Workout Wednesday Post

Hello there! I’m already behind my blog schedule, so that sucks! But I’m not giving up. Better late than never right? I needed to mix up my blog posts because I’m not always spending time in the kitchen making yummy food for myself and the fiance. I also spend time doing other things I love like working out!

I have said this a lot but I started getting into working when I was a sophomore in high school. Actually, even before that I was playing sports in school. Never the most athletic and definitely not the most competitive person on the team. Noooo. I actually chose soccer over swimming in high school because I liked the idea of being on a team versus competing individually because I didn’t want the victory (or loss) to be all about me. Even though in retrospect I was a much better swimmer than soccer player. Anywhoo!

Really, it was summer of 2008 when I started lifting weights. My two big brothers and my dad were working out at this gym called Adirondack Barbell in Lake George. It was everything you needed if you wanted to get strong AF! I remember this was the same time my cousins from Sicily were here. So me and my cousin, Stefania would go with the boys and we would do cardio for 20 minutes then get to bench pressing! It was pretty cool doing something that I knew none of my friends really did and it got me closer with my brothers, too!

So then it became a routine to go to the gym on Mondays and Wednesday nights. I started off on the bike with 20 minutes of cardio, moved onto some heavy benching and then Sebastian, the trainer (who’s like family at this point!) would set us up with high-volume weight training. This was really unique and man I would get so sore! It was awesome. I even wore a bench shirt sometimes and would get these ridiculous red marks on my arms, which not going to lie I felt pretty cool about.

I also started going to the YMCA with my mama. We went on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She would do 2 groups fitness classes, usually pilates and body pump or something like that. I would start the first hour(ish) with a run through Crandall Park woods. I laugh because I used to be such a scaredy cat running through the woods in broad daylight. I also remember this was before fitness was THE THING TO DO and workout clothes for women were nowhere near as cute and accessible as they are now! TJ Maxx had a tiny selection and I bought a light pink tank top and my first pair of yoga pants. It was my favorite gym outfit!

SO anyways, that was my routine. Monday /Wednesday Powerlifting and Tuesday/Thursday Running and Pilates. At the same time I was getting really into nutrition. Not in a rigid eating sort of way (that came later….) just in a general ‘Hey this sh*t is important! And I want to be fueled up for these workouts and lose a few pounds so I should probably get some knowledge!” Then I bought Nutrition for Dummies! Sophomore year was also the year I met my love :). #highschoolsweethearts . He was SO wonderful to look at. He could also jump really high and so I found him on Myspace and said hey. The rest is history. Maybe in another post I’ll talk about our love story!

I brought him up because since he was also athletic and into weightlifting I started going to the gym at the YMCA with him about a year later when I was in junior year. One of my brothers moved to Sicily and so the powerlifting gang kind of broke up. Really, I was just going to the gym with Zack or my mom. Eventually I could drive to the gym on my own and I just really got into lifting weights and doing intervals.

To be honest, exercise and I haven’t always been on the “healthiest” of terms. But you know I was in high school and staring at Oxygen Magazine Fitness Models and hello! Of course I wanted to look like that! I was also learning about calories. I really “cleaned up” (I hate that term) my diet. I stopped eating nachos and cheese at lunch and started eating chobani greek yogurt, carrot sticks, and you know, other healthy stuff!

My friends made fun of me mostly because I also stopped drinking on the weekend with them. Don’t judge, I was just a teenager in a small town and that’s the crowd I was rollin’ with. But I said enough is enough with parties after one to many puke-y nights. I didn’t drink anything in college and I still don’t drink today. Alcohol just isn’t worth it to me. Its toxic to your liver and have you ever seen a fatty liver?! That is NO BUENO! I know I know, moderation, right? Well moderate for me is a sip of my dad’s homemade wine on Christmas. That’s it. That’s me.

So anyways! There I was high school me, into lifting weights and eating healthy food and my body was changing, yo! It kept going and then at 17 I started working as a lifeguard. My uniform was a bikini and so yeah I was really aware of my body and its appearance.

I kept active at the beach, walked 20 thousand steps a day at least and worked out. Then I started playing around with more circuit training and would wake up and do bodyweight exercises in my bedroom. Then I moved the treadmill in my room so I could wake up and just get right on it before work or school. Normal right? I thought it was.

I had a fitbit, I took walks in the morning before breakfast. This chick was determined to get her steps! I kept working out too, everyday. I still have crossfit workouts saved on my phone. I have never done a “Crossfit” workout, but I’ve lifted weights, I’ve done circuit training. I’ve done both in the same workout so...yeah! I just really loved working out and still do today.

The first 2 years of college were at a community college. The summer before I transferred to a 4-year school I was getting into Tabata. I bought a Gymboss, took Tabata classes 3 times a week on top of my normal lifting 4-5 times a week routine. The first semester at college my Junior year, I walked into McKinstry Fitness center and LIT UP because of the squat rack. I even brought my 35-pound barbell with me. I straight up carried it with me from class to class because it was easier to do that then 1. Leave it at the gym and get it stolen or 2. Leave it in my dorm and waste time getting it then going to the gym between classes.

Weight lifting has always been my go-to. Now that I live in Denver and the fitness scene is beyond my wildest dreams, I’m cross training with HIIT, barre, Pilates, Reformer, Spinning, TRX, Cardio-Dance. Everything!

So where do I workout today? My home gym is Fitness in the City right now. I wrote a blog about it you can check it out here. I’ve learned so many great kettlebells moves and it’s really improving my agility and overall functional fitness. I’ll share more about FITC in later blogs! This week though is Denver Fitness Week! I just came back from Natalie Uhling’s NUFit class at Colorado Athletic Center. That sh*t was intense!! Think of auditioning for a fitness music video for Beyonce. That’s how I can describe it. 60 minutes of pure sweat. It was a blast!