The Struggle You Don’t Always See

We tend to think that those who are ‘in shape‘ must have better genes and an easier time in life. Those with ‘success‘, must have had better circumstances, more help, or, possibly deserve it more.

The thing is, we ALL have our own demons, challenges and circumstances to battle with. It may not be your health or appearance, it may be your career, your relationships, your family, etc…– the bottom line is we ALL have something, there is no hierarchy of struggle.

While you may come to a site like this, with the tit;e ‘Fit Strong and Sexy’ and see a ‘skinny’ (another topic of much criticism), high energy girl –there is a lot more than meets the eye than simply doing exercise and achieving ‘bikini body’ status.

People exercise for many reasons. They exercise to lose weight. They exercise to look good in their ‘skinny’ clothes. They exercise to blow off stress.
They exercise for their lives...

OR, they exercise to change their lives.

I know because exercise changed MY life.

To make a very long back story very short, I have faced my own struggles, from serious injury that halted my career as I knew it, to financial strife (I could write a separate book on how to survive in New York City with no money or connections), to public criticism (I am ‘too skinny’ in a ‘real woman’s world).

I have lost jobs, fallen flat on my feet, stressed about whether I’d be deported (again), whether I’d ever be ‘fit’ again, find a decent place to live, a solid career, people I could trust…. But it was these so called ‘failures’ and challenges that compelled me to change direction and pursue a life in sharing with others what I personally found through running, and the loss of that life as I knew it.

You see fitness is about so much more than exercise. What you gain from it, as a person, will live on in you for as long as you are on this earth.

You will have a work ethic that can drive you to go beyond any limits you might have previously put on yourself. As I’m sure you know too well, once you’ve had to push yourself mentally through grueling physical pain, there is very little that can intimidate you!

SO, as we go into 2015 and I get ready to launch an entirely new fitness platform, I want to tell you that the image, look and feel will be very different, but it is my goal that, like fitness, the aesthetic will draw you in but the deeper message will become a part of you.
In truth, fitness has no finish line. Its effects are carried for life within the body, the memory, the self-image. We know it’s not just about vanity or physical achievement. It’s a state of mind, a state of mind that says that you can succeed against the odds and achieve anything.

Fitness is a strange business, but somehow it works. Once it’s in your blood, it awakens a part of you that you may have otherwise never known you had and you are forever changed.

Failure helped me understand true passion and the perseverance it takes to find it.
For me that passion was fitness, all things fitness from the exercise itself to the psychological and emotional elements of it, and this is why I started doing what I’m now doing, and even more so, these are the reasons behind what you will see in the upcoming year.
It’s a movement, a movement of empowerment that will change your life.

Thank you for being a part of my community, my life and this movement.

No matter what you are currently dealing with, or how hard you’ve fallen, you CAN get back up, and do it with more passion, more strength and more power!

What is your personal struggle?