Pushing It.

First off I would just like to give an early congratulations to all of the participants in the accelerated program this week. I hope that you are all feeling stronger and more empowered about living a healthy lifestyle. I know I am.
I am also quite sore.
Right now, as I type this I am attempting to sit upright (good posture promotes good health!) but it seems that I can only muster a slumped semi tilt on the couch where I am working today because my glutes have decided my office chair is too hard. My forearms are resting on my laptop and only my fingers are moving. I think they are the only part of me this morning that is not sore.
It's a good soreness. I will admit that until a couple weeks ago I was not giving my all at camp. I had grown contented with my routine and don't get me wrong, the workouts were challenging but there is something to be said for giving 100%!
For those of you that don't know my story, over the last 15 months I had lost sixty pounds. That being said, even though I had not hit my goal weight, I had convinced myself that I was fine, I had lost a lot of weight and I could live happily on my little plateau. But inside I still longed to wear those skinny jeans in the closet, still wanted to reach the goal I had set out for myself. But I didn't want to work harder and I backslid. I put on eight pounds before I realized what I was doing. I had yet to tackle the problems that led me to gaining the weight in the first place.
I can say first hand that losing the weight has been a very emotional journey. I didn't realize how much I was hiding under the pounds until they were gone. But I'm taking control. I am recommitted to my goal weight and headed in the right direction. I am officially in the home stretch! I have 19.4 lbs to go to reach the high range of my weight loss goal. I would like to invite all of you (SW am class we talked about this today) to step it up a notch or two. Over my 15 month career as a boot camper I have gone from 5 pound weights to 12 pound weights. The twelves are definitely a challenge and I usually take a lighter set (10lbs) along but for the accelerated week I decided to suck it up and use just the Twelves (truth be told I was tired of carrying both). Now I am not expecting you all to toss your Fivers into the wind and haul around 25 pounders. But the next time you pick up your weights (especially you multiple camp repeaters) think about upping the weight. Push yourself to get more reps in during the timed segments. Kick up your pace on the running drills. I've been forcing myself to try and keep up with Kim and Carl all week. Take the leap, get out of your comfort zone and push yourself. Your coach and your camp will support you but only you can find your true 100%.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”