To Your (My) Health

I’ve always considered myself a pretty active person.  I did run track after all.  But after graduating – and not constantly having someone telling me how to work out and when – I certainly eased into a not so consistent workout plan.  Rather the two or even three-a-days I had grown accustomed to, I instead fell into a schedule of half-assed cardio seasons.  I mean I still worked out (because I do love it) but it was nothing compared to what my body was used to.

Two months, two months, two months.  CREDIT.

Then you pair that with food.  Because I was always getting my ass kicked with lifting, running, form workouts and plyos I just didn’t really think that much about what I was eating.  While I ate fairly healthily, I enjoyed my fair share of sugary sweets and greasy fried foods.  I love food and I didn’t hold back if I didn’t want to.

And then finally you get a job at Hooters.  There is almost nothing better as a lover of wings than being hired as a Hooters Girl.  Wings are everywhere.  Of course being a Hooters Girl means wearing the uniform.  And the uniform isn’t quite as fond of wings.  At first I just didn’t care.

So I gained weight.  It was inevitable.  But I won’t sit here and pretend I gained tons of unwanted pounds.  Obviously I was still able to pull of the uniform of a Hooters Girl.  I just felt heavy.  I felt off.  I felt lazy.  In short I didn’t feel like me anymore.  And while I looked fine to everyone else, that just wasn’t good enough for me.

Finally, I decided to really do something about it.  I stopped saying “I’ll start on Monday” and just effing started.  And let me tell you, at first it totally sucked.  It wasn’t so much the more consistent and focused working out, but rather the showing up to Hooters and avoiding everything delicious and eating salad after salad after salad.  That was torture.

But I stuck with it as much as I wanted to order a greasy Strip Cheese sandwich drenched in extra hot sauce.  I started bring my own food to work to avoid temptation.  I added a morning bootcamp to my cardio routine and introduced more lifting.  I started feeling like me.  I wasn’t as tired – even when waking up at six to hit the gym.  I felt happier.  I just felt good.

Please note the size of that bitty bikini in relation to my heels.

And then I went totally insane and decided to sign up for a bikini fitness competition.  I even went out and purchased a miniscule, shiny bikini and five-inch clear heels (the normal uniform of a fitness competitor); I made the decision and I committed myself.  That decision has taken my already healthy eating lifestyle to regimented, four-hour meals of specific amounts of protein and starchy carbs.  I am one of those crazy people with both a bathroom scale and a kitchen scale; I even use them both daily.  I drink protein shakes.  I no longer drown my sorrows nor celebrate my happiness in the bottoms of margaritas.  I go the gym twice a day even when I think I don’t have the time.  I am bastion of fitness.  Don’t worry I scare myself too.

But here I sit today, just under two months out from my competition, toned, healthy and nearly twenty pounds lighter than I was in January.  Did I think I even had twenty pounds to lose?  Hell no.  But I did and it feels amazing.  My abs say hello.

I’ll be so ready for that shiny, little bikini.