Choose Your Fit

What’s your reason? What does fit mean to you?

You wake up one morning, gung-ho on getting to the gym, hiring a trainer and really just making all those back-logged New Years’ resolutions happen. And then you look in the mirror and think, why? Why do I want to lose weight/build muscle/run a marathon/fit into that dress?

Your reason makes healthy relevant. Your why is personal.

I know this because I’m the first person to judge me. I know how easy it is to look at a stranger and compare yourself to her. I know that all it takes is one morning of getting up on the wrong side of the bed to throw your entire day off.

In those moments, it’s more important than ever to have your why to fall back on. It’s your personalize fitness-driver. And healthy means something different to you than it does to me. And I’m glad.

Because it means that your recognition of how important you are runs deep.

It takes some trial and error, and maybe some heartache and instability, to come out the other side with a true why.

I know this because of my own journey.

Here’s my why:

My reason, my drive to be fit, is so that I will always be healthy enough to live a life that I love. To me, being fit means having energy, being motivated by my own strength and ability, looking in the mirror and being proud, and knowing that I’m doing everything that I can right now to feel confident and healthy for as long as I possibly can.

There was a time, not so long ago, that I had no idea what being fit meant. I was 20 and I thought I knew the answer (like all 20-year olds do). The only reason that I went to the gym was to be skinny. I succeeded. I got very skinny.

I was so successful that at my skinniest, I weighed 94 pounds (I’m 5’4” and 110 pounds is about as light as I should ever, healthily, be). By that point, I wasn’t trying to be skinny anymore. I wasn’t trying to be anything. I didn’t have the energy for that. I wasn’t motivated, or strong, or happy. I didn’t know who the girl in the mirror was.

And deep down, despite the anorexia clouding every part of my life, I knew that what I was doing wasn’t healthy. I knew that if I kept it up, living “as long as I possibly can” wasn’t going to be much longer. And yet, still I struggled.

So now, 10 years later and miles healthier, I KNOW what it’s like to have no reason. To lose yourself completely. I realize that fit does not translate directly to skinny. It doesn’t mean that when the scale tells you that you’ve lost weight, you’ve won.

I know that being fit, for me, means things that can only be considered positive: strong, happy, confident, able, energized, thriving. That’s my fit. That’s my healthy.

Because of my struggle, my healthy, YOUR HEALTHY, means a whole lot more to me.

You choose your fit. You have your own reasons for wanting to be healthy. You decide. All I ask is that is starts with a real reason why.