As I make the decision to take my training and nutrition to the next level I often forget where I started. It usually takes a conversation with someone I’m meeting for the first time to gently remind me of how far I’ve come.
I’ve got “battle scars” both mentally and physically related to all the weight gain. There will always be the potential that I will be disappointed when I get to the next level but I’ll deal with that down the road IF need be.
There is no sense setting myself up for failure before I even start. You see, I see that all the time.
Some women see photo’s like:
Or
Or
And they instantly start saying “that’s impossible”, “that’s photo-shop”, “that’s not the same person as the before” and those are nice comments.
After Lifting My Spirits recently competed in her second Body Building show placing 3rd (Congrats again), one of the FaceBook threads I subscribe to showed her before and after photo’s. Sometimes I just read through comments to get a feel for the support she is receiving and it never fails that there are some comments made about the transformation not being real. Some nasty comments are made by women that can only come from a place of misery and disbelief in themselves. So strongly disbelieving they never even take the first step to try to make a change.
I’ve seen videos of LMS and had private conversations with her and I’ve spent weekends with my friend Michelle. These women are just as real as I am. We chose not to hide our transformations, we chose to share them openly with the masses in hopes that we can inspire and reach another person who “thinks they can” but just haven’t committed to following through just yet.
The irony is that pictures do speak a thousand words of success.
What you will never see is the sweat, the tears, and the fear that we all had in the very beginning of our journeys.
You will never see the early mornings or late nights in the gym.
You won’t see the turning down of birthday cake or cupcakes so we stayed on task with our goals.
You won’t see the days where decisions were made to stay the course instead of having instant gratification in the form of food.
Thanks to the internet you can however now get a glimpse of food prep being done.
For those of you beginning and for those of you setting goals, not a single one of us will ever tell you this is easy. But it is certainly worth every last bit of it. If it weren’t? We wouldn’t so willingly keep doing what we do.
garagegym107 
Holy crap this is good!! I started to cry when you mentioned the birthday cakes not eaten. Not because I miss cake, but because it was a perfect example of the little sacrifices everyday that eventually don’t feel like sacrifices at all. Stuff I forgot about. I’m reblogging.
❤ Thank you Tammy! I am right there with you!
Well said!
Thank you so much Colin!
Reblogged this on Lifting My Spirits and commented:
Garagegym 107 is one of my favorite bloggers. This post is excellent. I was moved.
Great post and so true! No one see’s you when you are in the trenches, but everyone wants to know the secret when you are on top
Wow, great post! I’m so glad LMS reblogged you or else I wouldn’t have found you. I’m right there right now; turning down cake, saying no to some social events, trying to stay at 100% adherence. It’s challenging to say the least. But I know this is not forever.
I recently tried to blog to my followers that this is not as easy as I might be making it seem. I just don’t post ALL the struggles because sometimes I feel like maybe people don’t care to hear about it. Do they care to hear that I binged on two extra rice cakes?? That I had an extra serving of casein powder the other night?? I find that some people GET IT, and some people roll their eyes…not getting it at all.
Thanks for “getting it.” 🙂
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