Well, in this blog, I will share anything I deem "necessary and worthy"—probably mostly personal flare and details, as well as tips and tricks that get me to the fitness and health goals I’m trying to achieve for myself. If they help you, feel free to use them!
I guess I should start at square one though, and introduce myself (if you don’t already know me) and describe my personal journey. I should preface this with the fact that I grew up with hypothyroidism, which means my thyroid gland is non-existent. It really is--it DISSOLVED on me as a baby so I got my necessary growth hormones from Synthroid/Levothyroxine. A very strong dosage, I might add. So strong, that pharmacists would look at my parents crooked when I was a young child/teen. My parents had to explain each time that I didn't have a thyroid gland and then the pharmacists would sigh in relief. Anyway, hypothyroidism affects just about everything that deals with growth and especially controls metabolism, which in turn, makes it very difficult to lose weight but weight gain was extremely easy! Too easy.
I moved here to Idaho in 2007 with my (then) husband (we're divorced now but that's another story that I'll touch on a tad later in this post). I was overweight from a first year of teaching, which equaled lots of stress and emotional eating. At the end of each teaching day, if it was especially rough, I'd "treat" myself to an ice cream or candy bar because I "deserved" it. We also didn't eat the best food at home. It was quick and easy or even when it was cooked, it was the easy recipes that weren't the best in nutritional value.
So, I went to the local gym closest to our house at the time and got a health analysis. The numbers were terrible!! I weighed in at 194.4 and the other numbers were just horrible. I knew I couldn't remedy this on my own. I started attending fitness classes and I also enrolled at my local Weightwatchers. Things needed to change. Fast forward a year or two and I was down 25 pounds--and I was running!! I NEVER RUN. I tried it one day on the dreadmill and just did a few minutes at a time and then all of a sudden, it was like magic--I was running 30-40-60 minutes!! I set a new goal for myself. I signed up for my first half marathon...no 5k, no 10k, no fun runs...a whole freaking 13.1 miles!! WTF?? I had no chill! This was coming from a girl who EXEMPTED her PE final in 9th grade when we had to run 2 miles. Go figure. I'm pretty sure my parents are still stumped by this. 😂😂😂
Things were going swimmingly or should I say they were running right along.. NO? Okay.. I was down another 10+ pounds and I could eat pretty much anything I wanted since I was running about 6 days a week. Soon after that, I was running in just about every half marathon I could feasibly do. I thought that any exercise I did needed to burn at least 600 calories or more or else it wasn't a workout. As you can imagine, that was a quick recipe for exercise burnout. I burned out completely. I stopped going to the gym completely! Oh geez. It was bad. Flash forward again and I made my way back and started taking Zumba classes. It was different and I loved it! I eventually became an instructor myself! I had so much fun!! I did ALL THE ZUMBA THINGS. I was obsessed!
You know what happened with that too? I did it so much that I was afraid I was staying away from home too much. Hubby started complaining a bit. Not too much but enough that I had to dial it back a bit and I eventually burned out from that too but I also knew I needed to be home more because we were starting to have problems in our marriage. I instantly thought it was my fault. It wasn't of course, but, that's all I could think at the time! Things seemed to get a little better with us after awhile so I decided to take on another format--Bodypump. I loved it because it was weightlifting and I could really change my body faster with more challenging choreography and heavier weights. I loved this format as well!
I taught it for a couple years and then made the difficult decision to stop that as well because I was in the midst of a separation. Yes, things had gone downhill after a small peace offering. We just had grown apart and to avoid going into too much detail, I'll put it like this.. he and I were together for 4 years before getting married and thought I knew every bit of him and how he ticked. We were married almost 8 years before our separation. It was devastating for both of us but mostly me because I felt like I had been betrayed and lied to on so many levels. Essentially I was but you know the good thing was out of this? We split somewhat amicably. Everything was split evenly or at least "fairly". He knew I wasn't making as much money as a teacher as he would as an engineer and he was quickly being promoted and making much more money. He offered to take care of anything I needed if it was too great of a price. We split our phone bill for the longest time because it was saving money for sure!
Anyway, to make an already long story short, I'm thriving. I'm an independent woman who is still teaching fitness classes, albeit a different format because you know, YOLO. And life is too short to be bored with one thing. I'm a Pound Instructor at another gym and I only teach one night a week, which is very freeing. I'm done with the multiple nights a week. My weight has gone up and down but I'm now in a very loving relationship with an amazing guy who lets me be me and I let him be him. We trust each other. That was one thing I had lost with my ex. I had lost trust. It's not that he ever cheated on my physically but his affections were elsewhere, and I felt like I couldn't be away for very long. My boyfriend appreciates everything about me and wants me to be happy in anything I set out to do.
Whew! I meant this background to be a little shorter. Guess not! 😉
I'm the healthiest I've been in a long time though (mentally, physically, and emotionally) and still working on those. I acknowledge that fitness and health are a journey and not a destination. I'm working every day to better myself and along the way, if I happen to help others do the same, I'll consider the days successful!
I hope you enjoyed my rather lengthy intro but I figure it's important to lay it all out to begin with so that you all know my story and how I came to where I am now.
Enjoy!
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