Hello and welcome to Lipgloss and Lifting! I’m not sure how you found me. Maybe we know each other in real life, maybe you saw me on Instagram, or maybe you just stumbled upon this page by happenstance, but, however you found me, I’d like to start off by saying thank you for stopping by and checking us out! I hope that my words and thoughts as I ramble on this blog will inspire you to live a healthier, happier life. As you may have gathered from my “About ” page, I’m just a girl who absolutely loves her life, a big part of which includes working out and eating healthy. I’m not a trainer (yet) or a nutritionist, but I’m more than happy to share a little about what has worked for me on my journey.

I thought a good place to start in my first post would be to give you all a little history on my journey with fitness and what ultimately led me to decide to compete. I will be the first to tell you that pretty much for the first 26 years of my life (that’s up to about 4 years ago for me) I’m pretty sure that I didn’t have an athletic bone in my body and I absolutely DESPISED working out. I never really played sports growing up (sorry Dad!), hated getting sweaty (now I love it!), and never really felt confident enough to explore working out or being fit. I was chubby around my awkward years when I was about 11-13 or so, but for the most part spent high school, college, and the couple of years post TCU (go Frogs!) as a skinny girl at a healthy weight. After working my first corporate job, however, the pounds started to creep up and I didn’t really like where I was headed. I tried bikram yoga for a little bit, and liked it, but I was still afraid to set foot into a gym because I felt like gyms were intimidating and I didn’t have a clue where to start. I’ve pretty much always been a healthy eater, but somewhere between a stressful job, an active social life, and dealing with the passing of my father in 2011, I had gone from always being around the 120-125 pound range, to 142 in 2012. Something had to change.

So, in April 2012 I joined an all female bootcamp (I got suckered into a Groupon!) and was working out in a parking lot with like-minded women with a yoga mat and 5lb weights at 5am (!!!! Yes, 5am!!!) three mornings a week. I can still remember my first burpee!   Soon enough, I started seeing baby muscles pop up and inches disappearing. I started researching clean eating and what a healthy diet consisted of. I grew stronger and more confident in my ability to finish workouts and I actually started to enjoy them! I stuck with my bootcamp for almost two years and learned so much from my trainer. I’m still thankful for all of our laughs and sweaty morning workouts, and I know that they helped pave the road to where I am now.

I changed jobs in 2013, which gave me more time to focus on me. I had come to a point where I LOVED working out, but felt like I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. Fast forward to January 2014—maybe I was being introspective, or maybe it was because it was my last year in my twenties, but I wanted a goal to work towards that would really push me with my fitness journey. I thought about a marathon, but I’m not a distance runner (I get bored) and I really didn’t want to lose any toenails! It was clear. I knew (after reading many an issue of Oxygen and Muscle & Fitness Hers— now my FAVORITE magazines!) that if I really wanted to get the results and the body I wanted, that I needed to start LIFTING heavier weights, which meant conquering my fear of the gym! I also needed to start giving my body the fuel it needed to grow muscles through proper nutrition and diet. I was still doing the bootcamp thing, but was now up to using 15 pound weights for our sessions, and I still felt like I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough or getting enough out of my workouts. I decided on a flight back from DC that I really wanted to make 2014 my year to get in shape and take my love of fitness and clean eating to the next level. My amazing husband (who was also unhappy with how he was looking thanks to a few too many happy hours and weigh (pun intended) too many dinners of pizza, wings, or fajitas) was right there on the bandwagon with me. We decided to research some weight training routines on www.bodybuilding.com (a GREAT place to start by the way!) and started training in our condo building’s gym that week. That was a little over 13 months and twenty pounds ago for me, and over fifty pounds ago for him. It’s hard to believe I’ll be stepping on the stage in just 3 weeks as a figure competitor! More on what happened between that American Airlines flight and the 9 month period to when I started working with my coach In October 2014 on my next post.