Be Strong

I don’t normally get this personal on my blog, but I thought I would share a little of my story today. For my 31st birthday last year, I decided that I wanted a change, but I couldn’t find the motivation to make it happen. Let me back up a little so you can fully understand what I am talking about. Two years ago, I was in the best health of my life up until that point. I was eating well, active, and felt like a million bucks. Then, life happened. I was in a car accident in October of 2015 that totaled our car and injured my shoulder. The exercise class I was attending, wasn’t doable for me anymore. I was still eating well, but I was getting frustrated with my shoulder hurting.

November 2015, over Thanksgiving break, I was skiing with my daughter (her first time!) and was in a skiing accident. I was trying to prevent my daughter and I from going over the side of the hill and told her to turn one way…she turned towards me instead. I fell backwards to stop us, but her skis were on top of my skis preventing my knee from being able to move, and I heard a pop. We walked down the rest of the mountain and I knew my day of skiing was over.

I figured I would just rest my knee and it would get better, but in December, it still wasn’t, so I got an MRI and found I had torn my MCL. With a month of physical therapy, I was able to bend and straighten my knee fully again without surgery.

Depression set in for me. I am not one that gets depressed easily, but I was beyond frustrated with not being able to move the way I wanted, and living with constant pain got me down. I stopped caring about my nutrition, and couldn’t really workout. My health started to spiral out of control, and along with it, I found myself losing my ability to be the best mom that I could be.

My husband got me a fitbit for my 31st birthday, at my request, because I wanted so badly for it to spur something in me. I wanted motivation and thought maybe, just maybe that would help me find it. Here’s the thing I’ve learned about motivation, it can’t come from anywhere but inside.

Fast forward to August of 2016. My husband and I decided that we wanted to go to Belize for our 10 year anniversary. A friend of mine was starting a health challenge and I decided to start it so that I could lose some weight before going on our trip. Then I heard about another challenge that would be done at the same time for women that had never done crossfit, but that were interested in trying it out. The combination of all of these things was exactly the motivation I needed. I worked harder than I had ever done before, and I found my inner strength.

The challenge began in September and lasted 6 weeks. At the end of those six weeks, I was hooked and I was making changes. My body changed, but more importantly, my confidence returned, I had more energy, I was able to keep up with my kids, and I was mentally better at handling all of the stress that comes with being a mom.

Be Strong. I chose this t-shirt from Cents of Style as a reminder of the fact that if I take care of myself and my health that I will be better mentally as well as physically. The other day, my husband told me that he is more attracted to me today than ever because of the confidence that I have. I am comfortable in my skin, I feel happy, and I feel like I can accomplish anything. My well was dry before, and I had nothing left to give. Now I feel strong and capable, and it’s a pretty dang good feeling.  (As a side note, can we talk about the fact that my daughter, Addie took all of these pics for me? She is 5. Not too shabby, right?)

Lastly, one of the things I love about Cents of Style is that they have the best graphic t-shirts that have just about any message you would want. Go find one for yourself while they are on sale today through the weekend. They are so cute and make a really great statement plus serve as a reminder to yourself. Use code INSPIRE17 to get any of the Inspirational Graphic T-Shirts for 50% Off plus free shipping.