My Journey To Fitness

Before I got into fitness, I was about as inactive as humanly possible. Somewhere in my adolescence, I decided I was anti-sports and avoided them at all costs mostly out of fear of embarrassing and/or injuring myself. And even though my parents joined a gym where I would tag along every once in a while, I’d only feign exercise. I never actually knew what it meant to work out.

A mixture of this inactivity and a poor diet (overeating, mainly) led to me being on the heavier side throughout high school and college. It was never extreme. I was never obese, just someone who carried extra weight.*

In 2008, I graduated with a B.A. in screenwriting and a desire to make a living from sitting around all day pontificating. But I also had a silent dream, one I didn’t dare speak aloud: to be sexy. Intimidated by the gym scene, I started working out in the comfort of my own home with the general goal of just looking better. I didn’t have a set amount of pounds I wanted to lose or muscle I wanted to gain, or a deadline by which I wanted to reach my goal. I only had an idea in my mind of what I wanted my body look like. I started with ExerciseTV, then moved on to DVDs like the 30 Day Shred and Fit In Your Jeans By Friday.

Then I discovered BodyRock and the friggin’-flangin’ unbelievable beauty of high intensity interval training. Gradually exercise became part of my daily routine, something I looked forward to. I was seeing results, and more importantly, figuring out how to get the results I wanted.

I feel like I cracked the code. I became a personal trainer so that people like me, who may not even consider making fitness part of their lives, can see how simple it can be to get fit and stay healthy. Simple, but not easy.

I hope to inspire others to begin and maintain fitness routines that push them to be better, stronger, healthier individuals. There’s a certain enlightenment that comes from doing something you never thought you could do.

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*Just how much extra weight was I carrying? About 20-25 extra pounds at my heaviest. At one point in high school, I weighed 150 pounds (my height is 5′ 7″). In college, I probably got down to 135.  These days, at my leanest and what I consider my healthiest, I’m around 125-127.