The Road To Freedom
Writing a personal blog is vulnerable. Letting people into your life is vulnerable. Talking about your flaws or insecurities is vulnerable. Acknowledging your goals and struggles to get there is vulnerable. Being truly authentic is vulnerable. Which is why I’m writing this post.
As someone who has quite a bit of self control to STOP and CHANGE anything that I don’t like about myself or my environment, my fitness journey is now more than just a simple change. My journey is about letting go. Ever since I was 17 years old, and I made the decision to STOP allowing myself to binge eat, etc. I have been afraid. I have been afraid of going back to how I used to be. Perhaps this is why I can cut pretty much anything out of my life (dietary) cold turkey (even coffee.. seriously, I have actually done that).
Even as I got a little bit older, I used exercise as a way to stay small and keep my “number” at a certain place. The only time I went a little past that number was when I was so busy training horses that I didn’t even have the time to think about it, as well as a lot of stress that was going on in my life. Stress weight is real!
After I rid my life of that stress (PS not the horses), my life felt so much lighter. My eating habits have always been the same, except now, I let myself eat non dairy treats, and healthy pizza, which I wouldn’t have ever done in the past. Meeting Brandon really helped with that, because he made everything he ate seem so delicious! So, I started indulging in my own dairy free ice cream, etc.
Fast forward almost 5 years, I am actually leaner than I have been and I haven’t worked out near as much (until about a year ago, actually). It’s amazing what happiness will do to a person! But this still leads me to what I’ve still been afraid of..
As I’ve really started to focus on my fitness journey and wanted to actually get toned and get strong, I’ve realized one thing…
To gain a little, you got to gain a little.
And that can be a hard thing for people to accept, and it has been challenging for me to accept. We are all at different points of our journeys. Some are like me, where they are thin, but looking to build muscle and get tone, and to get there, you have to be ok with gaining weight, eating more calories, etc. They call them gains for a reason!
Maybe you have more body fat to lose and want to tone up. The bottom line is to keep going and working towards your goal, even when it gets hard, or even when the scale doesn’t go down or keeps going up, because plateaus happen and muscle weighs more than fat. Be mindful of what you eat and HONEST with yourself. Diet is a huge factor for fat loss.
So, while these pictures are from February, we’ll call them the “start” of my new fitness journey to let go. I no longer worry about what my scale says, but how my butt looks (#realtalk). Yes, my legs are bigger than normal, yes, my pants are starting to get tighter, but I feel that in my eyes, I like the way I look and progress, of all types, makes me happy. I am actually excited to gain!! The results along the way are what keep you going and keep you proud, and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon.
And while people say, oh, it’s easy for you, Allyssa.. No, it’s not. I strive every day and have for the last 12+ years to eat not only to stay slim, and look the way I want to. Yes, it definitely gets easier as it becomes a habit, but trust me, my pasta loving Italian self would come through if I let it go crazy! PS I just had pasta! Staying disciplined doesn’t just happen by some magic fairy dust or some magic pill. Like the best things in life, it takes effort. This doesn’t mean that food is the enemy, it means that you need to become best friends with the right foods, natural foods, healthy foods! And your mental and physical health will thank you for it.
The other thing I get is, well, Allyssa, you already look great, you don’t need to do anything. My response to that is, well, it’s not about what anyone else thinks, it’s about what I think and how I want to better myself physically, emotionally, etc. Having goals (of any type) is about the healthiest thing that you can do for yourself if it comes to making yourself better in some way, form or fashion. You do you.
Alright, thanks for listening to my rant on Pretty Pure! Have a great weekend!
Photos by Katrina Jayne Photography.
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