My Fitness Journey– Stephanie Anderson

Well I would love to start this by saying I’m a natural athlete or that I spent my childhood immersed in sports, but that all would be a lie, and lying is bad.  I played softball for 6 years, I managed to break & sprain most of my fingers and took a grounder to the chin. I didn’t enjoy the sport and I’m pretty sure that I only played all those years to make my parents happy as both of them were very active volunteers at the time. Somewhere during this softball period of my life I also took ice skating lessons, I think I actually liked it too. One day that came to a crashing halt when the instructor didn’t give me my medal, citing that I was only in the class because my father worked on the Zamboni machine. There went my dreams of being an ice-skating star and what sure would be a movie about my life (I was way into the movie ‘Ice Castles’).

I never revisited sports or physical fitness for that matter until the 90’s when a gym opened up near my house. I took my turns on the cardio machines and found a class I loved, Aerobics! I adored the instructor and he taught us how to Vogue, I like to think I still have those skills. I also discovered I was horrible with the hot trend, “step aerobics.”  Looked easy enough, just step onto a platform, (make sure your high top Reebok’s are laced) pump your arms to dance music….yeah no. I even celebrated my positive pregnancy test in my class, and then never went back.

After the early years of child raising I decided it was time to get serious and figure out how to get fit. You see, I am very lazy by nature.  Add that to huge self-worth issues that are deeply embedded in me from my childhood trauma, and this was going to be an uphill battle. I found a trainer I adored, and then as fate would have it, Fitness Quest 10 came into my life. I thought I would give FQ10 a try, met my awesome trainer Brett and proceeded to work out with him 2x a week for 5 years. I learned a lot during those sessions and found success at times. But the self-sabotaging always found a way to derail my progress. Year’s later in therapy I figured out how & why my behavior was interfering with my success.

One of the wonderful things about working at FQ10 is that I am surrounded by people more than willing to help me with this journey.  A year ago I “had a moment” and my co-worker Laurence witnessed it.  After that, Laurence came up with a plan and was going to make me accountable, I was scared to death. The thing is I had to be ready to make the changes that were necessary and I needed to be in a healthier mental place to make it happen. I discovered I actually liked Deadlifts, Squats & Kettlebells now. I feel like one of the “cool kids.” I still have a long way to go and would like to have enough confidence to join classes one day too.

The best part of my journey is that I feel as if it’s just beginning, I might never set foot into a Zumba class again (a story for another time, let’s just say it was a lot like my ice skating experience!) or run a marathon, but I am finding things that I enjoy about fitness. I like feeling strong and I discovered that I love hiking.  I love Pilates and need to make more time for it. I want to give Yoga a shot.  It might have taken me most of my life, but I love the direction I am headed.