dream bod.

And then…

I focus on things I love.

Because it’s easier. And more pleasant. And feels more natural.

However if choosing to eat right and work out were only things I did in response to negative thoughts, those objectively healthy habits get left behind when I start seeking all things positive and pleasant.

It’s like a natural process for self preservation or some other psychological babble – I can only live a daily routine based on negative thoughts for so long before I’m unconsciously procrastinating activities based on those negative thoughts and favoring anything with positive associations.

So it’s Monday and I’m trying to change how I think about this beginning.

In the past I’ve thought about how I weigh too much – I need to eat less. I am too big – I need to work out. I can’t do things I want to – I need to eat less and work out.

Today I’m remembering that working out comes with an endorphin rush, the positive effects of which cascade through everything I do.  I’m thinking about how much I value taking time for myself and working on myself in a tangible, physical way. I’m thinking about what my stronger, fitter body will be able to do and not just how it will look.

I have a fitness instagram account and that’s where I’ve discovered a community that has shown me the love that fitness can come from and inspire. Feel free to follow for more routine updates there – @fitish.kitten

Comment with your thoughts  =)

How a Virtual Community is Fuelling Success in Real Life

Shoutout to the insta-community around Anna Victoria, her programs, and fitness in general.  When I downloaded Anna Victoria’s FBG guides and read that she recommended followers of the program start up an instagram account I could never have imagined how key that piece would actually be.

I just did it for fun – I love social media and didn’t want to post my “before” or progress pictures on my personal account so it made sense to start a fitness account.

The community of people supporting each others fitness journey’s on instagram is unreal. Not just around Anna Victoria and her programs but in general with hashtags like #fitfam.

While I am currently following Anna Victoria’s Body Love app I am also paying attention to more general health-oriented hashtags and am blown away every day by the way people use this platform to connect with and support others in all stages of the fitness journey.

I think a big part of it is how visual fitness can be for us. As much as we tout body love and non-scale victories like enjoying your healthy diet and reaching new personal bests at the gym… we all still like to see our work pay off in a slimmer waistline or more pronounced muscles.  No matter why we may have started our fitness journey and where we are mentally with it, whether we’re dependent on visual changes or just count them as one of the many reasons we enjoy fitness… there’s no avoiding how visual fitness is.

Instagram supports that side of it while connecting you with a whole world of people who cheer on your visual victories but remind you that they aren’t everything. It’s the best of both worlds. Fellow instagram fitness lovers have left comments reminding me when I needed it that a cheat meal is okay, and that inner strength and growth is just as important as bodily strength and weight loss. They’ve told me to be proud when I change the number on the scale, but more proud when I change my lifestyle. It’s been important to have their support and I do think of them when I am tempted to make food decisions I know I’ll regret.

So if you don’t have the support network you need in real life, this is one of the few areas where relying on the online community can actually be super worthwhile!

If you want, start by finding my fitness dedicated insta – fitish.kitten =)

Carmen