my fitness journey.
I wanted to spend some time talking about my fitness journey and how I got to where I am today. Right now, I'm definitely not at my goal weight and/or physique and I have a long way to go but I'm definitely on the right track.
I didn't do many sports as a kid, I did gymnastics here and there and tried softball for about a week. Middle school and high school, I didn't do anything and college was more sedentary as well. I definitely gained quite a bit of weight in college, when I finally started making money from my internship and the only thing to really do with friends was to eat in my little college town. I walked a lot in college and I think that helped me from gaining a lot more than I did.
I would very occasionally try some sort of fitness activity during this time. I remember once trying to lift weights with a friend at her apartment's gym or doing light cardio at my own apartment's gym. It was never long term and it wasn't something I ever really thought about or considering doing.
But there was something I always thought about... my weight.
Growing up in the 2000s and 2010s as a girl, I, like everyone else, had severe body issues. I hated my body and hated how I looked and always considered myself fat even when I clearly wasn't. The obsession was to be as small and skinny as possible and I felt like I never fit into that. I was definitely not super skinny but also not fat as a teenager but I must have had a really good metabolism because my diet was complete trash. I'd drink only soda, not water, and my only food group was carbs (food pyramid, anyone?). I probably looked skinny fat as I rarely ever ate any kind of protein and I'm not sure if I had any muscle mass and didn't honestly know a single thing about nutrition.
It wasn't until I was out of high school and my friends showed me a documentary called Fathead that forced me to rethink everything I knew about nutrition and eating. Yes, I did have a keto phase, and no, I don't think keto is the way to go (at least not for me, personally). But at the time, it seemed magical and I was able to get my household on board but then I got a job at a yogurt place and being surrounded by candy all day while depriving yourself of fruits and carbs resulted in failure.
[TW: mentions of being sick & bad diet talk below]
Keto also never jived with me. I know all about the keto flu and pushing through it but for me, it never got past that feeling. I always felt weak (weaker than I normally do) and shaky and get nauseous thinking about any kind of fatty food. The smell of cooking bacon still invokes a gag reflex in me and I still remember casually having to throw up in my work's bathroom after eating a slim Jim and getting nauseous to the point of puking on a weekly basis and just feeling sick and gross all the time. Not to mention I was just miserable and irritable all the time and that was paired with being at a very low point in my life. I remember even telling myself that I'm [emotionally/mentally] miserable, so I might as well just add keto/diet on top of it as it can't get much worse than this. Basically, it was the worst time trying to diet and do keto and I was putting so much stress on my body. Eventually, I gave up on that and continued on with my life and eating whenever and whatever I wanted, and lots of Starbucks.
[/TW]
Things remained the same until this one year where everything just suddenly changed, 2020. That year was a weird one, my mental state was flipped on it's head once again (but instead of ignoring it, I did this thing called therapy.. eventually) and my daily routine was limited to only being inside our house. During this time, I heavily relied on YouTube for any kind of human connection/interaction. I got funneled into vloggers and daily routine content which lead me to fitness challenges. I don't quite remember how it exactly happened but I feel like at some point in 2021, my recommendations started to go more towards weight loss vlogs and 30-day exercise challenges and eventually, Chloe Ting.
Chloe Ting had simple and easy at-home workouts and they were setup in a way to be X amount weeks for skinny arms or abs! I was like, okay, I can do this for 2 weeks and see what happens. I would do these at home workouts and then watch YouTube videos of other people doing the same. This caused my algorithm to eventually lead me to more nutrition based channels and videos and even more healthy lifestyle content. I did start to get a bit burnt out from Chloe's arm circles and ab crunches but I noticed that I was starting to a bit stronger and better in general.
At the start of 2022, I did a little January fitness challenge that involved more strength based workouts and eventually got bored with that and end up quitting right before finishing the last week. But around the same time (again not 100% sure on the timeline) but we were able to start hanging out in person again and I met a person through a friend at some point (either through a holiday party or trivia, not sure which) but she had told us one of her hobbies was weight lifting. This immediately caught my attention and my first thought was, wait, that can be a hobby!?
She had talked about doing at-home workouts from a YouTuber called Caroline Girvan. I quickly jumped on the Caroline train and found these workouts more challenging and fun than anything I ever done with Chloe Ting (no shade to Chloe Ting, she helped me walk so I can now run). I almost instantly started feeling more stronger and got more muscle based content recommended to me on YouTube (at first it was a lot of men focused lifters, interestingly enough). And then around March/April of 2022, my office's free gym opened back up. Now I had access to all kinds of machines, free weights, and barbell equipment that I've never even touched before but I was excited and eager to learn.
I was very lucky that since the opening of my gym at work also offered a free consultation for personal training. I met with one of the trainers and told him my journey and how I wanted to learn more and get better and lift HEAVY. Around this time I was also introduced to Stephanie Buttermore and fell in love with her whole journey and heavier lifting for women. The personal trainer taught me proper barbell techniques for squatting, deadlifts, and bench press and gave me a free sample workout template. I never ended up having to pay for personal training and he eventually moved on to another gym but I'm super grateful to him for teaching me the basic and giving me the confidence to navigate a gym.
For some reason, I just really enjoyed the gym and managed to keep going fairly consistently from March until August of 2022 just kind of doing whatever I felt like in the gym. I'd go with a loose plan, do some machines, practice some barbell stuff, and do research on planning workouts better and try to keep it interesting. I took a couple breaks, like when my partner got covid, but found myself craving to go back which was surprising since I live about 26 minutes away from the office.
It was around September 2022 when I finally stumbled upon our lord and savior, Megsquats on YouTube. She (and LeanBeefPatty) had been my holy grail find of fitness content and the "muscle mommies" (aka just women with big muscles). I was intrigued and I was excited and I had a whole new goal. I want big muscles, I want big biceps, big quads, big glutes; no longer did I want that super skinny physique that my teenaged self always looked up, I wanted to get bigger and stronger. I wanted to lift super heavy and started focusing my goals more so on how much can I lift or how much muscle can I gain rather than how much weight I can lose.
I started off with her free workout plan, Before the Barbell, and eventually got a year subscription to her workout app called, Stronger by the Day, which gives you new workouts each week and has different macrocycles that focuses on different goals and lifts. And as of today, I'm still using the app and really enjoying it more than ever. I went from struggling to squat with just the barbell to squatting 125lbs, deadlifting 140lbs, and bench pressing 80lbs for my 1 rep maxes. I know the numbers aren't too impressive (especially to men lifters) but I'm extremely proud of how much stronger I've become and I'm excited to get even stronger still. I go to the gym only 3 days a week (while doing the app's new express plan), going in the morning before work starts and will still occasionally take mini-breaks from lifting (1-2 weeks).
My normal amount of time spent in the gym is usually over an hour, I try to take my time doing a proper warm-up and always make sure to do some cool down stretches after my workouts as well. I try to be as efficient as possible, getting in the gym and out as quickly as possible in order to make it back home to start work. My routine/schedule has been working so far and I genuinely enjoy going to the gym.
Like I noted in the beginning, I'm still far from any goal weight and/or physique but I think I've made a ton of progress both mentally and physically over the past two years and I'm really proud of how far I've come. I hope anyone reading this could find some inspiration and/or motivation for starting their own fitness journey or continuing their journey.