This was such an exciting experience for me, I felt so positive about myself!

My confidence, very timid and fragile at the time had sky-rocketed.

Internally, I was super self-conscious but to the rest of the world, I did my best to exude the most outgoing, in-your-face confidence I could muster. I had a perfect score, agents wanted me, I looked like the girls in the magazines...

I tried to zone in on all of that social reinforcement but it created what would be best described as “cocky”- I broke a lot of rules, rebelled, and overall saw everything I wanted come to me and my head grew.

I had a conflict going on all of the time:

Many girls would tell me how they wanted to be like me and how they wished they had my body and the confidence I had…

But there were also the horrible ones who treated me like absolute garbage and bashed on my self-esteem like it was a punching bag. I would look in the mirror and cry because I didn't know what to believe.

Guys really liked me, and (tried and tested theory) I learned I could land whichever one of them I wanted.

I just kept telling myself everything was good. “Love yourself girl. You're beautiful...” But that voice inside my head was always knocking.

Well, it became obvious very fast that those guys were only interested in me for my body and with that, over time, my opinion of myself changed even more.

As I got older and my body remained the same, I saw other girls grow "into" adulthood, into women but I didn't see the same changes in myself and I developed a serious self-esteem problem.

I turned to alcohol to deal with the battle that was going on between the me inside (scared, alone, feeling unworthy, not curvy enough, not perfect enough) and the me outside (bubbly, laughing, care-free, feisty, outgoing, fireball of self-confidence.)

Sober, I was shy, distant, elusive... but with alcohol... it was like showering in glitter and gold.

Since this was the philosophy. I began going out... a lot and hated myself every morning I woke up.

Can you see how I might have been having some serious turmoil over this?

I started dating a fitness model/yoga instructor/personal trainer somewhere along the way who desperately tried to help me find love for my body. He had me set up at his gym and for a little while I was going, I was committed and was over-the-moon about my transformations but then this happened…

It’s called “fit-shaming”

Fit-shaming is when someone makes fun of or antagonizes a person for being fit.

The craziest thing was happening-
I was trying to better myself by being at the gym, working on my self-esteem and people were outwardly bad-talking me. I cannot tell you the amount of insults and curse-words that were uttered to me in the change rooms.

I started to get to feel like I didn't belong just wanted to crawl inside of my skin, hidden out of sight.

I hated going to the gym but I loved how it made me feel so I kept pressing on, ignoring the other women’s hurtful words.

Getting kicked out of the gym:

So one day, I was wearing a tank top and yoga pants and I was sweating to death on the StairMaster when I saw a woman come in, look at me, mutter something, give me a clearly not-so-nice look and huff and puff away.

I wasn’t doing anything so I tried to put it out of my mind.

About 3 minutes later, up comes a uniformed woman to me, she introduced herself as the manager.

I had my headphones in so I didn’t even know she was talking to me.

She was standing there in front of me and kept repeating

“Ma’am, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

What?

I was thinking maybe she meant the StairMaster so I said OK and started walking over to the weights. She followed me and asked me if I hadn’t heard her, and repeated that they wanted me to leave.

Still not getting it, I just kind of stared blankly at her then she told me to grab my things and come with her.

Are you ready for this?

I was being asked to leave because it had been reported that my clothing (which by the way was a typical, work out top, not even very sexy or revealing and pants I might add) was making this woman uncomfortable and it was a risk that others felt the same way.

Are you with me? You might be understanding some of the many reasons why I started this series.

Now:

After years of working on myself, I have started to find inner peace with who I am, what my body looks like and the space I live in.
❤❤❤
I have taken to nutrition, health, fitness and wellness to help me find myself and I want to combine those powers together to hopefully help and inspire you.

Here's the thing about me- I am 26 years old, I get told all of the time that I look like I'm maybe... 18.

I used to let it get to me and pick away at my self-esteem but I LOVE that now.

I'm happy and I'm healthy and it means that when I'm 50, I'm going to have tight skin, toned muscles and a smile that has stuck by my side the whole ride.

I workout to feel better, not to lose weight but to gain strength, energy and balance my hormones.

Everyone always thinks that when a small girl is working out, it's because they're disillusioned and think they need to lose more weight.

Not the case. Working out has far more benefits than we give it credit for in general.

learned that through being able to look at myself with love, was the only way I could expect someone else to be able to love me.

For so many years I placed my confidence into the undeserving hands of others and they crippled it with closed fists. Ive learned to no longer give away that power and I want to share with you the techniques that I've been able to benefit from.

So, now that you've gotten to know a bit about me and why I am here, with you today...

Maybe you can share a bit about you and why you're here. If you've enjoyed our date so far and if you want to see me again.

PS: I will leave you with my first piece of advice...

The unconditional love of a puppy (animal) can solve just about any damn problem you have... at least for a couple of seconds and that's long enough to forget you had a problem. 😘

I'm not really a 1-night-stand kinda gal-

I hope you want to see me again as much as I want to see you 😉 XO