Pits and Peaks

Another week is over, and here I am blogging away my time avoiding house work and laundry. Does anyone else HATE laundry as much as I do? I seriously avoid it at all cost.
The PITS of my week.

-Trying to decide a housing community we want to live in on post.

-The stress that comes with moving.

-Not being at the beach this weekend like we planned.
-We had to start buying 9mo clothing for our big boy. I'm not ready for him to be growing this fast!

The PEAKS of my week.

-We had a great BBQ at the pool with our friends and family.

-Colt is sleeping better this week.

-The girls have been in pretty good spirits and fun to be around.
-My younger sister and nephew came down for a weekend visit. It was fun to watch the kids play together.
-We are loving Big Brother this season!
There wasn't much that went on this week. We decided to move into housing on post since our lease is ending soon, we had a few appointments to go to, and other than that it was a very chill week. We took some time off the gym because I wasn't feeling well a lot of this week. Today starts the work out week over for us though, so leg day it is!

Small Biz Saturday Guest Post | Britt's Story

I was always super active growing up, played sports until I was a junior in high school, and never really had much of an issue with my weight growing up either. I never really watched what I ate or drank and have ZERO IDEA on how to really cook anything if it didn’t come from a box when I got married.  When my husband deployed, I went back to our hometown to work at a lifeguard in a brand new gym and found my passion for the gym environment even though I had no idea what the heck to do in a gym. I guess you could say this is where my passion for fitness was discovered, because when I was playing sports I didn’t workout and we didn’t have a local gym unless we drove 20 minutes away.

When my husband came home from his deployment I quickly found everything changing. My working out 2 times a day ended and our eating habits were still garbage.  But that ended up being the least of my worries when I realized my husband was having trouble reintegrating back to being home from a war zone. My main focus quickly changed to making sure he was getting the right care he needed and trying to move past the incidents of what had happened.  Self pitty, questioning what I could have done to possibly make integration easier for him.

A little over a year after everything happened we found out that we couldn’t have kids.  This didn’t help the self pitty, in fact I was even mad at the world and even God for a while. I couldn’t understand it, why everything crappy seemed to be happening to us.  I mean even then I knew things could have been A LOT worse, I was still questioning WHY US, I think we all do that when things we can’t control happen and they are devastating things.  Honestly, finding out we couldn’t have kids didn’t help my already low self-esteem either.  There is no how to guide when it comes to life and getting over the hurdles that get thrown our way.  So I was lost, angry, and not happy with myself in every way possible. Emotional eating became a thing for me, something I had never battled before and it wasn’t good considering I was going through a huge metabolism change too.

We got orders to move to Fort Bliss in 2012 and in the process of the move that was when I meet Kodie. Looking back, I kind of feel sorry for anyone who was just meeting me for the first time then, because no one really knew the demons I was battling on the inside.   But with that move to Texas not only myself but my husband got the motivation to lose the 100 lbs. we gained combined.  We literally woke up one morning and said we were sick and tired of feeling like crap, looking like crap, and our clothes continuously getting tighter. Slowly changing our eating habits and we both started to run and

yes we run for fun. Weight started coming off and at one point I was almost to my weight when we got married which now made me just look sick.  So I stopped caring so much about what I ate again to gain some weight back, it wasn’t the smartest decision I had made.  

Then I was introduced to Beachbody and the 21 Day Fix through a high school friend.  While I honestly only purchased the program to learn more on the nutritional side of things, I decided to do the entire program too in her online accountability group, because I really don’t feel comfortable in the gym.  I had just ran a marathon and gained some weight from it and wasn’t happy.  I didn’t know just then how much the purchase of 21 Day Fix would change my life. I quickly realized how easy nutritional truly is and how complicated we as a society have truly made it.  I was seeing changes in my body that I hadn’t seen in years because of the workouts and I was eating new things in my diet.  But on top of that mentally I was becoming stronger, moving on from the past, becoming happy in every aspect of my life again, learning to love myself truly again, and finding my passion for fitness again.  Then I became a coach with Beachbody because I realized how many women there are out there just like me.  Lost, unhappy with themselves, and no clue where the heck to start and because of that they never even try to start even with a small step.  I realized just how many don’t feel comfortable in a gym, how many truly don’t know that they can work out from home, or even know how easy the nutritional side of things can truly be.

If you are reading this, if you are that woman who is lost, unhappy, and no clue where to start, know you aren’t alone. Know that the small decision to get started is better than the decision to never start at all. You will have good days and bad days that is all part of the process. There will always be someone there that you can relate too cheering you on and rooting for you to succeed. Whether you choose to head to the gym and get a personal trainer, decide to workout at home like me, or get out and start walking you don’t have to do any of it alone that is greatest thing about social media these days!

*Disclaimer- You may recognize Britt from her blog years ago- Aviation of Love. Leave a comment telling her to come back to blog land! She may or may not be on the fence about it! *

Influencers | Finding Motivation on Social Media

If you are reading this the chances are pretty high that you have a social media account of some sort. I  know I have been 'online' since I was in high school. While my reasonings for having social media have changed through out the years, I don't use it the same way I once did, I still have many accounts that I use for different purposes. You know, snapchat for lip-singing with fun filters in the car. Facebook to make sure my Grandma can see pictures of the kids and I can stay nosey in my friends lives. Then Instagram, I use this as of lately to find fitness motivation.

Along the way on this 'mom bod journey' I found that Instagram is a pretty awesome tool to use. You can look up so many hashtags for things like "meal prepping", "leg day workout", "mom fitness" and bookmark them too look back on. I mean the results and possibilities really are endless.  But thats not what I want to focus on in this post. What I want to give credit to are the awesome ladies who PROMOTE people loving themselves, and working towards THEIR GOALS.

I have a few profiles that I really enjoy following, and my favorite thing about them is they are normal girls who live in the same town as me, showing that YOU can live a fit lifestyle. They don't sell fitness supplements so there is no pressure to try or buy anything, their post are not paid ads. They don't judge you, they actually try to be as helpful as they can be. These are the profiles women who are starting out in the gym need. These type of women are the kind that LIFT people up and show them- hey you can do this too!

The first profile is Kristen. (Ka_ris10) I actually went to high school with her, but I am pretty sure she was WAY smarter than I was and took much harder classes then I did, so our path's never really crossed. We became friends on IG kinda through the whole "people you may know" aka everyone you went to high school with gets added method. But I am really glad we did! Not only is she a therapist at the VA (which honestly, is amazing in itself), but a figure competitor, and she has issues with her belly like I do. Anytime I have a question about working out she is more than helpful, which is a becoming a rarity among women these days. Among her bangin' body the girl loves to throw down on Oreos and doughnuts, basically a girl after my own heart.  If you are working towards a competition or ever want to compete she needs to be on your friends list.

Next is Aubrie. (dolledupdumbbells) I've never met Aubrie in person, although our paths have crossed at the gym, and we grew up in the same town with mutual friends. I found her Instagram when I was looking at Kristen's, surprise-surprise! Aubrie is super motivational and has TONS of info on healthy eating. I like her profile because she is raw, she will tell you what she is doing and why she is doing it, the benefits in doing it and why the other ways may not work. I have learned a lot about eating while working out from her post. Also, how to warm up a meal on the dash of my car if I ever needed to! The girl is hilarious on her snapchat and IG stories.  I think the best thing about her profile is how relatable she is, she is there to show you that if she can do it, you can too! She goes to school, runs her own Rodan and Fields business, and was a people's choice winner in a body space competition. If you are looking for someone who is authentic this is definitely a girl you should be following.

I enjoy following people who are just like me. It can be super discouraging when looking for motivation from people who are judgmental and put themselves on a pedal stool. Even though these ladies don't know me personally, they have made an impact on my fitness journey. I too wanted to motivate others to become a healthy, better version of themselves. I fell in love with working out and now understand why people have dedicated their lives to a fitness lifestyle. Get on your social media and find the influencers that work for you! People that you enjoy watching and learning from. Remember not to compare yourself to them, to take what they say and apply it to work for yourself. It really is amazing the things you can learn from people who are passionate about empowering and teaching others.

Thats my goal, to one day be a woman/mother others look to for empowerment and motivation. Like I have said so many times, I am no fitness guru, just a mom who fell in love with weightlifting. But with help from women like Aubrie and Kristen, I have found a voice in the social media community.