Monday, April 11, 2011

What motivates me?

Hi everybody!

Erica asked me to write a short piece for the blog this week.  I’m no expert, but I’m happy to give you my two cents.

When I heard about the first boot camp starting, my first thought was “Yeah, right! NOT for me!” As a lifelong non-morning person, the thought of a 5:30 am workout just made me laugh. But at the time it was starting up, I was preparing for a lot of changes in my life. Those changes were mostly because my husband was preparing to leave for a one-year job overseas.  After some encouragement from him and from Tuesdye and Tanae, I thought I might as well give it a chance. I figured it was just temporary insanity!

So the first week of boot camp arrived and I had a really bad head cold. And it was cold outside. And the MOON was still out, for crying out loud! But somehow I made it through. The first three weeks, I was counting down how many days were left in the session so I could quit at the end. But something happened in that last week. All of a sudden, I was getting those “happy endorphins” that you get when you’ve had a really good workout.  And then I thought, “There’s no way I’m sitting out the next session!  I want to feel like this every day!”

Now here we are about five months later. After my assessment last Friday, Erica asked what motivated me to keep going. It’s really a lot of different things. I like feeling like I did something good for myself. I don’t have much time to do that these days. I like that when I’ve worked hard, I feel great all day. I like seeing all of you. (I promise! I know I don’t say very much.) I like feeling like you are all looking for me and if I don’t show up, I’m going to hear about it (thanks, Tuesdye!).  I like feeling that I am really making progress toward being healthy and staying that way.  I think there’s something about accomplishing something I never thought I’d do, it’s really motivating me to keep going to see what else I can do!

I still struggle with the morning thing. Some days, my mindset isn’t all that great and I just have to get myself there and get through it.  But I think Erica and all of you are really inspiring. This has been a rough five months for a lot of reasons, but I can’t thank you all enough for being there for me.

-Shelley Hall

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome job Shelley! Those 5:30am mornings are tough but it feels great, I agree! 159.6 was my weight was not happy about the scale going up this week and not down but wasnt surprised. I wasnt as focused this week and slacked alot but that's ok. I will do better this week! My short time goal is to get 4 lbs off before the okc run! I can do this!!! Misty

Lindsey said...

Great post Shelly! I'd forgotten about doing our ab workouts in the moonlight :)! You are right, the early mornings are tough, but so worth it for starting a great day off right! I know when I have to miss our mornings, my days just aren't the same! My weight is 140.6...really working for that 130 mark before the end of the next session!

Sarah said...

It's nice to hear I'm not the only "non-morning" person. I've used that excuse my whole life. I decided to stop using that excuse about a week ago and I'm so glad to have found this great group of girls to start my days with! Thanks for warmly welcoming us new girls, Sarah & Emily. You are so right! It is amazing how good my Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays are now. I'm proud to say I have lost 1lb since my initial weigh in last Wednesday and only have 9 more to go till I'm just maintaining. We CAN do this! Sarah

Kelly said...

Great job Shelley. I love my sleep and wasn't looking forward to the 5:30a workouts. But so glad I did.
Weigh in 165.8. Not great but down. But I've got 56 days to avoid looking like a beach whale :-) I got this!!

Unknown said...

Thanks for the comments, everyone! I am only down a little bit this week, 138.4. Thankfully all the leftover birthday cake is gone now. Of course, it's because I ATE IT! But still... :)