Last Year vs This Year

Hello out there!! I'm sharing something I never thought I would in this post...pictures of me in a bathing suit!! Deep breaths....deep breaths....ok, here I go...

After having my kids I focused on them more than myself (something I think lots of moms can relate to). Although, while I didn't focus on my physical appearance at that time I learned a tremendous amount and grew emotionally. My mother passed away during that time too and it was (and is) an incredibly difficult situation to go through. Your mom is there and then...she's gone... forever... You will never hug her or hear her voice again. People who place judgement on those grieving should let that sink in for a moment...and that's all I'll say about that. I will say, the grieving process (for me) has resulted in growth in many ways.

Looking back I realized I needed the time to focus on introspection and internal growth. I am thankful that I focused on that and am happy to say I'm back to focusing on my health and feeling confident in my (2-Baby and 2-Laparoscopic surgeries) body. 

When I met Binderclips I was in great shape, but I focused on muscular strength more than anything. My approach now is to address all the major components of fitness (I do have a couple degrees in this stuff, after all); body composition, flexibility, muscular strength & endurance, and cardiovascular endurance. Since I've been back to it  - I run, do yoga, weight train (I do not belong to a gym and mostly train at playgrounds - some of the best and most fun workouts I've ever done), do HIIT/tabata, I try to pepper in pilates, barre, & suspension training (TRX), and watch what I eat also (although I could improve in that area greatly).

I'll be perfectly honest, folks, sharing pictures of me in a bathing suit is terrifying. I took these pictures to review by myself and see my progress over the last year, I did not plan on sharing them. However, I think I need to for a couple of reasons:

1) My goal is to continue to improve how I feel & look, so I need a time stamp to measure progress against. Here I am now, I can't wait to see if I can make more progress in the next 6 months to a year and after.

2) If I can motivate others to make positive changes in their lives, that would be awesome.

3) And most importantly - I can show my little girls what beauty is; being confident, strong, smart, courageous and to be passionate about the things they love and life in general.


So, here I am...before picture was taken in May of 2015, the after pictures were taken within the last couple of weeks.

I'm going to keep working at it and I'll keep documenting my progress too. I hope you get something out of this post. :)

Later gators!

Full body

Close up of the abs