Hello and welcome back to Forge A Frenzy!!!
*If you’re here for motivational tips & tricks from myself and my besties, scroll to the bottom. I typed out a fourth of my life story before getting to the good stuff.*
If you know me, you know that I am not, and have never been, a “morning person”. I like slow mornings. I set 2-5 alarms and they go off for about an hour. Seriously… I hit snooze more than anyone should. Sorry to my future husband. I was a tried and true night owl and did my best work in the wee hours of the night. During the first 2 years of high school, I rode the bus to school. The bus that picked me up at my house at 6:20 AM!!!!! I mean, looking back, I don’t really know how I did that y’all. I struggled making it to my 9 AM’s in college and genuinely couldn’t fathom scheduling myself willingly to be somewhere by 8 AM.
While I could write a whole post about my snooze issue, this post is about what the deciding factor was in my life that made me start setting my alarm (willingly) for 5:30 AM and what is keeping me going.
Two Words: Spin Class.
Let’s get real for a sec: I have had a major love/hate relationship with working out. I used to go in phases. Super hard core for 2 weeks, skip two days, then lose all motivation. Cycle after cycle. Lose weight, gain weight, repeat. Pretty much my whole life has been like that. I definitely lost weight in college. Gained it back, and then lost it after a breakup, but I was never where I wanted to be, even by Georgia standards. And then, I moved to a place where people live in bathing suits and eat kale 3 times a day, and realized that I was extremely unsatisfied with my body. If we’re getting super real, I always felt like the fat friend. I always was just a little bit bigger than everyone else because I am tall and bigger boned (if that’s a thing). And while I have been overweight in my life, I was normally not technically over weight, but still extremely unsatisfied with my appearance. Appearance isn’t everything, but it’s a place that I draw a lot of confidence from. I will do a whole post on that, but for now let’s get back to the point of this one.
I had been using ClassPass, which is a super great medium for those who want to switch up their workouts from Pilates to Spin to Crossfit and back. ClassPass has a great thing going and I highly suggest it to kick your butt into gear. I had been trying a couple studios and different forms of working out and had always gravitated back towards spin. With ClassPass, the highest level allows you to visit a studio up to 3 times during your pay period and I was really just switching back and forth between cycling studios. I wanted to find a studio that I could call home and go to regularly, so I began to compare prices. Y’all, SoulCycle is $30 per class!!!! I aspire to have enough money to where spending $30 a class makes sense. (SoulCycle is not a part of ClassPass, just fyi.) As I was comparing prices, I was also evaluating myself. I was thinking of the previously mentioned weight loss cycle and wondering if I would be putting my money into something that I was not going to stick to. As I was looking through ClassPass at all of the studios they included and going to each studios website and comparing schedules/prices, I found myself on a website for a studio called Full Psycle. I hadn’t been to Full Psycle yet but loved their site and Instagram and found that their class schedules and locations worked SUPER well with my work schedule and new location in Huntington Beach. And the best part? They offer new riders $40 for 2 weeks UNLIMITED classes to try it out. Unheard of. On top of that, they offer complimentary shoes, which most places don’t. So, on a little bit of an impulse, I paid my $40 and signed up for my first two classes. One of which was at 7 AM. An hour before the previously mentioned horrible 8 AM college class that I swore I would never willingly succumb to.
Growing up changes you.
Once I completed that first class, I knew that I was taking the first step towards my goals. It sounds so silly but spinning has drastically changed my life in only 2 weeks. Finding a workout that makes you feel good AND makes you want to come back for more is something that I have been looking for for a long time.
Something that I love about Full Psycle is that they have the equipment to track your performance and it is emailed to you after every class. Now, at first I hated the idea of my bike number being up on the board for everyone to see. I was convinced that everyone knew my seat number and that people were judging me. Something I have to remind myself on the daily is that no one thinks about you as much as you do. Also, I was like what if I have an off day and it reflects on the boards? That’s so embarrassing! Now, I LOVE looking at that email after class and that board while I’m spinning. It shows me how strong I’m getting and how much progress I am making, even when I feel like I’m having an off day. Once you commit to something like this, I PROMISE you will surprise yourself with how much power you have.
Forge A Frenzy tips for beginning and maintaining your weight loss journey:
☆ Take progress pictures. It’s always good to see where you started and have visible results that you can keep to monitor your progress and motivate you to keep going.
☆ Write down what you eat! You can use an app like MyFitnessPal or LifeSum to track your water and food intake and you can enter goals and such and it will keep track of your calories. This really helped me see exactly what I was putting in my body and how when I thought I was being healthy, I really wasn’t.
☆ Find a gym/workout class that you LOVE and commit to it.
☆ Don’t weigh yourself every day. Weight fluctuates SO much daily. If you want to weigh yourself, I suggest doing it every week or every other week so that you can see the digits change but you aren’t obsessing over them.
☆ Get yourself a goal outfit! I know as a blogger, there are some outfits/bathing suits that some of my favorite bloggers wear that I would love to wear and look good in. So get yourself an outfit that you aspire to rock one day and hang it where you can see it.
☆ Goal boards/collection of pictures that remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing. For me, going to my Pinterest boards or my saved images on Instagram, remind me of why I am doing what I’m doing.
☆ Get a cute workout bag and some cute workout clothes. Getting myself into a cute workout outfit in the morning brings me joy. And I’m totally okay with it. It also helps when you’ve committed to working out and you get to see the results in the mirror in your new cute workout gear.
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Phone A Friend
I wanted to ask some of bff’s who workout on the regular, what keeps them going and how they view working out and eating well. Different perspectives and ideas are always welcome here, so I wanted to share ideas beyond just what works for me.
⋙ Lorelei Ritzert (lovelolouise.com \ @LoreleiRitzert): “Knowing that I will live longer and live a better life really motivates me to eat healthy and to make wise choices when it comes to food. As far as working out, the fear of being overweight and the effects it has on your body gets me to the gym. I also like the “high” that comes post workout. It leaves me feeling great.”
⋙ Kelsie Schultz (@KelsieJSchultz): “Working out makes me happy because of the endorphins and my body just feels good after a workout. It also gives me more energy and working hard every day at CrossFit really boosts my self confidence because of the results I see, which is my main motivation.”
⋙ Halleson Thompson (@HallesonThompson/@HallesonWhitePhotography): “1. I want to feel proud of myself. So when I work out & eat right, I can look at the results and be happy. 2. I hate feeling miserable. I get so tired and bloated when I’m not eating right and immediately feel a difference when I eat clean. 3. I want to teach Oliver (her son aka the cutest 3 year old ever) to live a healthy life and enjoy everything in moderation.”
Annnnddddd a guys perspective!!! Those are always my fave.
⋙ Erick Holmquist (@ErickHolmquist): “So when I started, it was about getting bigger to boost my confidence. Now, I feel bad when I don’t go to the gym. It’s become a habit and a stress reliever. That’s how it became a habit and how I grew to like it so much, I would get stressed and hit up the gym and as a result I would feel better and also look good.”
What keeps you going and motivated to work out and live your best life? I would love to hear in the comments below so I can share them with everyone and also use them in my own life!
Also, shoutout to Full Psycle for being life changing. This is not a sponsored post, they just rock. Go check them out on Facebook or Instagram!
‘Til next time,
