My fitness journey

Thanks so much everyone for your kind words, you're making me blush! The best advice I can give is to never beat yourself up over a bad day (I am too guilty of that and learning to be much more peaceful with myself) and take things a day at a time. A quote I always remind myself of is 'strive for progress, not perfection.'

Great job! You prove that perseverance is everything. I always think of the near future (this summer!) being fit and tones, but if I stick through with it, I'll look amazing next summer and won't have to go through the winter trying to "get my body back". Thanks for posting this! Amazing job!

Thank you! I definitely have had many bumps along the way, as it was also a slow learning process for me. I began just with running a lot, and lost a good amount of weight, but was still soft everywhere and plateau-ing. Then I got a gym membership and started using some machines and working on my abs for a year or so and leaned out a bit more. I have been on and off with MFP since I signed up 4 years ago, but not until just this past year have I really focused in on tracking my food daily and moved up to lifting heavy weights to be sure I lose body fat but not muscle. And I still have my days where I go crazy and eat 800 calories over, get grumpy but just pick it up in a day or two. I've learned a lot about having patience with yourself and to work on loving who you already are so that you don't get too caught up in wanting to be somewhere you're not right away. It's been a long road of really getting to know and love myself, and just be happy knowing I am taking care of my body for the future :flowerforyou:


Thank you to everyone else for the wonderful comments, it melts my heart

Awesome job, and congrats on ... journey? Looks like an arrival! I've been running and lost some weight, but also feel like I've been plateauing. Care to share some of your regimen? Which machines, and what ab program? And your attitude is right on, we all have good days and bad days - that's called life! - it's staying true to lifestyle choices, but not captive to them!

hehe, for me it will always be a journey because I would always like to push new limits and learn new exercises and gain new strengths. As of now I am working on getting my body fat % down, at the moment I have gotten it down to 25%, but would like to be around the 20-22% range.

I rarely use machines any more... if I do it's for leg work occasionally. I mainly just do a lot of free weights with dumbbells and ab work on the floor, whatever comes to mind that day. I definitely try to switch it up or up my weights a little bit every week. For cardio I try to burn 2-300 calories each gym visit by either running, elliptical or rowing (sometimes combining them). I go to the gym 3-5 days a week and try to keep active at home on days I don't with workout dvds or yoga and such.

I had built up some good muscle mass over the years but not until more recently when I really started focusing on lowering my body fat did they begin to show. Even in a few months there has been a significant difference. It's just important to really keep those muscles working and strength training while cutting some calories to be sure that when you lose weight it's going to be body fat and not muscles too. I'm sure I'm just repeating a lot of what is told all day on here, but I just have to say it myself, because it really does come down to just having a decent calorie deficit and keeping active with BOTH cardio and strength training. I don't deprive myself from sweets or certain meats or carbs, I just have a good balance of everything and watch how much I am putting into me.