It’s been awhile since I’ve shared anything regarding my personal health and fitness. And since this is a new blog; let me start from the beginning. And this will be just the highlight moments and how I remember them.
Shortly after my husband and I got married in 2014, I wanted to get in shape. I joined this online community and really fell in love with fitness. I loved it so much that I wanted to pay it forward to other women and build a community like I was a part of. So I became this online “coach” with a multilevel marketing company. I stayed with this company for five-ish years, I think. I stuck with working out and drinking this nutritious shake every day even after my first son was born in 2018. Go me! But, after I had learned about a different opportunity and how to really take my health to the next level (and of course some company drama, I’ll leave out) I walked away from that said company.
I started going to a local gym in the spring of 2019. I had absolutely no idea what to do, where to start, how to start, what equipment was, etc. I followed a few accounts on instagram & followed whatever my favorite influencer posted. It made me happy.
In the fall of 2019 when Daxton was about nine months old, I struggled. I knew I wanted to help more people feel the way I felt. I just didn’t know what avenue to take. I was on the phone with my aunt and she mentioned personal training. BOOM, yes that’s what I want to do. So I signed up, studied in the evenings after Daxton went to bed. I was so excited for this new journey. We live in a pretty small community and no one else I knew did personal training. I was just going to help so many people. I was ready, booked my exam, prepped for a sitter… BAM.. Covid. My exam is canceled via email and the whole world shuts down just a few days later. Cool. Now what? I received an email saying I could take the exam online. Sweet! Set that up and just a few days later, I’m preparing our spare bedroom for this test. I have to show the whole room’s set up, so they can make sure you’re not cheating on this exam. Yikes! A few hours go by and I am officially a certified personal trainer. Passed this exam on our anniversary, what a gift!
The world is still at a standstill, but in May of 2020, I am signing a contract and posting a photo to my Instagram that I am officially a trainer at our local gym. YAHOO! A few weeks later, I am booking client consults and preparing programs. The gym is a twenty minute drive from home, but I’m up early and heading to the gym at 5 am for training sessions. My mother and sister in law are helping with babysitting Daxton. Life is good.
Burn out. I wish I could remember the exact dates but I feel like it was a year later, I’m exhausted. I hardly spend time with my family. I’m either at the gym, driving to and from, or home preparing to be at the gym. Don’t get me wrong, I love helping people. Still do. That’s why I’m writing this. But I needed to slow down. So my gym sessions shortened and I made a certain time frame for being at the gym. This is my business, I can do this how i need, right? With permission of the gym manager I started offering online personal training. Cool. I can do gym sessions with people who it works for & online sessions for who it doesn’t. I can still be helping people, but not at the gym so much. Online training is so much fun and I loved it.
March of 2022, I start to feel this odd feeling. Like there is something going on in my body. My joints are always hurting, my recovery is terrible, bloated everyday, something is going on. So I get some tests done and share my journey along the way. Leaky gut syndrome. What in the Sam Elliot is this?! Food sensitivity test, cool wow, I can’t really eat anything that I am used to having. Experiment time. This started a whole new series of what you put in your body really matters.
April 2022, we are selling our home. We relocated and now I’m about 45 minutes away from the gym. This was hard. Moved, trying to settle, gym. How am I going to make this work? Wait, pregnant? Yep, in June of 2022 we are officially pregnant and the entire first trimester was testing me. Thank goodness was Cov!d hit, we were able to purchase some equipment and I was able to workout from our new home. Except, I didn’t find myself doing so much. Like I said, the first trimester was terrible. In the second trimester I was able to eat and move my body, but not in a way I was used to. I still had my online training clients and was solely focusing on hitting 10k steps each day.
February 2023, I am ready to have this baby. Sleep was terrible, my body hurt and I remember thinking; please, please let me have this baby soon. On february 28th, our Maverick Lane was born.
March 2023, we are moving. I kid you not Maverick was just a few weeks old and we are packing up our home and moving, again. I cannot wait for life to get back to the way it was.
May 2023, clear to workout! Music to my ears, I couldn’t wait to move my body. Except it felt like this body wasn’t mine. If you’re a mom, you know what I mean. Zero core strength, leaky boobs, always exhausted. But like I’ve always said, movement is movement. So that’s what I focused on. Slowly but surely, I was going to get my body back. I even created a self paced program to teach how you can become educated on your fitness journey without having a coach. I will link it for you here.
Summer of 2023, I am back at the gym. We are back baby, we are back!! I am starting to get a flow back. Clients are coming back. I truly made the best friendships at this gym. I had a goal to do classes, but the timing just would never work. But, hey we will get there.
In the fall of 2023, I resigned from the gym. I feel like my world is completely shattered. Fitness is all I know. It’s all I ever wanted and this gym was my home for the last 4.5 years. I’m not going into details as to why I resigned, but just know it was incredibly hard. I really think this is where I struggled to find myself. Or the identity crisis I had experienced.
Thank goodness for all the equipment we had snagged when we did and was able to put together a home gym pretty quickly. Just 30 minutes a day, I can dedicate that much time to my at home gym.
I’m going to fast forward to now. And spare you a deep dark hole I fell into. Maybe I’ll share that in a different post. But fitness is so important to me. Whether that be a strength workout or just focusing on movement. It takes a lot of time, education, trial and error to get to a point where you don’t feel like you need to be in the gym 6 days a week. As of right now, I am not currently accepting online training clients, but I do hope to bring it back sometime.
To me, health is not looking a certain way, but feeling a certain way. I haven’t had a sip of alcohol in over a year. I go to bed at a decent time and limit my screen time in the evening. I will still have a leaky gut flare up from time to time, but it’s so much better than it was before. We eat nutritional dense foods the majority of the time. No one is perfect and we like to enjoy life.
So if you’re new to all things health, fitness, wellness I hope you stick around and be ready for your own trial and errors along this journey. It’s all about the growth. Hehe literally if you’re trying to build muscle mass.
Xoxo,
2019 first gym selfie to 7/26/2024
