You can switch cars but you only get a body

I had just started seventh grade and was in my first Physical Education (Physical Education) class. It rained that day, so they asked us to form groups on the indoor basketball court for a relay race. The running distance was about 50 feet and I was my team’s first leg. As soon as I heard the whistle, I ran to the other end of the wall and came back to pass it on to the next one. I started off great and we were in the lead! That was the moment when I realized that he was an incredible athlete.

The following week we were already in the field. This time it was a 100 meter race. I was so confident. “I know I have this! Did you see me last week?” I thought. I get to the line and he blows the whistle. I was trying really hard, but when I looked at the rest of the runners, it was like I was running backwards. I came in last so well it wasn’t even funny. And as soon as I concluded that he was a great athlete, I realized that he had been lucky the first week.

Fast forward to third year in college. I hadn’t worried about any physical activity for most of my life, but I had always been relatively thin. I was proud to tell people that I never exercised every time it came up. You know the whole “naturally I look like this” deal. Well, two of my very good friends Eveleyn and Morenike (another) had started walking around the track field. One day they asked me to come and for some reason I decided to do it. I braced myself, ready for the race. They would run from our bedroom to the gym and then start around the tracks. We started from our building, then through our community before hitting the main road. It took about 5 minutes, but it felt like an hour. My heart began to race and my chest burned. You could have sworn I just did a 100m sprint. They both laughed and thought he was playing. Believe it or not, that’s where my career ended (pathetic, I know. Lol)

After college, I started doing the whole gym very sporadically, all in the name of getting in shape. Look let me be real, as I learned from an exercise book, I have always been skinny and fat! Which means that everything is shaken and there is no real definition in my body. In fact, I thought it was sexy that my butt was like this until I found out that it was very unhealthy and not so sexy. haha. The thing is, I thought this was how it was built and had no control over it.

In 2012 I got engaged and getting ready for the wedding was my closest attempt at success. Okay, not that it worked, but this stretch lasted longer. I was exercising with my fiance Ife. We went running, to the gym and we ate healthy. It lasted a few months, but the scale was so daunting. The more we work, the more we earn. Initially, I was committed to the whole concept that “extra weight is due to building muscle”, but that went out of style and I finally gave up. Somehow I lost a ton of weight and it was all great for the wedding in April 2013. But I still didn’t know how it happened or what I had done.

July 2013, I was ready to start again. I called it my “Sexy Bod Motivation”. Again I wanted to tone up, but couldn’t get up or go to the gym. So when August rolled around, I decided to get a personal trainer. The day I signed up, one of the trainers told me “You can change your car every few years but you only get one body.” That made a lot of sense. After my first session I realized that 2 sessions of 30 minutes a week were not going to give me the change I was looking for.

So I started researching the truth behind fitness and decided that I was not satisfied with the confusing theories on how to get in shape. Good carbs? Bad carbs? Does cardio make you lose weight? Does lifting heavy weights give you masculine muscles? And so on. Here I am now beginning this journey. I’m still working with a personal trainer and taking group fitness, Zumba, and other classes. I am also enrolled in a group fitness certification program for fitness professionals. Yes, it is that serious! As I write this, I realize that there are so many misconceptions in different phases of my life that I know many people share. I am learning this in my classes and I look forward to sharing it throughout this journey. I search for the truth so that I can finally get the results I want. Join me on this journey and I hope I can save you from insanity as I save myself.