Freeing my mind (and hopefully my body)

[Unda]

So... I suppose I should start with how I got here.

I've never been good at sport, and I mean never. I was eight before I could catch a ball, my parents got me tested because they thought there was something seriously wrong with me. Turns out i just had no coordination, that got a bit better though. At school I was never popular for several reasons, I was a nerd, I was smart, I didn't like the popular girls and I didn't want them to like me. They didn't like that I couldn't care about them or their shunning of me (it's kinda hard to shun someone who doesn't want to be around you in the first place). I would have got bullied more if it wasn't for the fact that I took advice from my dad (who is crazy into athletics and has been in the army most of his life) and actually took part in the fight that some dumb popular girl tries to goad me into. Apparently kicking a girl in the chest hard enough that she flies into a toilet gets you left alone.

All the popular kids were into sport, I wasn't good at sport and I didn't want anything to do with them. I figured out pretty quickly that as long as I did the bare minimum in PE classes to avoid detention then it didn't matter what I did because that grade didn't count. And it didn't, I got into college fine and then into university fine. Whilst I knew how to cook I relied way too much on pasta and rice and knew almost nothing about portion sizes, all my friends being guys who can eat like black holes didn't help either.

I'd made several attempts at getting fit, signing up to gyms and so on. But I hate cardio and my dad (who's opinion I trusted implicitly since he's held a world record in paracending, been on the England fencing team, been in the army, trained people for the army, been rock climbing since it was pretty much a sport and climbed most of the highest mountains in the world), when he tells me that women shouldn't weightlift or they end up like Arnie I believe him. So I coasted about not really doing much athletic wise and thinking that diets were dumb too.

Then I read the XKCD strip about fitocracy. Now, MMORPGs have been a bit of an addition of mine and I figured the idea was great. I got an account and posted on the forums querying on a whim whether my dad was right about weightlifting. The answer was a big resounding no and several links to nerd fitness. I found the articles intriguing and nerdy (the best combo EVER!).

It sounds silly but when I read the matrix article... it... well. It actually did free my mind. I realised that I was just doing what I was told because I thought I should, that I was just avoiding fitness because I figured it'd be like every other failed attempt (ensuring that each attempt did fail), I was allowing myself the excuse that I'd never be good at the sports that I've enjoyed trying with my dad because I'm "not good at sports". The only person stopping me was me.

Now, I'm getting married in May next year. I intend for it to be my only wedding, and those pictures are going to be with me for life. All I wanted was to look good in them, to have people say how wonderful I looked on the day. Well, what was I waiting for?

I signed up. Changed my diet to about 80% paleo expecting to suffer through it and found that I enjoyed it, found that actually I liked it better than what I was eating before! I started back at the gym and roped a super helpful fitness instructor in to showing me how to do all these lifts, he doesn't treat me different because I'm female at all, he just treats me like someone trying to get strong.

So here I am. Between the incentive to get stronger and eat better from NF and the motivation to have something to log on fitocracy so I can level up I've managed to lose five pounds in a week and a half. I'm already feeling better physically and mentally than I've ever felt and IT'S GETTING BETTER. Every time I go to the gym I break a personal record in something. Every time I leave that gym I'm able to tell myself that I'm stronger or faster or better than the last time I walked out of there. I find myself lying awake at night thinking of what I'm going to do next time I'm there.

I don't know where I'm going to end up, how much I'm going to lose or how strong I'm going to get. But I'm going to keep pushing myself until I find out. So yeah, hi. Hopefully I'm going to be around here an awful lot more!

[dustinwh]

You're off to an great start! Welcome to the Rebellion!

[Hemi]

KEEP ON GOING!!! You're on the right track and in the right place. Keep lifting, and keep reading the good stuff no matter what! Go go go!!!