Let there be light

This blog post feels like I am going back, "old school".  Back to fat instead of muscle.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I keep telling you to take progress photos. You just never know what you will see. Some/most victories have nothing to do with the scale. 

I've become fairly shameless about putting my goodies out on display for progress photos.  Some times, I take 20-30 photos to find the one that I want to post. So when you look at them and say to yourself, "Is that the best she could do?". It sure was. Haha.  So tonight, I came skipping home to open my Flag nor Fail order.  I wasn't taking the photos as "progress" shots, just good old fashioned photos of my new stuff.  Anyway...  later on, as I was going through to delete them, I noticed something. Something very interesting and new.  Light. Light between my thighs. All this time, I have been distracted and preoccupied by my muscles and strength, I let the trimming down completely slip me by.  I mean, I have good days and fat days, but apparently I had more good then bad.  There used to be no space between those badboys until it got to my knee caps. Now, my thighs are noticeably more lean.  The other thing I noticed was that without really thinking about it, I voluntarily snapped a photo of the writting across my butt.  Not just showing my butt, I paid money to have it excentuated.  When did that become a thing? That's certainly new.  Crazy! 

Well, all I can say is keep snapping those shots.  You just never one what will strike you.

All fired up.

Most of you probably hope for that extra hour in your day to accomplish things.  I won't lie, extra time in my day freaks me out.  People always ask if I ever relax.  Sure, I relax in the gym, in the car going to the gym, browsing aimlessly in Wegmans and that 5 minutes between my head hitting the pillow and being totally zonked out.  I spent 13 years of my life relaxing and all it got me was a body that is almost irreparable.  As far as I have come, if I have an extra hour in my day, I still end up on the couch and concocting snacks from my pantry between commercials.  That was the primary reason for me getting rid of cable and internet in my house.  I am honest with myself, I know what my triggers are.

This April, my office will be shifting our work hours from shifts to a straight 9-5.  That means that I will have an extra 2 hours of my evening to fill.  I am so excited for the opportunity to use that time doing things that are more conducive to my goals and lifestyle.  As much as I love the gym, my therapist has demanded that I spend some of that time outside of the gym.  Most of you would agree with her.  Of course that does not include my time spent personal training.  I absolutely love personal training.  I don't think anyone could convince me to pry myself away from that time.  So with this extra time and the push to find a new something to occupy my time, it only makes sense that I make the most out of it. What to do? What to do?  I could volunteer.  I could learn a new trade.  I could challenge myself.  I could dig deep and try something that I always wanted to do as a child.  With all of that in mind, I came down to two choices. An Armed Forces Reservist or a Volunteer Fire Fighter. Sounds like two reasonable choices to me.

At Anytime Fitness, we have a large number of Fire Fighters as members.  I think that is why it was siting in the forefront of my mind.  I see several on a daily basis.  One of which is, Chad.  Chad is a fellow trainer that has been working out with me here and there.  During one particular workout, out of the blue, he said that I would make a great Fire Fighter.  Had he just read my mind?  Immediately, he had caught my attention.  My little ears had perked up and I was waiting to hear more.  Of course, I wanted to hear more about how awesome I lifted, but mostly I just wanted to be convinced.  Perhaps just the illusion of some convincing would suffice.   I asked a few questions and let him do the talking.  12 hours later, my application had been submitted and the ball was rolling.  It was just as easy as that.  Too bad that is probably the end of the easy parts of this process. 

Last night, I went to the station for my interview.  I was greeted by some very kind folks at the station.  The whole process was just awesome.  I went from nervous to giddy and back to nervous again.  I even sat in the parking lot afterwards and took a photo of the building for a future scrap booking moment. Lame, I know.  Hush!  I could not believe what I was getting myself into.  Who had I become?  If you had asked me 2 years ago if I ever thought that I would be seriously considering being a fire fighter, I would have asked if you had meant for Halloween.  Even then, the answer would have been a big fat, "no". 

So, there ya have it.  Momma is trying something new, yet again.  Another challenge chalked up and ready to be faced.  I can't help but think who or what I could have been had I made fitness a priority 13 years ago.