Female

22

Student

When I was 14 years old my interest for health and exercise increased. My mom is my best role model because she always makes a point of eating clean and exercising. With hard work and amazing discipline, she lost 70 pounds! I remember taking the free weights, FIRM videos, and piles and piles of Prevention magazines into my room. When I told my parents I was doing my homework, I was actually reading the magazines, using the free weights, and exercising to the videos. There was a time when I followed a workout plan in the Prevention magazine for a good solid three months. Nothing happened, though! I didn't lose one pound! Do you know why? Because I didn't change the weigh :) I ATE! I'm older now, and I understand all the health information much better. I've matured in that department, and I can better decipher what is right and what makes no sense. Clean eating makes sense. Exercising makes sense. Eating crappy food and sitting on my ass makes no sense at all to me anymore!

Motivation is a very funny and mysterious thing. There's the external motivation, like when I see pictures of someone progressing or at their goal weight. Then, there is the internal motivation, that comes from within you. External motivation is good, but it can fade away. It's the internal motivation that stays with you. I'm going to be honest. You can have people yelling at you to change, to make the right choices, to finally get off your ass, but nothing is going to happen unless YOU decide you want it to. The pain of being sick of yourself needs to outwiegh the pleasure you find in junk foods. This can work for anything, not just bodybuilding. I constantly visualize myself at my goal weight. I can actually feel what it's like to be smaller, have a flat stomach, I can see myself at the pool in my bathing suit, I can see my friends looking at me and wondering what happend, and my relatives, as well. I can feel the way the bridesmaid dress is going to hug my small waist. And when it comes time for dancing, I won't dread a man putting his hands on my waist because I'll know that my body is in the greatest shape it can be. I also read THE EAT-CLEAN DIET book by TOSCA RENO. She's amazing and writes for OXYGEN MAGAZINE, my favorite magazine. It's an excellent book if you want to get more information on clean eating. I look at pictures of other women who are my hieght and are close to my proportions at their goal weight to get an idea for what I can look like. I also like to read a lot of success stories anywhere I can find them. Right now it's two websites: www.Shapefit.com www.fitness-model-advice.com Don't focus on what you can't eat, what you're giving up. Instead, focus on what you're going to gain from taking on this journey to the REAL YOU. You're going to gain energy, confidence, self-esteem, happiness while shopping for clothes, freedom, and more! You just have to start with asking yourself these uestions: "Am I ready to change? Do I deserve this change? Do I deserve to be happy? Do I believe in myself?" Answer YES to all of them and you're ready. If not, you're going to have to wait for yourself to get sick of yourself. Now I don't know about you, but the body can get comfortable and stay comfortable for a long time...so you can just wait yourself out (that'll be quite a while) or you can get up and kick yourself in the ass! LIVE LIKE YOU'RE ALREADY THIN! That's how I got rid of anxiety and depression. I simply thought to myself, "I'm going to live like I don't have anxiety and depression!" I still fight it, but I'm so much better! Now, God helped me, first and foremost, and then that thought. No medication or anything. I also scare myself with regret. Think for a second. In another year, imagine that you don't make the change or anything...how much regret will you have? The time is going to pass, might as well do something with it, right? And people mostly regret what they didn't do, rather than what they did do. One of my favorite quotes: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!" John Greenleaf Whittier

"In whatever you do, strive to do it so well that no man living, and no man dead, and no man yet to be born can do it better." Goethe