Introductions

Hello and Welcome!! I appreciate you coming to see my rants as well as pieces of information that I pick up along the way and feel it necessary to share!! I look forward to learning and spreading the knowledge around.

Let me introduce myself.

If you know me you know two important details: I'm a wife; I'm a fanatic about health, fitness, and clean eating.

I've been happily married since May of 2005 to the love of my life. Ryan is a wonderful, amazing, patient, strong man. He is my best friend. We started out not feeling that way, but quickly feelings evolved from frustration to a like, then a love. His initials permanently mark my left ring finger and I would say that is my favorite tattoo--a symbol of a wonderful blessing in my life.

School was not fun for me. I was the fat kid with the skinny twin brother whose last name meant (as in it's now my maiden name) pig or pork in italian.....Yes I was picked on. Fat girl....glasses....braces...pig...Oh yea. Skinny funny popular twin....I remember middle school and high school being horrendous, terrible, forgettable years for it. I never did anything about it when I was in school, though.

The year before Ryan and I were to be married, I graduated from college. We decided that we would be able to sustain ourselves with me working as a full time life guard until fall. I put on my bathing suit and *gasp* I had back fat and horrible rolls. I knew IMMEDIATELY that I wanted to change my ways and lose that weight. I got rid of all the junk food, stopped going to fast food places, stopped going to Wawa for every meal (for those of you not in the northeast part of the country--Wawa is a convenience store....it's all too convenient to pack on the pounds while maintaining a Wawa diet). I started working out. I had some pilates videos that I decided to start with. I didn't want to waste money on something that I didn't know about. Pilates very quickly became too easy for me. I was eager to up the ante and I did just that with the firm. I then got what seems like every firm video known to man (I still have them.....the step(s) come in handy too!) I added TaeBo, Core Secrets, and eventually added Ripped to the program. I also started running. At first I struggled through the first mile. Then one mile became two; two turned into four, five, and six. At that same pool that I worked at right after graduating college (the next summer) a girl suggested that I train for a marathon. HOLY COW?!?! She clearly didn't know me well. ME?! A RUNNER?!?! A RUNNER of MARATHONS?!?!?!?! That was literally laugh out loud funny.....Then I started training for it. I ran ALOT--I quickly upped the weekly mileage (stupidly) to 50 then 60 then 70+ miles a week. She helped me out a bit. She told me where to get a good training schedule. We started doing our long runs together. Every Sunday morning. Rain or shine. It was exhilarating! In September of that same year, I also started studying for my ACE personal trainer exam (MAN, Ryan sure *is* patient!!!!) My running buddy and I started my first (her second) Philadelphia Marathon together (we didn't finish together--she kept running when I had to stop and walk. She finished in 4:08. I finished a half hour behind her at 4:38 and some odd seconds.) After I finished the smile just would NOT go away! I couldn't believe it. Twenty-six POINT two miles?!?! I DID IT!!!
After the marathon, because it's this ugly season called winter, I hung up the running sneakers (ONLY temporarily!!) to go back to working out with weights (when I trained for the marathon, I only ran and did ab work .. nothing else). I went back to the firm and fell in love with Ripped (it's a good workout program...ask me about it...I'll tell ya more if ya like). It wasn't until Ryan's youngest brother asked me December 2007 to look into P90X for him. As a now-certified personal trainer, he asked me to review and approve or deny certain workout programs for him. So I looked it up. "HONEY!!!! Look at this AWESOME PROGRAM!!!" I remember telling the hubby. I think he gave me a dose of my own medicine--he rolled his eyes and went back to what he was doing. I went on and on and on about why I thought P90X was amazing but I don't think he heard me "Well, order it if you want it then." I finally did just that in April 2008. My first workout was Plyometrics!!! WHEW!!! AWESOME!!!! Ciao Firm, Ciao Jari (from Ripped) Ciao Billy Blanks!!! I've moved onto Tony now!! The first weekend in April, I had an investigator's meeting for work and a women's retreat for church. I brought the X with me JUST IN CASE the hotel in Atlanta (for work) had a dvd player in it. No...boo. Oh well. I started April 7th. I was HOOKED!!! Thank you Kirby (Ryan's brother)!! This is awesome. In June, I took an 'early leave' from the X to try to start training for the Philadelphia marathon--to make it a Boston qualifier. My run on Labor day weekend told me to abandon that idea and make my way back to the X. And I just finished my first round (with a modified week 12/week 13). During which, I ran two half marathons (the second was supposed to be a full but was just much too cold to allow for good breathing). The first was in September. The second was in November. Both were with my sister. That brings me to now (WOOHOO you think!! Gee thanks! :P). I just started the x+ yesterday on 12/11/08. Wow....it should be fun. I'm getting ready to get my butt off the couch and do my second workout of the schedule--Interval x+. This one is my second favorite workout from TH--Plyo Legs from the one on one series being my favorite--so I'm ready for it!!

That's me and my fitness history in a nutshell :)