Allons-y!

[msreddy]

Hi there and Happy Holidays! I'm Soledad, a 23-year-old audiovisual arts student from Argentina. 

 

My relationship with exercise and nutrition has always be conflictive, to say the least. All my life I had a sweet tooth and until I was 16 I hated sports. That year, my school opened a new class with cardio, dancing and some body weight exercises and it was AWESOME. I realised that what I didn't like of doing sports was being on a team, but there I was on my own! I aced phys ed that year. I was the fastest runner and the quite resistant too. I started running on my own and I was pretty healthy... Until I started college.

 

Audiovisual arts wasn't my first choice, in the beginning I wanted to be an English-Spanish translator, meaning hours and hours of reading and sitting still. I stopped running but I didn't want to gain weight so I avoid eating. I started developing dangerous habits with food which led me to faint several times and and anaemia. I was really skinny and I started a medical treatment when I was around 19. Thing is, I took this illness as an excuse to eat as much as I could, and I didn't work out because "I hadn't time", which was obviously a pretty bad excuse.

 

I realized I was overweight when I was 21. I swear I looked at my reflection in the mirror and didn't notice, I was negating the facts all the way. I don't know what happened, but one day I simply decided I had to do something about my health/body. So I started doing all those things media tells us to do, eating "diet" stuff and doing a lot of cardio. I lost several pounds but I always got stuck in a kinda healthy weight, according to the BMI calculation which was never really satisfying for me. I wanted to get ripped and womanly-shaped and I was supposedly doing everything right. What was wrong?

 

In the end, I got overly confident, telling myself "well, this is not that bad" and gained everything back and more. This year around September I hit 165 lb and I got really angry at myself. How did I let this happen?! I can't buy larger clothes! I'm broke! And that was the moment I decided for once and for all to become healthy and fit. I realized there should be something wrong with what I've done before, so I did some research. This led to a slowly but steady change of eating habits as well as my approach to working out. I'm trying lifting weights and interval running.

 

Generally speaking, I want, first of all to fit in my size 10 pants in March, when I start my academic year. 

More specifically, I know my body fat is around 30% and in the long term, I'd like to have 15% body fat

 

I want to build a strength and cardio base so I can try some sports like scuba diving, parkour and triathlon. 

 

Finally, I found this community only yesterday and it seems a really nice and supportive one. I hope I can find my A-Team here!

 

Thanks for this virtual space

[Basement Cat]

Welcome Reddy!

 

 

You've come to the right place! I'm sure you'll find what you need here. What part of Argentina are you from? I'm afraid I only know the name of the capital (Buenos Aires, right?). How's the weather there this time of year? In any case, good luck with your training and keep us posted!

[msreddy]

Thank you SilverRapier!

 

Right now, I'm on holidays in my home-town, Pico Truncado, Santa Cruz. The rest of the year I live in La Plata (near Buenos Aires)

 

Here, a little map 

 

 

In most of the country is fricking hot right now. Luckily, here is warm enough to remind us it's summer, but it's reaaaaally windy

 

How about Ottawa? Is winter harsh there?

[Basement Cat]

Windy is good. It keeps you cool when you work out outside!

 

As for winter in Ottawa, it's pretty rough. It doesn't get as cold as in the Territories, way up north, but we get a lot of snowfall. The temperature yoyos all winter and we end up with huge sheets of ice on the streets and sidewalks. It's not easy to walk in those conditions.

 

Thanks for the map!