All things fitness.
Time to talk about my journey navigating all things fitness. Everything I have tried and everything I have learned. By no means do I feel like I have mastered this but I feel like I have tried my fair number of classes, workouts, gym and online deals. When I first graduated college and moved to New York I was training for a half marathon so I went running and then joined planet fitness for I think it was $10 a month? It was in a basement in Union Square with no windows, it wasn’t exactly the cleanest or endorphin boosting environment, but it was cheap and close to my apartment at the time. Going to the gym at this point was mainly to do cardio and then I would do random machines or abs for like 5 mins because I didn’t have a structured workout routine or have any idea what I should be doing to work certain areas of my body.
I then pivoted to my Class Pass era. I got a deal through work and freaking loved going to different classes all over the city. This is when I really started to love the social aspect of working out with friends too. Shoutout to my girl Alexa who was my Class Pass wife. We tried everything from spin, boxing, HITT circuit training, Pilates, barre and even a trampoline class. Yes, you read that correctly. We went to a class that consisted of us jumping on a trampoline which I still look back on and cannot help but laugh. No regrets lol. We would do morning classes and evening classes. It became such a game of going to different studios at different times to maximize our credits. We also would take note of what different locker rooms/showers were like. The days of us going to take a 6am class and then the madness of every girl running to a shower to full blown wash and blowout their hair all before going to work is honestly wild to look back on. Working out in the morning now doesn’t compare because everyone has such different schedules and isn’t racing to an office. It was so fun starting the day working out and getting ready together and then off we both went to our finance jobs. What a time my Lex!
I then started training for my NYC marathon. I supplemented the days I wasn’t running with different classes. I had no method to what classes I was going to just kind of whatever I was feeling. I thought that when I was training for the marathon I was automatically going to be in the best shape of my life. In many ways I was, because don’t get me wrong it takes a lot of strength and endurance to train and run freaking 26.2 miles BUT my body wasn’t changing the way I thought it would. I just thought all the fat on my body would fall off to be honest. I was running a ton but that also meant I was eating a lot more to fuel all this cardio. I didn’t really realize this at all at the time because I was so amazed with my progress training and really was just thriving that I was able to run the freaking marathon. As with many of my eye-opening moments, it took the time during COVID to change this.
When I moved home during lockdown, I was doing a lot of running. Obviously, there were no workout classes or gyms open so I began to think what I could try next. I got to chatting with my friend Becca (shoutout Becca) and she told me about the strength training program she had been using and loving. Madeline Moves, which was created by a woman who also used to be a big runner and had the same frustrations with her fitness progress. The switch to strength training was daunting but doing it in the comfort of my own home made me excited to give it a try. It was like the black market trying to get weights for at home workouts. I ended up getting some on Mercari second hand. I started to do the Madeline Moves workouts which are daily guided workouts of moves and reps. It was easy to follow and taught me how to weight train. Each day is focused on different areas of the body. I never get sick of it because it isn’t the same thing every day. I kept doing this alongside macro counting (a story for another post) and finally started to see changes in my body. This kind of workout was an adjustment and required a lot of consulting over facetime with my girl Becca, but it ended up being the best thing for me during COVID when gyms were closed and in general.
When I was back in the city and finally able to back to the gym. I joined Equinox with the awesome discounted membership through my employer and absolutely love it. Going back to the gym, I felt like I had my fundamentals down on how to do my workouts, so it was a little less scary doing strength training in the gym. But don’t get me wrong, I still find it intimidating to try certain things, but I have worked on getting over that because at the end of the day no one knows really what they're doing. Strength training has not only made me feel stronger, but it has me running faster. I now see the direct results of how consistent weight training has improved my overall physical health. The Madeline Moves weekly move subscription is still what I use today, 3 years later. What a journey it’s been and I am excited to continue to share more with all of you!
