How Fitness Took Over My Life (And How It Can Take Yours, Too)

Everyone has a story. Here’s mine. 

I hope you’ll learn something from it and not repeat the same mistakes I made.

The Yo-Yo Years

From the ages of 14-19, I was what you’d call a “Yo-yo”er. I would be really into hitting the gym every day for about 2 or 3 months, and then the fire would fizzle out and I’d be back on the couch. And when I did work out, it was elliptical only. Which is really really really boring. (Perhaps that’s why the fitness never stuck.) 

Wow. Such exciting. Wow.

I wasn’t grossly overweight, per se; I think my highest adult weight was 137 (told you I'd be honest here!). But I wasn’t confident in my appearance. I wouldn’t look at my reflection and say, “Damn, girl!” unless this was immediately followed by, “You have to lay off the Oreos!” (I’d eat 7 at a time, by the way). Somehow, though, I managed to snag a boyfriend. The inevitable breakup from said boyfriend devastated me, and threw me into the next stage.

Run, Katy, Run!

I ran. I ran a lot. First I could only run a mile. Then I ran two miles. Then three. Four. Until I was up to running five miles a day. I ran to clear my head. I ran to be able to say I could. I ran just to feel like I had control over something.

Running occasionally, sure.
Running all the time and eating nothing? Nope.

And while I was running, I didn’t eat a lot. Maybe 1000 calories a day, which is not enough when my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) was probably about 1800 with all that running.

I lost weight, sure. I think at my lowest I was down to 108. But I didn’t look good. I looked soft. And I was, because running does the exact opposite of building muscle; it burns it.

So. Much. Food.

When I met my now-husband, a man who, bless his heart, loved me regardless of my size, I dropped the running and took up mac n’ cheese and those pastrami sandwiches from QuickChek. Chinese food. Pizza. Ice cream. Bowls and bowls of pasta with homemade Alfredo sauce. We would buy a dozen donuts in the morning and eat them all within a few hours.

Sure, it was a magical time, until my clothes didn’t fit and I started to feel like absolute crap.

Something had to be done. 

Finding Lifting

Frustrated with my current appearance, and with how my body had responded when all I did was run, I looked into lifting. My aunt had been a bodybuilder, as had three of my uncles, and they spoke highly of it. So I thought, “Hey, it’s in my genes. Nothing else is working. I might as well try.”

Jamie Eason, my bodybuilding idol.

So I joined a gym that had a free weights area and bought a few lessons with a trainer. Who was absolutely useless. What kind of trainer hears you say, “I want to lift heavy,” and responds by telling you to throw a 6 pound medicine ball in the air 15 times? I knew I had to do my own research, so I did. Bodybuilding.com. Reddit.com/r/fitness. These were people who had done what I was trying to do and could teach me how to do it for free.

 Results and Goals

When you start lifting, you progress rather quickly. “Newbie gains,” if you will, are super encouraging. Each week I’d pick up something heavier than the week before, and I felt proud. Accomplished. Here was actual proof that what I was doing was working. My shoulders and arms leaned out and muscles began growing in places I didn’t even know had muscles. I set goals that were not, “Lose 5 pounds,” but rather, “Gain 5 pounds on my squat.”

Become more of myself, not less. Positive reinforcement is much more successful than negative.

I created goals. Small ones, like “70 lb benchpress” to big ones like “200 lb deadlift in 2 years” (which I still haven’t achieved, by the way). Goals kept me focused, and kept me going into the gym for years without losing steam. My goals are the reason I still work out, still track my macros, and still care about what goes into my body.

I absolutely love going to the gym. It’s my “me time,” and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Your Takeaways From My Story 

-Create positive goals, not negative ones. “Add another half mile to my daily run” is a much better goal then “Lose 5 pounds,” because you can always add another half mile. At a certain point, you can’t lose any more weight.

-Write down your goals. This applies to any part of life, not just fitness. Only 5% of people write down their goals, but of those 5%, 95% of them achieve them. That’s powerful stuff right there.

-Eat things that fuel you. Food (and water) is fuel for your body. You need vitamins from leafy greens. You need protein from animal products or beans. You need the fat from coconut, iron from nuts, carbohydrates from sweet potatoes. There’s a reason nature has provided a variety of foods; a mixture of them is necessary to sustain life.

-Find motivation from within yourself. I yo-yoed because I was trying to impress other people. I ran because I was trying to prove something to my exes. I only began getting serious about my fitness when I knew I wanted to do it for myself. Not to impress anyone, not to fit into a standard, but to give myself more confidence and self-worth. I didn’t care what anyone else thought of my lifting, and trust me, there are some haters.  

-Throw away your scale. I weigh more than I did in my running days, but I feel much better and look much better. Stop caring about gravity so much.

-Make your routine interesting. I never do the same thing two days in a row. There’s leg day, bench day, back day, HIIT day, walking day, cardio and abs day, rest day. No more elliptical day, elliptical day, elliptical day, until each day is sit-on-the-couch day.

So I told you my story. What's yours? Share in the comments below or email me at katy.widmer3@gmail.com. I would love to hear it!

Lift. Eat. Love. Repeat.