A Little Bit About me

I decided to create this blog to not only motivate myself but to also motivate others. Growing up I lacked in self confidence, I was made fun of because I was bigger than the other kids. I remember as a kid playing out on the play ground being called fat, and laughed at. Luckily when jr. high came along I had a good group of friends that I would rely on. For lunch in Jr. High I would eat a pretzel with nacho cheese, and a large sugar cookie. If I wasn't feeling that I would eat pizza. I vividly remember in both jr. high and high school when I would have to do the mile run in P.E., I wouldn't sleep the night before because I would be so nervous. I would think of every possible excuse to avoid running the next day. Exercise scared me.

I did however, find one sport that I did enjoy and was actually pretty decent at, tennis. I started tennis when I was about 12 years old with my best friend. Tennis became my passion. As I started getting better at tennis my confidence began to grow. It hit me that I became happy when I was out being active and doing something I was good at. That is when things started to change. My junior year of high school I started taking lessons from a new tennis coach, he explained to me that in order for me to improve in tennis I would need to become more active and to lose some weight. He told me to start jump roping every morning and night, he said to start by doing 500 jumps twice a day. I remember I would go out in my garage, turn on some music, and start jump roping. I would only make it to about 30 then have to take a break. I would do that every morning and night. I noticed that I became more confident in myself as I started improving on jump roping, I was able to get up to 200 jumps before I needed a rest and then next thing I knew I was able to do the jumps in less and less time. However, high school and my social life started getting in the way of my motivation to jump rope. My diet was poor consisting of cookies, ramen noodles for lunch everyday, and I would drink a lot of soda. My mom was good to make healthy meals for breakfast and dinner, but somehow I always would find someway to eat something unhealthy.

After graduating high school, I got accepted to BYU-Idaho and decided to move up and start my college career in Eastern Idaho. This is when I really changed. My first semester at school I made a goal to start eating healthier, I made small changes to my diet. I cut out ramen, soda, and junk food. I switched from eating white to wheat and went from drinking 1% milk to skim. For breakfast I turned to oatmeal and fruit and controlled my snacking. I started going to the gym on campus everyday. My goal was to improve in running. I figured if I got over my fear of running I could get over anything. I remember my first day running at the school gym, I remember the treadmill I was running on. My goal was to stay on the treadmill for 20 min. I would run at about a 6mph speed and only last about 5 min then have to stop and start over. My goal was to first run for 10 min. strait. After pushing and motivating myself I made it to 10 min, then 15 min, then the full 20 min. From there it became easier to push myself. I was talking to my sister in law one day on the phone and she explained how she had just run 6 miles and that I should try to get to 6 miles. I went to the gym and began to push myself. I have never pushed myself so hard. I had to get up to 6 miles. After a couple of weeks of pushing myself I made it 6 miles. Who would have thought that I could run 6 miles!! In that moment I had never felt so good about myself and so accomplished. That was the turning point to where I am now. It is when we push ourselves to our limits that we feel the most success. I decided that if I want to major in Exercise Physiology I needed to practice what I would be learning. I was at the gym every single day working to improve in my wellness, I began to lose the weight and began to gain my confidence. My third semester at school I applied to be a personal consultant for the school. I got the position and was able to train and motivate others to help reach their goals, from there I became a training manager for a new program on campus called Biggest Winner (similar to the Biggest Loser on TV). From there I became an events coordinator for campus which put me in charge of putting together all the events on campus (5ks, triathlons, x-fit games, power lifting competition etc..). I then became the director of the events as well as all of the fitness classes on campus. I did my internship as the manager of the BYU-Idaho Fitness Center and spent most of my time in there. I am still training and working with a couple of clients helping them lose weight and to reach their goals. I was able to run my first half marathon last year (2012) in Las Vegas. I am in the process of getting ready to do my first full marathon as well as starting to train for an Iron Man Triathlon. As of today my total weight loss has been about 45 lbs. On average my running includes about 9-12 miles 3x a week and 3-6 miles the other days along with lifting and other cardio mixed in. It is amazing what the body can do if you push yourself. It is hard for me to imagine that back in jr. high and high school I couldn't run 1 mile. I share this to motivate others to let them know that it is possible to reach your goals and get over your fears. "I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else, I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be." Ken Venturi

I am going to post my workouts as well as other workout ideas, I want to post success stories for motivation and some healthy recipes.