I’m not sure how, but I stumbled upon a wonderful group called Mamavation. it’s truly a virtual sisterhood where I’ve found support and have learned more about living a healthy lifestyle than I ever thought possible. If you aren’t already familiar with the sisterhood, you should definitely check it out. If you are already familiar, then you know what a GREAT bunch of women are involved.
I heard about a challenge though the sisterhood 
and my initial instinct was HECK YA! I wanna do that. I want to be stronger. I want to build muscle and tone…and then it set in. The fear… the doubt.
First it starts off with that little voice in the back of my head that says “you won’t stick with it. It’s an 8 week challenge and you don’t stick with anything”
Once I pushed that out of my mind, the voice came up with a different tactic. ” You don’t know the first thing about weight training.” You see, I have a little known secret…I’m afraid of looking like an idiot.
I have a gym membership, but it’s rare that I actually use the weights or the machines there. Most of the time, I head straight for the cinema room, jump on a treadmill or bike or elliptical and that’s my work out. It’s not that I don’t want to do some strength training, it’s that I am not comfortable with the machines enough to know what to do. Most of all, I don’t want to look like an idiot when trying to use them.
I don’t know why I care so much. It’s not like the opinions of the people around me matters all that much. My husband often comments on how I’m successful in most everything I attempt… the secret though is I rarely try anything that I don’t already know I can do… That is changing though. I went to the gym on Friday after a short day of work and decided that I was going to use those darn machines. I don’t know if I did the exercises right…I don’t know if I had enough weight on there to make a difference…I don’t know if I looked like a complete idiot or not and I don’t care. After 30 min of circuit training on the weights, covering every muscle group I could think of from head to toe, I felt good. i felt accomplished. I felt stronger (although I know physical strength will take some time to develop).
The best part is that I know without a doubt that when that little voice of self-doubt creeps back in telling me “It’s OK to skip a workout” that I have a bevy of wonderful women spurring me forward. Counting on me. Holding me accountable. And that’s important. Accountability and Sisterhood.
I’m grateful I’ve stumbled upon these wonderful women and feel like this time is unlike all the other failed attempts to change my life. I’m anxious to see where these next 8 weeks lead. More importantly, I’m excited to see how I can transform my life and body with small steps each week.
For every journey, there has to be a starting point. 
Another part of the challenge that concerned me was the need to take the “Before” picture … How embarrassing. I’m ALWAYS on the other side of the camera and don’t like having my picture taken… but I also realized that if I can’t suck it up enough to take a simple picture, then I don’t belong in this group so, since there’s no time like the present, here’s the beginning shot. For starters, hubby wasn’t home so I had to take the shot myself before I chickened out. Secondly, I can’t really claim that there’s anything remotely like a gun show going on here, but in due time with the right commitment, I’ll be ECSTATIC to post the “after shot.”
Stay Tuned folks ’cause we’re headed to the gun show! Next we’re breaking out the measuring tape so we can REALLY track the progress.
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