Motivation

Okay so we struggle with motivation do we not?

I know a lot of people who do, and well myself at times too. I often see people give up after 4 weeks or after 2, 3 weeks even 5 days. We struggle with it because we are not empowering our mind - we are not keeping in mind what matters most. Our goals and our dreams - they are very similar, one just has a deadline does it not? The dreams can be accomplished if we meet our goals, and meet the expectations we set out for ourselves.

So I have a picture that I've been hesitant on posting - because it's out of my comfort zone. Yet when I look at it, I feel SO good about myself. I often find myself struggling with the ideology of what others think and what they WOULD think if I DID post it. Why do I find struggle with it, when it in turn motivates me to do better? To think better? To act better? Because as a woman, I have been told many times. I mean many times by society to stay covered up. (Yet bikini's are okay? :P ) From TV, peers, parents, teachers, grandparents, boyfriends, you name it - it is out there as skanky or too risque if we show more skin than we are supposed to.

Now I'm in the fitness and wellness field and damn it I love how my body is being shaped more and more every day. Coming from lack of motivation and self esteem issues I would never of even taken a picture close to this one, or for that matter in my sports bra, my spandex, hardly in my bathing suit (would delete most that showed my stomach before they ended up on Facebook or anywhere else.) So anyways, I coach people day in and day out, I see beautiful bodies transforming right in front of me! I appreciate what everyone looks like now, healthy isn't [I want to be skinny] Healthy is eating right, exercising enough to make a different pattern, it's healthy thinking about yourself and the confidence, it's allowing motivation to actually motivate you and take you somewhere. 200 lbs 500 lbs 150 lbs, I see it all, I'm proud of it all.
*If my team is reading this now, I love you and I really love your bodies and you as people, I'm proud of where you are taking yourself and what you are doing! *

So back to my body now, It has CURVES!!! and WOWZA I'm proud of myself I did something in my life that I take with me everyday and that I can feel great and look great! So 24lbs of fat later, I still kept my ass and I still kept my womanly parts. I don't have a problem saying it now, and from this picture I am going to do even more, I'm motivated that progress takes time and my fitness goals and my dreams will be accomplished.

Wake up in the morning and know today, YOU WONT QUIT! 

You will keep going towards your goals, because that is what matters!

It isn't the dress or the bikini, it is YOU - YOU have to want it and YOU have to strive for it!

If you don't know how, ask someone who does and who can help you. 

Give it 12 weeks before you give up.

You're Beautiful

I am beautiful. I am amazing. I am enough. I am strong. I am perfect for me. I am proud of who I am. I have confidence, and I'm so thankful for it. 

My husband tells me how I look beautiful or how great an outfit on me looks; and I never realized how true it is. Now I don't want this to come off the wrong way to people, but I love myself.

I used to look at the imperfections about myself and say how quickly I will get to fixing them. It's like when you put the clay mask on, and your impurities show vividly through. I for one have learned to love them and everything about myself. I am proud of who I am and how I look, I don't need to be a certain way - because the only two men that matter and care - God & my husband - don't care about the way I look or how I have a blemish that happens to be so natural...
They both tell me my beauty is there, and that it shines from inside.

I encourage my fellow women, to sit back and relax. Embrace yourself and all that you are. You are beautiful, strong, amazing, and perfect. Just keep that in mind as you go about your day. 💕

I am so thankful for Herbalife too; it has helped my confidence and helped shape me to be who I am today. I love my SKIN care and everything else about it. 

Plus the mint clay mask is AMAZING. 

I answer to no one.

Okay, so after the fluctuating weight, and me actually setting my goal and doing it right;  I decided I needed to make a full on change - again.

I was at the bank, working and doing my regular routine; and I was noticing that I honestly was dreading the day, dreading going to bed because I knew I had to do it all over again, and dreading the pure fact that I had to deal with the people I worked with. (Quite frankly I'm a very blunt person and I don't like to take the crap a lot of people seem to think they can dish out, just because of position or power they think they have.) Now I won't use names, but I had a terrible boss - who doesn't in Corporate America - [now if you love your boss, or all of your co workers, congrats and you have it GOOD]. Anyways, I would show up and always had to have a talk with someone about something that happened at some point. My goodness, I tried I put my effort in - but the more I sat back and observed the people I was around - the more I wanted to just slam someone's head into the counter. Okay...maybe not that intense... however I really didn't appreciate how people spoke to one another, how they demanded and didn't even have the audacity to ask for something that could have been very simple or even the most complex. There was no respect for anyone except the BCM and the AM (with each other only). Let's give an example I guess - just to show how silly but irritating it was.

MY LAST DAY OF WORK.
I had to go in for the regular monthly meeting Friday mornings at 7:45am. No big deal right?! Who cares that I had to leave to go home and come back in at 12:30 for a shift - I could at least get things done around the house, even though staying and getting my day done early would have been just as easy. Well whatever there - at the meeting....
We do role plays - because we have to up-sell credit cards and promote the new things that are happening in the bank * So we practice with one another, and as we get a few moments to go over something and plan what we will be saying to one another, my boss says stop as I'm finishing up a sentence to my partner... and she stops me and well "politely" asks me to be quiet.. yes that is in quotations because yes I'm being very sarcastic. Moving on, I let it go - whatever right - well it was towards the end of the meeting, I started to fold a piece of paper that was handed out, so I could put it in my purse to take home for a while - as I'm doing so [not even loud might I add] she stops. Stops talking in the middle of her sentence and stares at me, thus leading to everyone else just staring at me making me look like a jack ass for FOLDING MY PAPER. She then says "Are you done yet?" !@#$!@%$ is what I felt like saying. Instead I just let it go and said "My bad, yes I am." I know it sounds ridiculous, but being put on the spot for something like this in front of your co workers, and you ending up always being the jack ass...... mmmm no... not for me.

Already frustrated I had to go in for a meeting - when I could have been sleeping... little things that happened in the meeting made me gag at the thought of going back in to work. I sat there and I thought of all the good and all the bad of working at Bank of America - well needless to say there were probably 70 bad things I could think of off the top of my head and then 10 good things. There no longer was the magical feeling that I once had while training, and learning regulars names and having a sucker every now and then. If anyone is good at math or you can just look at it as simple as 1/7 incidences being good - it wasn't enough good to deal with the bad. I was done.

I ANSWER TO NO ONE.
No seriously, I hate it - but this is the song that came on my shuffle right as soon as I was half way home, already cursing her name and despising half the crap that went on the week before. And if anyone knows this song I answer to no one by Colt Ford, then you can imagine my inspiration.
Quickly, I turned around, walked back in and I set me keys on her desk, and said I quit. I can no longer work for you and I just don't feel comfortable anymore. She hardly said a word... "Okay." was all I received. Really?! Not a why, not a anything?! Well I knew she hated me for something I must have done - beats me - honestly she was one of the biggest pains in my ass for no reason.

Fast forward to me getting back in my car. I felt shock, I felt relief, I felt freedom, but most importantly I felt happiness. And thinking more and more, I felt security. I thought "what an idiot, now I won't have a paycheck" .. but what I forgot for a slight moment, was I had something I could create dreams with, and do from the comfort of my own home and well just answer to myself. (and my hubby a little bit - you know the wifely duties I picked up more and focused on).

This, was the best day of my life (work wise). I have never felt such a rush of being able to fire my own boss. I couldn't believe it and my husband thought I was a little crazy, but he completely understood - even when he was deployed he had to listen to my bad day at work.  I'm not saying I will never have another bad day, because I know there will be struggles and there will be a lot of hard work on the road ahead of me, but I just felt at the right place in my life for once.

NEXT POST TEASER
The struggle is real... lol

*Disclaimer about the bank... They do this for your own good - I can't say they get commission or anything from it. In fact - they do it because they really do want to help you lower interest rates, and establish credit, get more bang for your buck... and I recommend sitting with a banker once a year to go over whats new and how you can improve your finances. :D *

Taking action

Okay so the next day after the HOM, I came in to sit down with Kevin for a wellness profile. I got on a scale and it read me a bunch of different numbers - only two I knew about was 1. my weight & 2. body fat %. Well, turns out I weighed 178lbs and I had 32.6% body fat! Seriously?! I thought, I am only 20 years old and I'm not even in the 20% range? I wasn't completely shocked at how much I weighed - because I had gone to the doctors not too long ago and I was around 180. 180.... that's what I kept thinking about, I'm 5'9" 20 years old and I weigh nearly 180... I think it's time for a change.

So towards the end of the profile, we ended up signing me up for the business. I was told my products and HMP would come in the mail within a few days.

IT ARRIVED!! WOOHOO, I took pictures I told everyone I knew that I had gotten my product in - and I felt like I was talking to myself. No one was as excited as I was, and over half of them had no idea what I was talking about. I was so bummed but I said hey they will see one of these days when I've lost my 10 lbs and I'm looking good. Yes 10 lbs - that's all I had in mind to lose and somehow thought that I would be at 25% body fat with losing that.

I was so excited, but completely lost!! I had no idea how to make my shakes, what "healthy" meals to make in order to lose the weight, I just knew I had to get started.

The first couple shakes I made - TASTED AWFUL! I mean, I wanted to spit them out - even though I didn't and I bared with them - I don't even remember how I made them now, but the point is I thought I failed and I signed up for a joke. ... Pissed off, I tried texting people and asking everyone HOW do you make your shakes you look so good... yeah well I got a simple answer that I had from the beginning and didn't even realize it. All the recipes that were at the nutrition club, were actually online, HAH who would of thought of that?! :P Man I felt silly, but hey ya live and ya learn right?!

So finally I ended up making some AMAZING tasting shakes, I was getting better at not overfilling my cup with tea and I started to cook a bunch of chicken. That was my groove. Our roommate worked nights, so I was always cooking for myself and eating by myself anyways, so I was at least able to try some "crazy" new recipes that were healthy. My routine at this point was, go to the bank, come home, cook, gym, and come home rest and do it all over again. I was finally feeling secure and happy about what I was doing.

Well one morning I went to get ready for work and get on my business clothes, and make my shake - and guess what!!! My favorite pair of pants, DIDN'T FIT me anymore! Or at least how I thought they should, I mean I had to go through my closet and find a belt - since I hadn't needed one in so long I took my husbands belt - now as frustrated as I was, I was actually extremely happy. I weighed myself and I had lost 10 lbs!! WOOOOOOO!!! I had reached my goal, and what do you know it was perfect timing. It was my birthday, but not just any birthday - it was my 21st birthday!!! YAY!! So we went out and had fun and I felt ten times better knowing I had dropped some weight and I looked good.

To be honest - I lost 2 more lbs, and I stayed around that for a while. I got comfortable and I honestly started slacking off. I was going out and eating whatever and this and that, drinking, and I had my best friend come down from WA to visit so my head wasn't in the game. I gained a couple lbs back and then I would go back and forth on drinking my shakes and not drinking them. I was what I call, inconsistent.

Well, my husband was coming back soon and I knew I wanted to look the best for him :) So back on to my nutrition I went! Two shakes a day, healthy snacks, and my chicken dinners I'd make. He came home and was proud of what I had accomplished and was impressed with how I looked ;) He himself dropped 10 lbs while he was over there, he was using Herbalife as well! I was finally just so happy - I was looking good, he was looking good and I was ready to take this business thing seriously.

Next post..

I quit my job.... yes quit!!