So, why is this significant enough for me to blog about it? Some of you may think 200 workouts is not a big deal, especially in 2.5 years. I am okay with people thinking that because this process is easy for them. This journey has been one of the most difficult things I have ever tried to do. I have wanted to quit more times than I can remember. I have been frustrated and discouraged many times. All of this is really okay. As Destiny would remind me, I am allowed to feel my feelings. Just because I feel it, doesn't mean someone will agree with me. The thing that is significant is I have not quit.
During my 2.5 years, I have encountered hundreds of people. I have had to branch out and try new trainers (this is still very hard for me). I have had to trust people and let them get close enough to me to speak truth over my life. I have had to make myself vulnerable and I have had to be transparent about the process. A few times, I have cried and I have even puked.
I realized today, I have done something that the old me would have considered impossible. I would have laughed in your face if you would have told me I was going to spend 200 hours exercising. Two hundred hours seems like a really long time. It is 8.33333333 days. That is time I have invested in myself. Better than that, it is time that other people have invested in me. This journey, has been interesting.
Most of my 200 hours have been with the same trainer, but not all of them. I think about the first conversation I had with Bethany that was not related to my son being in her class and think how different my life would be if it had not happened. I think about everything that happened between the day I met her (August 5, 2013) and the day we talked (January 14, 2014). I think about the first workout and how intimidating it was to walk up to a group of people I did not know (I weighed well over 300 pounds). I remember crying all the way home. I remember the conversation I had with Bethany the next day at work. Her words that day flipped a switch in my brain that has improved the quality of my life. Her passion for fitness and her love for people saved me!
Has this been easy? Uh, no! Is it about me? It probably should be 100% about me, but it is not. It is about people who are like I used to be. People who need someone to believe in then so strongly that the chains holding them break and set them free. It is about every person who has ever thought they didn't measure up. It is for people who do not like who they see in the mirror. It's also for the people who have invested their lives in the fitness industry. Those trainers who see past the exterior and see the athlete hiding inside. I will continue this journey...one check in at a time. I will invest in myself so that my life and my journey impacts as many people as possible. And while we are talking about the number 200, that is what I want to lose...in 2008, I weighed nearly 400 pounds. We will say 385 (that is the last weight I remember). I want to push until I weigh 185. I have 83 pounds to go.
You are capable of great things, you just have to get up and do them! Be blessed and be kind.
