Celebrate Your Accomplishments Today

I used to do boot camp. I used to do full-out sprints on the treadmill. I used to do 3-5 sessions at the gym each week for the sheer thrill of feeling great. Of sweating. Of knowing I just shaved 5 seconds off my really bad one mile time. I was aiming for my first 5km run and I was excited. Didn’t care how much I weighed, what a scale said, what my dress tag said. How did I feel? Great.

I flew off the treadmill a few minutes into my routine jog in spring 2011. Right into the wall. I didn’t know then that would be the last time my body would be able to go to the gym. Found out I had Hashimoto’s, then endometriosis then last year gluten ataxia. My heart wanted to run but my body kept saying not yet, not yet.

If you would have told me back then that an exercise ball would take me down in physiotherapy years later, I would have said you are crazy. Not me the girl who fried the gym’s only treadmill by doing sprints. The girl who could do lunges and crunches for days. The girl who went to track school because it was fun to run up all the stairs in a stadium. Not me.

It has taken me many months to be able to sit on a fitness ball. Just sit on it. Then bounce. Then bounce and try to catch a ball. And I bawled my eyes out today while trying to do so. System overload. And I am so ok with that. Proud to cry because it means I am pushing through to another level.

I have reinvented my gym. Set new expectations. It may not be a stadium of stairs, may not be an hour jog, may not be a killer boot camp class. But every physio session, even if it is simply mastering sitting on a fitness ball, is a giant leap (or bounce) forward.

Celebrate your accomplishments today. Don’t beat yourself up about what you were able to do yesterday. Today you started. Today you made a difference in your current situation. Today you did amazing things. Today you created change no matter how small. And tomorrow you can look back and smile. You’ve got this…today. #rockyourbody