My In&Out Challenge with myself!
From tomorrow, we’ll only have one more week left of the IN & OUT challenge and I’m writing this post to remind myself that I have got to PUSH MYSELF!!! So, what better way to motivate myself than to remember my 25th birthday.
A few months before my big day, I had picked up my first issue of Oxygen magazine and I was amazed by the women I saw inside. (You all know how wonderful all the women in that magazine look, so I’m not going to talk about how I cut out a picture of Mary Elizabeth Lado and stuck it inside my wardrobe so that I could see her everyday. Whoops! Did I just type that? hehe…) Anyway, I fell in love with Jen Hendershott and when I heard about her PHAT CAMPS, I decided that that was how I was going to spend my 25th birthday. My folks are the cutest parents in the world and they were more than cool about me going away for a weekend to learn about diet and fitness. I booked my flight and hotel and started counting the days till I flew to Chicago, the weekend of my bday, for Phat Camp! Woo hoo!!!
When the weekend finally arrived and I walked into the gym where Camp was going to be held, I saw Jen and I was immediately star struck, but she was the coolest person on the planet and within a few minutes I felt like she was just one of the girls, but my gawd did that woman push m! After an entire weekend of chest and back, and shoulders and arms, and boot-camp, when I finally came back home, I couldn’t walk straight for 2 whole days. Every muscle ached; every movement hurt; I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my life!!!!
I came back from PHAT Camp on a Sunday and I walked to the gym on Monday (actually, I wobbled to the gym) and I did the elliptical for 30 mins. In fact, I was so pumped after spending a weekend with Jen that for two and a half months afterwards, I would get up (without fail) at 5.30 am every weekday morning and go to the gym where I would do a five-day split and 45 mins cardio each time. Plus, I did cardio in the gym for an hour on Saturday. I WAS SO PUMPED!!!
This was two years ago and I’m 27 now and 12 lbs heavier. AND, I’m writing this post to GET PUMPED AGAIN! I’m doing the IN&OUT Challenge here on BB and I’ve noticed that there’s been an In&Out challenge that has been going on within myself for a number of years. My personal In&Out challenge goes something like this… (And this is truthfully what it is; I’m not making this up!)
Every night when I go to bed the last thing I see is a buff version of me running on the streets in a sports bra and capri pants.
Every morning when I get up from bed, I look at myself and think, "Hmm… will the girl in the sports bra every show up?
When I surrounded by people, I refuse to eat bad food. My diet is most perfect then.
When I’m by myself and especially when I’m upset, I’m most unkind to my body and I feed it junk.
What I’m trying to state is that what I feel like on the inside isn’t what I look like on the outside and I want what I feel like on the inside to manifest itself on the outside. I want to end my personal In&Out Challenge and I want to come out of it (as Adina said so cutely in her blog this morning) a transformation in the making!!! But, I want to be made!!!
As I read the NYTimes on Monday morning I came across Ben Weider’s obituary. There was a quote by him, in which he said: “A body is a body is a body. It has muscles, it has blood, it has bones, it can be built.”
As I finish writing this blog, I say to myself: "I’m ready to be built; I’m ready to be made!"
October 23, 2008 at 8:10 pm
You’ve laid it all out on in this blog. You’ve set the bar high. Now go for it. This is your year. Set some goals, a big one, and short term one, and set out with the passion you displayed in this blog. Good luck, and reach your goals moving forwards and enjoying your journey.
October 24, 2008 at 5:36 am
YEAH! Listen to you go! I knew there was a fighter & dreamer in "there"! That jogging babe in the sports bra & Capris (like the Weider obit alludes to) is IN there. She is IN you right now. You KNOW she’s there. She wants sooooooo badly to come out and turn heads and just GOGOGOGOGO! But……she needs help. She can;t do it alone.
You need to help her.
Your bedtime & morning mantra is awesome. I strongly believe in self-fulfilling prophecies. You CAN & WILL make this happen.
Pick a date sometime in 09′, spmething that means something to you, sometime next summer or fall. Make this your "target date". Just like all these people competing and are X weeks out, you will be X weeks out. Then come up with a plan, work as hard every day as you did at PHAT Camp and MAKE it happen!
October 26, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Good advice from our fellow in and out challengers!
First I have to say, GREAT PIC! What a great experience!
I always remember this question when I am faced with something that seems bigger than whatIcan accomplish….
‘How do you eat an elephant?’
One bite at at time, baby.
You have your large goal, break in down into small daily goals, you can do this. One bite at a time!