My Journey And Stats

So I've always been active. I've never really been "fat" I guess, but I've never been in that athletic shape that I had always wanted to be in.
Last summer I realized that this year would be my last season to play lacrosse before I graduated, so I started then and there. I made the decision to improve myself.

I weighed 145 lbs, at my highest, which for 5'5 is technically "healthy."
I was not satisfied.

I started running. Every day (mostly). When I first tried to start counting calories, I couldn't keep up with it. I'd forget and feel like it was too much of a hassle, so I just pushed it off. I'd run at night, after work, and then do an ab or full body circuit I'd cut out of Fitness magazine. I started implementing light weights, but I wasn't really knowledgable about weight training enough to really push myself. I was just dipping my toes in.

School started, and I continued running, pushing farther into unexplored areas of my college's nearby neighborhoods. I picked up calorie counting again, and found it more helpful this time. I could see what portions were healthy for me and when I was eating out of sheer boredom, instead of hunger.
Our Fall Ball season started, and that's where it all changed. Our assistant coach introduced us to weight training, and I was hooked. One of my teammates was already into it, so I started lifting more often with her, letting her teach me while we encouraged each other, two girls in the weight section surrounded by guys high on preworkout.

It was uncomfortable at first, I'll admit it. I felt like I was crossing dangerous territory, like the 10-15 lbs I was curling was mediocre in comparison. I stared at the ground instead of the mirrors so I wouldn't make eye contact with the guys next to me. This was supposed to be their territory, not mine. Women were confined to the cardio machines, men groaned and threw weights around on their side of the gym.
But by the end of the semester, I was beginning to feel confident. I had enough workouts in my head that I felt like I could continue on my own as winter break began. I kept running (thankfully early winter was appropriately warm for me to do so) and I started on a gym hunt. I looked at a few local gyms, Planet Fitness, LA Fitness, and Gold's Gym. Ultimately I was won over at Gold's, with their women's section and their cardio theater. The trainers were friendly and talkative enough, and I wasn't too awkward to make them shy away (My trainer wrote down all of the aspects of my body that I wanted to work on; I told him to write down "dat ass." There was a brief moment of awkward silence, but he bravely stuck it out with me.)
Once again, it was like the weights section was forbidden, with hulking body-builderesque creatures in their cutoff tank tops and shaker bottles sitting at their feet. Thankfully, there were dumbbells and kettlebells up in the women's section; I staked out a corner of my own, snagged a bench and bosu ball, and got to work every day. I started moving out of the womens section into the training area when it was open and found that more and more people were watching me with weights in hand. It was empowering.
We CAN move out of the cardio section, women won't break a nail picking up a dumbbell over 8 lbs.
By the time I got back to school, I was beaming. I had dropped 15 lbs, at my lowest being around 130. I was getting comments on it, text messages saying I looked great/skinnier, my boyfriend telling me about people telling HIM about me. Even my coach commented on how skinny my legs were.

And now I'm at 133 and content. Currently in my season, I'm lifting in the mornings with cardio, then giving it all in practice later. I've put on muscle, shed fat, but my concern is less on weight and skinniness and more on fitness and performance. I eat to fuel my body, to maintain it's strength so I can perform on the field, so I have enough energy to push through those last 5 minutes in a game. I lift to be able to hold my own, to know if I go in, I will beat her.
That's what my journey is about. Health, fitness, performance.
Strength.
A strong tree survives the storm; a thin twig easily breaks in the wind.