Background

I’ve grown up living a very active and healthy lifestyle for as long as I can remember. I’ve been active all throughout grade school with anything and everything I could get my hands on. Since high school I’ve played soccer, ran track, lifted weights, and gotten into throwing hammer at a collegiate level. I, like many other girls & women struggle with my image, weight, and overall healthiness. You would think with being this active I’d have no problem with staying thin, eating healthy, and having motivation pouring through my ears… But that’s not the case.

All throughout high school I criticized my body, thinking that I should be thinner, I should have smaller legs, bigger boobs, and a bigger butt. I wanted to have that ‘perfect’ image that I saw all of the celebrities had. But little did I know, ‘back in the day’ my body was perfect just the way it was. I had barely matured as a teenager or physically, and looking at where I am now, I kick myself for being so critical and hard on my image.

Before freshman year of college I was determined to walk on to the varsity soccer team. My summer workouts consisted of running between 5-8+ miles a couple days a week, doing sprint drills, calisthenics, foot skills & ball work, anything I could come up with that could make that dream happen. And a large part of that was my diet as well. My dad called me the garbage disposal because I literally ate anything and everything up until this point in time. That summer I found out that eating a lot of fruits and veggies, and eating them often would help me to thin out. Reality; it wasn’t enough. I would do well for a few days and then it would catch up to me and I’d go back to my old habits.

Going into Freshman year, I was 155lbs. give or take. I had my tryout in the spring semester and played all of spring freshman year. This type of fitness level was everything my body ever needed; 2 hours of practice, running the field, ball work, sprints, and then 1-2 hours of a lift with a lot of cardio work, circuits, calisthenics, etc.  I loved my body after this season of college soccer. I had abs, legitimate abs, my legs were toned, upper body was toned, and I was between 150-160lbs. I had put on some muscle, but I loved where I was at with my fitness and image. Unfortunately, when I got home for the summer, I let myself go. I had a serious relationship with a guy, didn’t have to worry about anything, but I didn’t appreciate where my body was at, and ended up losing what I had. I found new ventures being recruited to do track, but not to run, but to throw instead.

Since sophomore through the end of my junior collegiate years, I’ve been training and throwing hammer. This training consists of heavy lifting, and we’re talking olympic lifts; power snatch, power clean, jerk, press, dead lift, back squat, front squat, bench, incline bench, dumbbell work, and very little cardio/calisthenics. I have bulked up, to say the least, and have lost sight of my body and the goals I’ve had in keeping it at the point of where I want it. I have a lot of muscle, but when you don’t work the muscle or tone it, it turns to fat and sits on your body. When I left school for the summer, after pulling all nighters, not eating healthy, and ‘letting myself go’ towards the end of the semester and track season, I weighed in at 170-80+ and this is not a good feeling.

So now, I’m at the point where I want to make a change, I want to see a difference in my body, but through a change with my eating habits, workout regiment, frame of mind, and just overall lifestyle. This can be an outlet for me, but hopefully be able to share this with other people who have or are going through something similar.

Sound Body, Sound Mind. Let’s Do This.