My Fitness Journey

I have been thinking about health, fitness and overall wellness and the journey my life has taken in regard.  Also, on my radar is the terrible state of mind in our society among girls and, really, women of all ages - this struggle, goal, obsession to look a certain way - "skinny" - so heavily influenced by images in the media and now, social media.  I have two teenage girls, and this bothers me.

Admittedly, I have been influenced by what I've seen as well and have suffered in various ways in the past.  In college, I was obsessively exercising every day and would literally complete my morning run at the door of the School of Human Sciences at Auburn before my 8:00 am class each day.  Yeah, gross, huh? This exercise combined with a restricted diet lead to my having so little body fat that I experience "amenorrhea" (no menstrual period) for a year and a half.  It took several months with my gynecologist to get it back with hormone therapy.  Thankfully, I heeded my Dr.'s advice about my body NEEDING a certain level of fat in order to fully function in a healthy way.  Also, when he said that I might have trouble becoming pregnant in the future, I got my mind right and toned down my workouts and adjusted my diet accordingly and successfully got back on track.
Clearly, 3 children later, I moved beyond this issue.  Thankfully.  Thankfully

So, in this bombardment of images from Hollywood, magazines, the internet be REALISTIC and know that many of those women suffer and sacrifice health and happiness to look "skinny."  It's not worth the price you pay in ANY WAY with the toll it takes on your physical, mental and emotional health.

I have been an athlete all my life.  I have been "working out" since I was 12 for cheerleading, basketball and ultimately, tennis.  In high school, I cheered and played tennis for Athens High School, participated weekly in a rigorous tennis program in Huntsville, taught aerobics in 1984 at the Exercise Studio in Athens (no leg warmers did I wear ;), played summer tennis tournaments 4 summers.  At Auburn, I walked on to the varsity women's tennis team (Division 1) my sophomore year and helped teach tennis camps with Auburn's men's tennis coach in 1987.  HOT, HOT, HOT summer!  Since college, I have played on city tennis teams thru USTA in Huntsville and St. Paul where I lived.  I even tore my right ACL in 1993 preparing for the state tournament as our Huntsville team had won the regional tourney.  That was a full year setback, but I had a successful surgery to rebuild and rehab my torn ligament into full health and function and am not limited in my activity at all today!  Grateful!  The past two years I have done the Insanity workout (HARD!!!!) and still do a variation.  Sometimes, I follow Lisa Marie with Bodyrock online.  In all of my life's journey, I can't emphasize enough the value of exercise and a healthy diet to live a full life!  Now, at 46, I feel blessed to have been guided by my mother (a nutritionist/dietician), various coaches, Dr.'s and teachers to know how to work out and how to eat well.  We all have to remember these things:

Living a healthy lifestyle is a CHOICE.  We either make it, or we don't.  It's ok to not exercise or have a treat to eat as long as you don't sabotage your routine.  Make the healthy choice the norm and don't obsess over having that brownie or that glass of wine every so often.

It's a JOURNEY! ... all your own!  Follow different workouts, teachers, etc., but don't succumb to comparing your body to anyone else's.  I'm an identical twin, so this is something I've REALLY had to learn as people have found differences in us physically over the years.  You may be INSPIRED, but if you get upset that your body is not shaping up the same way as someone else's then you've lost perspective.  LOVE your body!

In order to LOSE weight, you must, must, MUST burn more calories than you consume.  That's just the hard fact!  There are no pills that will do this for you.  Don't be swayed by the next diet, the next pill that claims to do this for you.  It WON'T.

MODERATION IS EVERYTHING!  I mean, EVERYTHING.  Even something that is "good" can be overdone.  This was my Mom's mantra, and she was RIGHT ON!

Be YOU!

My fitness journey in pictures

 Note my knee scars above!

Insanity workout February 2012

Orr, MN July 2013

 Workout on October 2013

In the Wake of the Quake...

Shows the POSITIVE in social media!

I just can't fathom the terror !  My heart and prayers go out to all those affected....

Don't Let This Happen to YOU!

Over the weekend, my Facebook account was illegally hacked by a "cybercriminal" all because I used a "weak" password on the internet (as I NOW realize). It was a very scary thing to have happen, but it's opened my eyes to the importance of keeping your internet activity as safe and secure as possible. Facebook was super diligent in alerting me to the "possible illegal activity of someone else trying to sign into my account." When I opened my computer to check it out, sure enough there were 3 instant message conversations on my account going on that were not really from me. The cybercrimal was impersonating me on my own account at that actual moment! Horrifying! So, I took the advice given to me in the previous fb email and changed my password immediately. No more happened. One of the IM conversations from "Claire" was telling a friend that my husband and I were in London and had been mugged at gunpoint losing everything! ... What they are after is MONEY, and they are drawing on the sympathy of your friend community on Facebook. Thankfully, it didn't get too far. FB deactivated my account for a day, and had me go thru a verification process, and then my account was reactivated. All seems well now.

I'm posting a link to a recent article in PC World Magazine about the 5 major scams targeting Facebook in the last week. Please read and share with your children, too.

Also, here is some helpful info a security operator on facebook gave me that I wanted to share that is great for all internet users regarding passwords:

The majority of these cybercriminals have been hacking into the email accounts of their victims before they hack into their Facebook accounts. If a person uses the same password for both their email and Facebook accounts, a hacker only needs to compromise a password once. If a hacker is able to compromise the password associated with a user's email account (either though brute force or through more sophisticated means), then he can use that password to enter the user's Facebook account as well.

You should change the password for all of your internet accounts and make sure that no two passwords are the same. You should also create passwords that are at least 6 characters in length and that you use a complex string of numbers, letters (both upper and lower case), punctuation marks, and other symbols. Your passwords should never contain any words that could be found in the dictionary. By varying and strengthening your internet passwords, you can protect yourself against future hacking attempts.