Hey everyone! VMFitness from Instagram here, or you can call me Josie :]
I decided to finally start my own blog where I can answer your questions, post healthy tips and advice, and of course, what everyone loves the most, HEALTHY CLEAN EATING RECIPES!
SO, to just let you know my story.....
Ever since I was a little girl, I was always really tiny, very skinny, with a super fast metabolism. Literally skin and bones. Then this changed in middle school. I suddenly wasn't the skinny girl anymore, but I wasn't necessarily overweight or fat either, I was therefor, "skinny fat". I stayed this way for a long time, until my lifestyle change in May 2012. During my skinny fat phase, I hated my body. I wanted to be that small girl again, and seeing all my friends with their long legs that went on for days, and their little bodies, made me feel so self conscious, especially being on the dance team, we had to wear certain costumes that showed a lottt if you know what I mean, and I was never comfortable in my body.
Then in May 2012, after I completed my first year of college, I thought, "Hey, if you're so unhappy, do something about it, make a change", SO I picked up a book called "The Fat Flush Diet", which was basically a strict clean eating diet for 2 weeks in order to flush out and cleanse the liver with mainly protein and veggies and healthy fat of flax oil, and 2 servings of fruit. Then after the first two weeks you slowly incorporate more carbs back in, and then switch to a lifestyle diet.
At first, my only intent was to lose a few pounds, then go back to eating crap, and then do the 2 weeks again when I felt like I had a few pounds to lose. I NEVER thought that I would change my complete lifestyle and be committed to EATING CLEAN and TRAINING MEAN. After I completed the Fat Flush Diet, I had lost around 16 pounds, was happy with the weight loss, but still was not happy about what I saw in the mirror. Some say I was crazy, but I just didn't like what I saw.
Over the summer while I lived with my parents, I kept up the clean eating, but went a little overboard on calorie restrictions and workouts. I would do fasted workouts every morning and then another workout in the afternoon. I rarely had any full rest days. I would eat around 700 calories per day, thinking that it would get me to where I wanted my body to be.
Soon I felt weak and lethargic, but I didn't care because I was seeing results. Little did I know the horrible things I was doing to my body. I was depriving it of any energy, and basically burned off anything that I ate. My menstrual cycle stopped this summer during my intense workouts and diet change and so far it has not come back. I hope one day it does though, because I really hope to start a family.
Currently I've been looking through my past food journals that I had this summer, and in a lot of entries I have "I feel very weak today, I couldn't even make it up the stairs..." and other entries of that sort. But at the time I chose to ignore it! Even when my parents told me that I needed to eat more and started to look sick, I ignored them because that was how I wanted to look... I had a very distorted image of beauty at that time as you can see.
THEN, Instagram happened.
I started following all these fit and amazingly beautiful people and realized, why do I want to look emaciated, and skin and bones? Muscle and tone is BEAUTIFUL, just look at all those amazing girls on Instagram! FIT is sexy, HEALTHY is beautiful, starving yourself, wanting to be a size 00 and thighs with a circumference of 14 inches is not reasonable!
And this is what got me started with working out consistently, with WEIGHTS ladies, and now I can say that I am starting to get happier with my body! I'm getting a more toned, tighter body!
I have to say though, sometimes I still feel down when I see a tall 6 foot girl with the Victoria's Secret body walking around campus, but I can't expect that! I am only 5 feet tall, and there are just some things that aren't attainable for me! And I'm slowly getting OK with that!
Make reasonable, attainable goals, or else you will never be happy!
And with the help of IG, I've learned to finally start loving my body, with all its flaws and imperfections, and I constantly, every day, aim to be the best version of me that I can be.
I have upped my calories, lessened my workout intensities, and now I have 2 full rest days. I am learning to listen to my body better and I hope to never get to that weak feeling from the summer again. I hope to one day get my cycle back so that I can hopefully start a family of my own, and teach them the right and healthy ways and lifestyle to live.
As of now, I'm ALWAYS learning, always trying my hardest to be the healthiest I can be, and that's me! Just a normal girl, 19 years old, studying in school with a part time job, trying to lead a healthier lifestyle.
-- <3 VM Fitness
Josie
