I'm coming out of the closet!

So to give you a bit of background before I go into my story….. I joined a 60 day fitness and nutrition challenge with my Beachbody coach. Beachbody is the fitness company that produces and sells workout programs such as P90X, Insanity, Brazilian Butt Lift and many more in addition to supplements like Shakeology. Anyway, my coach invited members of her team to commit and join this challenge. No Excuses is what she titled it. What?! No excuses?? Ding, ding, ding!! The words were perfect for me. Perfect! Haven’t I written about my excuses and called myself out in this blog at least a couple of times? I thought about it for a couple of days and then just decided, what the heck. There’s nothing wrong with being pushed, being accountable and learning new things about my fitness and nutrition along the way right? There’s no downside that my over thinking brain could come up with.

Well, this challenge group has about 30 members and we’ve all introduced ourselves and connected with one another. Everyone has their own individual goal, we’re all different ages and come from all over the country. It’s not just about weight loss, it’s also about getting fit and strong and changing our eating patterns and fitness routines. My journey is to become more fit, tone and strong. I want to see more muscle definition and lose the flab in my bum bum and legs. We are encouraged to support one another and be there to root each other on. I just love that!! Everyone is a stranger to me, but we are in this together and have connected. I’ve had a lot of fun with it. My coach makes YouTube videos for us since we can’t meet in person. Technology makes everything so easy now!

Well, the first challenge came. We were asked to submit a “before” picture of ourselves and share it with the group. Huh? When I read that I instantly got nervous and didn’t know if I could do that. I’ve seen all the infomercials with someone’s before picture and their amazing transformation. I’ve seen them on Facebook, Pinterest, everywhere. We all have. It was on my mind for days. I couldn’t get myself to do it. She told us that if we were seriously uncomfortable doing this for everyone to see, we could email it to her so she’d have it. It was important to do this first step and she guaranteed we’d be thankful we did it at the end of the 60 days. Oh my gosh. Seriously didn’t know what to do.

Why you ask? I don’t know. I was really caught off guard with the strong reaction I had to this. I told my husband about it and he asked the simple question “what are you afraid of?” I didn’t know until he asked question number 2: “is it because you are not fully committed to this challenge and don’t want to be held accountable?” Uh huh! Yep that was it. If I put my “before” picture out there I had to be damn sure I’m fully, 110% committed to this so I can put an amazing “after” picture up there.

Even after this talk and figuring out why I was afraid, I put off taking the pictures. I wanted decent ones so I knew I had to have him take the pics for me. Of course he didn’t mind that! I was embarrassed to get on my bikini and pose for three pics….front, side and rear views. Ugh!! Rear view really? He took the pics and re-took a couple and then I looked at them. Oh my goodness!! I have never, ever seen this perspective of myself. I turn around and look at myself in the mirror but it’s so different to see it in a photo. My husband was so sweet and said nice things about the pictures. He supposed to do that though!

So, after I obsessively looked and looked and looked again at the pictures and dissected everything I thought was wrong and what I needed to change, I took the pictures and pasted them into Instagram Frames (a fabulous app on my iPhone) so I could do a series of the 3 pictures in one photo. Didn’t turn out too bad. I was so nervous to post it. It really was a scary thing for me. I knew I could just email them to my coach but I decided that if I was going to be all in, I had to take that step and post it for my team to see. I wanted to have it done before Monday as that was the first day of the challenge. I believe it was after 11pm on Sunday night when I actually did it. I felt a huge tinge of relief and a little of worry. My husband is amazing and gave me a high five. He’s behind me 110% too and that feels so good.

After I posted the picture I had something else come to mind. Something pretty important and hit me right in the heart. It wasn’t just that I was afraid to be held accountable it was because clothes are my mask. I had to take the mask off to see myself for real. I’m petite and at a healthy weight so it’s always been easy for me to “hide” in my clothes. Taking off the clothes and only wearing a bikini and showing everyone and myself was a release. It was like the mask came off and I saw who I really am. I’m not hiding the areas of my body that I don’t like under clothes any more. I could pretend I was as fit and tone as those girls in Fitness magazine and no one would know the truth right? Those that know me well will probably be shocked to hear me explain my body image insecurity to you in this way, but now you know. I’m coming out of the closet on this!

Now, just so you know I am definitely not going to post my before pic here for you to see, I haven’t overcome my insecurity that much, but I’m at least willing to share this with you and even hold myself more accountable to all of you in addition to my challenge team. As I go through this challenge for the next 58 days, I will also be working on this insecurity. I just might be able to share them someday…..who knows?

We are on day 2 of the 60 day challenge and the team is so inspiring and encouraging. There are inspiring quotes and videos being shared, pictures of the beautiful food we are eating, the workouts we completed, recipes being shared and most of all rooting one another on. I’m so looking forward to getting to know everyone better and being their cheerleader as well.

Wish me luck!! It’s time to “Dig Deeper” as Shaun T. would say.

Blessings,

Christina

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